The Arsenic Labyrinth

JOURNAL EXTRACT

I may seem an unlikely person to have committed a perfect murder, and yet my crime never attracted a breath of suspicion. I hope to have lived a useful life, but now my days are drawing to a close, I can say this with certainty: I regret nothing. No, not even the second death, so many years after the first.

As I swung the knife into his breast, destroying that arrogant sneer forever, I felt as though jolted by an electric shock. Not a current of remorse, but jubilation. How extraordinary. A single blow was all it took, to change my life and end his. When he collapsed to the ground, I stood over him, clutching the haft tight, waiting for his body to twitch, ready to do what was necessary.

He is not moving. It is over.

My breathing is harsh, but I feel light-headed, as though I have consumed a bottle of wine. For a few moments I have a fleeting sense of immortality. I have exercised the power of life and death. I have revenged myself for his betrayal. He is dead, but I shall live on.

And then, I hear a loosening of rubble in the rocks above me. Followed by something worse, far worse. A suppressed cough, little more than a clearing of the throat, yet enough to induce paralysis.

I am not alone.