Kiss and Die

Chapter 111

Shrimp floated in and out of the dark world of pain. He heard someone singing, a haunting wailing song like he had heard on the stairs in the Mansions. He heard the soft giggles of a child and felt something cold and plastic brush his face. He heard the cries of a baby and a mother soothing it. His pain came in searing stabs, in long excruciating waves that felt as if someone was twisting his gut inside out. Sometimes it was accompanied by crying, sometimes laughter. He felt his tongue swelling. He tried to keep his pulse slow and stem the loss of blood. He tried to talk but as if in a dream the words went unheard. Help me. Help me. The woman muttered to him, he couldn’t make it out. She sat beside him in the dark. She held his hand and sometimes she stroked him tenderly. Shrimp felt her body on his. He felt the sting of a knife. The deep pain that was working its way into his heart.