The room was cold, dark and wet with mildew and blood which made little crimson rivers leading down the tiny crevices on the cement basement floor. An echo of raging silence bounced off the walls. And the pain. Oh, the pain!

With my immense love for whiskey, I always imagined I’d end up waking up in a puddle of vomit one day, but never blood. Nevertheless, when I came to, there I was, lying in a pool of blood. And the pain emitting from my whole body screamed that it was definitely my own. My head pounded like a hangover. That was to be expected. And my leg… Oh, God! I can see the bone! Nausea gripped my stomach with icy fingers. The dagger was still protruding from the gash. I gripped the handle and tried with all my might not to tense with the expectancy of pain. The blade was quick to extract, and what little light there was glinted off a bloodless spot of the knife and shone in my eyes before the immeasurable amount of pain weighed my eyelids down once again.

When I awoke moments later, a familiar figure was tending to my wounds. Her raven locks were quite a bit grubbier than I last remembered, and she had a far-away look in her eyes. It was the same far-away look she flashed me as the men in white jackets dragged her kicking and screaming into the back of the van. It was the same far-away look she flashed me when she threw a box of crayons at my head the one day I’d gone to visit her.

“Morgan?” I managed to say. “Morgan, what are you—“

“Don’t go thinking I’m helping you out by bandaging you up, Fey,” she sneered, coldly. “I’m only trying to preserve the leftovers.”

“What?” I noticed that her face was stained brown from the dried blood around her mouth and down her chin. She dangled a piece of raw meat in front of my face and popped it into her mouth.

Oh, God, she’s still nuts. “How’d you get here?” I gasped. “Weren’t you—“

“Institutionalized?” The look was somehow able to get further away. “I didn’t like it there.”

“How’d you get out?”

“Guess, Fey.” Her attitude had hardened since before she’d been committed.

“You escaped?”

“I bet you were the smartest in your class, weren’t you?” She chewed on the meat that was my leg with a sickening passion. God, how’d she escape? It’s been a year and she’s still cannibalistic. “Mmm…” She let the juices dribble and stain the front of her shirt, as if a difference would be made. “Whoever said human flesh tasted like chicken,” she started as she unraveled some rope from a bag. “Obviously never tasted human flesh!”

“Morgan…” I said, wondering if I should even bother to speak. “You need help.”

She finished binding my hands behind my back, and being too weak to resist, I could only wince at how tightly she tied my wrists. She looked at me like I was only a vaguely familiar face in a crowd. Her far-away look suddenly became very close and clear as she hovered above me. “Help?” she whispered—the calm before the storm. Morgan leaned down to me again. “Help!?!” she bellowed as she gripped the fresh bandages around the gaping hole in my thigh. My screams accompanied her screams, yet hers came out in words. “What kind of fucking help, Fey!?! More shock treatment? More electrodes? More pills? Do you know what the fuck they did to me in there, Fey?” She unhanded my leg and stood up to pace as she ranted.

Think, Fey, how are you going to get yourself out of this?

“I’m never going back to that place!”

“That’s not what I meant… I…” You’re never going to get away with this, Fey. “I’ve been considering your point of view on things, Morgan.” Her look became clearer. “Cannibalism, I mean… It’s… It doesn’t seem that… bad… anymore. Um… while you were… gone… I had… my first taste.” What the fuck are you doing, Fey? “I… I liked it, Morgan. I liked it a lot.” Morgan sat and watched me stutter nervously as if she knew, but she didn’t know. “Yeah… I’ve been looking into it… I even found a brochure. There’s a colony just south of the states.”

“Really, Fey?” Morgan’s green eyes intensified to full flavor.

“Absolutely, Morgan.” I can’t believe this is working. I don’t think I can keep up this charm forever, though. “I just need to be um… untied so I can sign us up for the next flight down. And I need to find that brochure, too.” Thank you, God, for creating such a gullible psychopath.

Morgan untied me and helped me up. She seemed almost normal again. She acted like the Morgan I knew before she ever tried acid. I could kill the boy at that party who fed her raw steak while she was tripping and told her it was human. It felt so good to have my best friend back. I almost didn’t want to do what I knew I had to do.

The stairs were hard to climb with the missing chunk of leg that Morgan was digesting, but she was helping me along, my arm wrapped around her shoulders, her arm around my waist. It truly saddened me to know this sweetness coming out of her was coming out of her through lies that, if all went as poorly plotted out in my head, would ultimately kill her. And by my hands no less.

“Let me go clean up,” Morgan said, heading toward the bathroom. “You’re all right to find the papers on your own, right?”

“Uh-huh.” Make it sound good, Fey, you have to make it sound legit. “But while you’re in the bathroom, would you mind checking through the things on the back of the toilet?” I always kept a bunch of old bills and bank statements and catalogs lying around in the bathroom.

“Sure.” She smiled at me. A real smile. She just has to make this hard on me, doesn’t she?

When Morgan shut the bathroom door, I shuffled straight to the couch. Such an inappropriate place to hide a gun is a perfect place to hide a gun. My father had given it to me for protection when I moved out into my own place earlier this year. I hoped I’d never have to use it.

Trembling, I threaded my trigger finger in place and headed for the bathroom.

The door was opened just a crack. That handle had been broken for as long as I’d lived here. I could see her reflection in the mirror through the sliver of space. I hoped to every god out there that she could not see me. “I can’t believe you’ve finally realized that I’m not crazy,” she shouted over the running faucet. “I mean…” She turned off the water and began to dry her hands. “At first, even I thought I was nuts.”

“You are.”

There was a stretch of silence. It was the kind of silence that would scream to anyone who would listen.

“What?”

I swung the door open as I pointed the gun directly between her eyes. “You are.” My voice cracked with terror and I hoped she could not hear my heart trying to escape my chest.

“Fey…”

I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger with all the strength I had left.

Click.

No… “No!” Empty? Oh, God, how could I be so stupid!?! I glanced up at Morgan, who’s far-away look had come back at full force. “No…”