The child hovers close, her skin has peeled revealing the soft pink meat beneath and I...I sit in a pool of blood belonging to the two lovers I murdered. My eyes a glaze, empty, ravaged by rage and envy. She laughs at me. Her tiny hands covering her mouth, her shoulders bouncing.

Nothing has changed.

I don't respond. My body is limp against the side of a bed. The bed, now soaked in a thick crimson sauce, forever stained by my actions. In this bed only moments ago there had been two souls uniting passionately, violently, now these souls are no more and the bodily casing--that infinitely divisible box of sin-- lies upon the floor, motionless, passionless.

Nothing has changed.

Her words bore there way into my skull. The little girl, that demon, says the only thing I know but wish to deny. Everything has changed and deep inside my soul I know that everything is the same. Death has not freed me from my sins but has instead enslaved me forever to live out this same hell life after every goddamn life.

The child reaches out her hand as if to help me up. To this I am skeptical, does she mean to help me? I spring upon the girl grasping her head in my hands. With pressure and with pride I twist. Vividly I remember there is a crunch, resistance, then a snap. Beneath the skin of my fingertips I can feel her neck break. Still I feel the vibration of bone bending to my wrathful will. She drops against me, her weight (though she can't be more than ninety pounds) feels like a truck upon me. I push her away catching a glimpse of her face as she falls to the ground. She is smiling.

Nothing has changed