Spotlight
by Andrea Conway

You could have been an angel Taylor...an angel like the ones in heaven, shimmering and golden and
perfect...just like you used to be...

"I know that."

You only put this upon yourself when you made that decision...it was nobody's choice but your very
own....you choose your own fate...

"I know that."

Maybe someday you'll look back on this and laugh...or we could all be realistic....after all, it's not
every day somebody commits this kind of crime....

"For Christ's sake, I fucking know that already!" Taylor found himself perched half way on the edge of his
bed, his hands gripping what was left of his blond hair, pieces and chunks torn out from his anguished fits of
fury with the voices that stayed there and taunted him.

You need to stay calm...they'll found you out sooner or later, but better later...right Taylor?

"Right." He hugged his knees to his chest, peering over them and into the dark of his room, his nightstand
looming straight ahead of him like a dark mountain, his clothes piled in mounds, like foothills, around it. The
moon light shown through the blinds of his window in tiny slivers across his floor, little slash marks on the
carpet, the ivory colored carpet that matched the now non-existant color of the one next door...

There will be hell to pay for this...you were stupid, very stupid Taylor...

"I know," he chimed again, beginning a steady back and forth rocking on his quilt.

Maybe you could kill yourself...then you wouldn't have to suffer...but still, nothing could compare to
his suffering...

"I know." He looked down at the hands that were wrapped so tightly around his knees, the rough skin on his
palms, the stinging bleeding lines that scarred the backs of his knuckles, the flesh that was caught under his
torn and bloody fingernails...

You are still the best though Taylor, and that's all that matters, right?...Right boy?...

"Right." He stopped his rocking and stood on shaky legs, wandering towards the half hidden nightstand, the
mirror hanging over it casting back his eerie reflection. His wide blood-shot eyes, the way his mouth hung
halfway open, blood spattered across his normally milky white complection.

Revenge is sweet...finger by talented finger...right hon?

"Right," he murmured, sliding his still warm and sticky pocket knife across the top of the table, visions and
scenes fading through his mine like a worn out picture show. The first delightful slice, the sound of his
screams rising and falling behind the bind in his mouth, finger by finger, joint by joint...sawing them off slowly
and then proceeding to stop on the disjoined appendeges...

Maybe those fumes will leak in and kill you too...that would be the way to go, just like falling
asleep...huh?

Taylor nodded to himself, to the voices in his head as he silently slid the knife along his own thumb, watching
the thin line of blood appear, and then begin to stain the whiteness of his shirt.

He could hear the flames licking the walls of the room next to him. But Isaac wasn't there to enjoy it ago.
He'd probably been gone a long while back...

He idly smiled remembering the way his head had flopped back, like that of a dolls as he had slit his throat
wide open, watching the blood pour on to the carpet, as he had moved downward to slit his belly wide,
watching his guts slide out of him almost snake like, stabbing the knife into his screaming face, over his pale
cheeks, his finely shaped nose, into those deep swirling eyes until blood, cartilege and bone jutted out from
his features.

And now you don't have to stand there and wait for him to steal the spotlight anymore...now it's all
Taylor again...even if they do lock you up...give you happy drugs...

"Right," he replied, placing the knife back on the table top and smiling at his reflection, at the slight tint of red
flashing in his shiny blues. "Right."