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Self defense. It's always self defense. I plead it every time. When I stumble home and scrape the blood off my arms, I tell it to myself over and over again. Self defense. He attacked me. I had no choice. It was me or him.



I remember so clearly that first night. I stared at the sink for hours, just watching it turn from brown to a faded pink. Blood everywhere, but not a drop of it my own. I remember, because I looked all over me. For hours, I searched over every inch of my body. I touched every last part of it, as if in a daze.



You would think it's hard to put into words what happened; to confess. But somehow, watching his eyes die, I realized that was the worst that could happen. Nothing feels real after that. It is all relative. Few would blame me. There is security in that. I was attacked. It was dark. I feared for my life. I killed him. Female Victim Strikes Back. That's what the headlines would say. Everyone applauding me my courage.



But that isn't all. It never is. I didn't stop when he was dead. I went on. I stabbed him. Again. And Again. His blood was everywhere. Blood doesn't pour when you're dead. His did. That is how hard I stabbed. They make you think that when people burst into those frenzies they lose control of themselves. That's not true. I was counting the stabs in my head. I was thrusting harder, and harder. With each time I wanted to make him die again. I remember thinking maybe in this way I could somehow put enough holes through his soul, so he could never go to an afterlife, if such a thing existed. I didn't want him haunting someone else in the next life. I just wanted him to die, and stay dead. Forever.



Even so. Could one blame me? He had wanted to steal my soul, in much the same way. He had wanted to steal my body and with it my soul, my life. He would have taken it, if he had the chance. Who could fault me then, for taking his?



Except that I knew he would do it. I knew he would be there. They all thought the knife was his but it wasn't. It was mine. He never had any intention of killing me. Just my soul. He just wanted my soul. He just wanted to use his hands. He wasn't going to let me die. But I wanted him to die. I wanted him to suffer. I knew he would be there, waiting. A lion pretending to be a lamb, I walked down that alley and waited for him to grab me.



Truth is I'm nothing but a vigilante. No better than those who take justice into their own hands. He had committed a crime. And he deserved to be punished. But his crime had not been against me. And it never would have been against me if I had not walked down that alleyway.



I saw her come home those two weeks before. I saw her crawl through the door like a beaten animal. Blood pouring between her legs. Blood, everywhere. Her blood. I couldn't even say her clothes were ragged. She wasn't wearing any. She had been stripped bare. She had been forced to crawl naked. No one had seen her. No one had stopped to help. Police could do nothing. They couldn't even talk to her. She shut herself in the bathroom and showered for hours. She fell asleep under the shower, a sobbing heap, still in her bathrobe, terrified of being caught naked. Police could do nothing. No DNA. No face. No suspects. A random victim of a psychotic madman.



He stole her life. He was a murderer. A murderer of souls. I saw it did to her. She was a shell of her former self. My best friend had died. My roommate, my sister, my friend. Gone. Day after day I saw her hiding in her father's baggy clothes. She sheared her hair. She never stopped eating. She would vomit from the overdose of food, but she refused to stop.



And so night after night, I stalked the alley. Night after night, I walked that path, waiting for the night he came back.

But even after it was done, and I watched his blood drain down the sink, I knew he was not alone. I knew there would always be more.



And yet I always plead self defense.


I will let the readers decide for themselves whether this is fiction or not.