“Bang! You got me,” she said, collapsing in a quivering heap. Her breasts heaved one last time while she held her breath feigning death. He stood over her with his pop gun pistol and stroked her soft cheek.
“You fought the good fight, but you weren’t good enough.” He holstered his weapon and walked off into the painted wall sunset, leaving her still warm corpse to collect insects and decay.
She sat up and watched him go, a ghost maybe, a spectre possibly, or just the shadow of a tainted love shot down in cold blood.
“Did I deserve it?” she asked, cocking her head.
“The dead don’t talk,” he answered.
“They do if they’re murdered, especially if they don’t know why.”
“It was a crime of passion, you’re lucky I ended you quickly.”
“I don’t feel lucky.”
“You should, the things I would have done to you . . . they would’ve made Manson’s hair stand on end.”
“Who’s Manson?”
“The godfather of psychopaths,” his eyes grimaced.
She felt a shudder and returned to being dead. He knelt beside her now, he touched her face and pulled out his pocket blade. In her forehead he carefully etched a heart, her eyes were open and watering.
“Why?” she shook.
“There is love,” he answered. “But love dies, just like the soul and body. You and I, we will be in love forever, this is the only way I could truly own your essence.”
“But it hurts,” she whimpered.
“Life hurts, this is merely a pinprick compared to what comes next, that’s going to hurt me more than any knife wound or gunshot.”
She closed her eyes, and let him graze her with the sharp end.
Every incision was precise, he took painstaking care to make the Y cut down her chest and open her up. The ribs were the most difficult to overcome, fortunately he had come prepared with pruning shears to get past the sternum. Of course he needed to get to that finite muscle, protected by stubborn bone and cartilage .

She was cold now, opened like a tin of tuna, revealing the edible innards. He had dug through her body, selected interesting organs and efficiently cleaned her out. All that remained was her exposed, intact heart. It glistened, young and vibrant. He could still see it beating . And as he ran his fingertips across her internal skin the hairs on her arm prickled under his tender caress. Her eyes were fixed on him in that adoring stare and he leaned forward to kiss those pouty, purple, perfect lips. She pressed back against him and her slick blood lubricated their embrace.
“Now you are mine to fill as I please,” he whispered gently into her scalp.

By Emily Smith-Miller