The Need to Sleep

One, two, three, four–

–the suddenness of bullets was an odd cadence, sweetly rhythmic, punctuating the evening not with sound but with light. Muzzle flashes in the darkness, and he could feel blood in his ears, or maybe running down the back of his throat as he swallowed, something burst, something torn.

Teeth were bared in a strangely feral way that had no bearing on his being; he was not an animal, he was not hate. He was nothing, tonight, reaching out of the dark with death clutched in a fist that only barely stopped shaking long enough to deal the end to those that deserved.

Because, God, it needed to be done.

Maybe tonight, lacking sound save for the way red would dry and crackle against his eardrums, he would finally be able to sleep.