<P><DC=128,128,128><JC>TOOL
<P><JC>by JHW
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<P><JC>5: Recalling Tears
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<P>It's like emerging from a haze of darkness and blood. It's like being reborn from the shadow of Death himself. It's like waking up from a very bad dream.
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<P>No... it IS waking up from a very bad dream. And realize it wasn't a dream. I've experienced it before, that realization. Every time my neural enhancers shut down, dumping me back into the cold, hard brutality of reality, I feel like that. But this is worse. I immediately know I lost it this time. I remember her pleading in a voice filled with terror. I remember gripping the bread knife impulsively. Compulsively. I remember falling backwards out of my own mind.
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<P>She's lying there in a small puddle of blood. It looks unrealistically small compared to... compared to the amount of blood smeared and splattered on the walls around me. I look at my clothes. My shirt is torn apart. My pants are soaked in blood. My hand, still gripping the bent bread knife dripping with blood, bears the marks from her desperate attempts to defend herself with her nails.
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<P>I can't cry. I've forgotten how to. This is my job, killing is what I do. Yet I know this should be worse. I try to figure out if I regret killing her, but I just don't know. I don't remember how to identify regret. I know I loved her because that feeling was so rare and unusual. I know I loved her because I don't usually do that. And yet, all I remember thinking when I realized she'd figured it all out, when I realized she knew so much there was no way I could risk letting her live any longer, all I remember thinking then is "I wish she hadn't, we had such a good time together." All I want to do right now is break down and cry.
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<P>But I can't cry.
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<P>I've forgotten how to.