It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

The water from the faucet flowed like a cleansing rain along the blade’s edge, but the evidence of his sin stained the metallic surface. Mocking him. Taunting him...

‘Why is this taking so long? Did I mess up somewhere?’

Each passing second only made his thumping heart beat that much quicker as he worked frantically to wash away the evidence of his crime. His gaze flicked to the bathroom's entranceway every now and again, expecting an angry fist banging on the door to come at any moment: 

“Buddy, you’ve been in there for a while, hurry up!” 

“Sir, if you’re not out in five minutes, we’re calling the police!”

“GET OUT OF THE BATHROOM!”

The imaginary voices screamed in his head, all kinds of death knells to his carefully laid out plan. How long would he be able to stall, how long could he avoid the inevitable? Could he talk his way out of it? Fight his way out? Buy himself just a bit more time? He didn't know. This process was taking longer than he expected, and each passing second felt like a noose tightening around his neck.

His foot impatiently tapped against the unisex bathroom's linoleum floor; he knew that the police might be setting up a perimeter and searching the area. Did they have his description, did someone catch him on camera, were they waiting outside the door right now, why wasn’t the concoction working?!  His thoughts were a mess of paranoia, imagining all kinds of various outcomes that could be the end of him. He needed to do his best to push those thoughts down into the depths and stay focused on the task at hand. What's done is done, now he just needs to make sure he doesn't get caught.

With his gloved hands, he grabbed the plastic water bottle sitting on the edge of the sink basin and doused the blood-stained knife with a clear liquid that wasn’t water. ‘This is supposed to wipe all DNA trace, but I don’t have a crime lab in my apartment, so I don’t know if this solution will actually work or not…” He watched the pinkish blood swirl with the water in the sink, draining down into the depths, never to be seen again — or so he hoped. His mind wandered, his stress and anxiety building; watching all those crime shows made him a bit more paranoid than he needed to be in regards to the capabilities of crime scene investigators.  Realistically, they’re not magic; could they tell the cleaning solution making its way through this restaurant’s plumbing was different from what they normally used? Could they find the diluted trace specks of blood in the piping? Would they even know to look here? Did he leave a trail? Was he followed? ‘What if they already know?’ His breath quickened as his hands quivered, he felt sick, clammy, it was hard to stay focused. Maybe he should turn himself in, if they already know he did the crime, maybe he could cut a plea deal? Avoid a death penalty in exchange for all the info he’s acquired, regardless of how he obtained it? With good behavior maybe he could get paroled after 25 or so years? He was still young, couldn’t even legally drink, still plenty of time to turn his life around, maybe the courts will be merciful? New studies showed that tough on crime approaches don’t work, so maybe… leniency for him would be on the table, especially given the circumstances that lead him to... this? ….. He paused, shut his eyes, and tried to quiet the storm raging in his mind. He’s panicked — who wouldn’t be in this situation — but he needed to calm down before he does something even crazier and makes an already chaotic situation even worse.

Time fell still and silent, he focused not on the literal bloodbath in front of him but what was around him: The muffled sound of restaurant patrons behind the bathroom door in the middle of their afternoon lunch rush, the concrete jungle of life behind the barred bathroom window too high to climb out of, the subtle movements and creaking of the old building settling, the rats in the pipes skittering about looking for their next meal… A weary sigh escaped his lips, his limbs felt heavy as his trembling hands refused to remain steady. The target wasn’t anyone that would be missed: A guy who, by many, many, MANY accounts, was better off in a position where he couldn't hurt anyone anymore. A memory flashed in his mind, a memory of that bastard laughing as he stood over the bloody and beaten form of someone who didn’t deserve it, someone who got caught in the crossfire. He felt the same fire of anger that burned in him on that day, he’d never been so angry in his life. The mild-mannered and scared boy that he was at the time, just trying to find a way out, could never have seen himself reacting that way. His gaze reflected in the mirror, but it wasn’t him staring back: Pitch-black hair with tightly curled strands, bangs that obscured the coffee-colored eyes like a curtain on a stage. Makeup didn’t just change his skin tone, it aged him, it framed his face as something sharper, older, a more masculine look than he normally had. This face, with not a single unique discernible thing about it, had one singular purpose: To be forgotten, unrecognizable, default, generic, a face you’d forget even if you saw it a hundred times. Yet the target only saw it once, briefly… and that spark of recognition threatened to ruin everything. He laid the knife down flat against the edge of the basin, metal clinking softly against porcelain, and grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser. Sprinkling it with water, he vigorously scrubbed away the bronzer in hurried strokes, revealing the pale skin beneath the uneven layers of makeup. His fingers fumbled as he ripped off the wig and cap, tape pulling at the tiny hairs on his face, letting his natural dark, messy, hair spill out in unruly waves. He then, after vigorously washing his hands of the cleaning solution, carefully removed the contacts. His gaze then flicked back to the mirror, revealing the uncommonly pale blue eyes he had been born with. 

He looked… tired. Exhausted. Afraid. He was just a highschool dropout, living in a rented apartment for his own safety. A guy that, almost a year ago, would’ve been hanging out with his nerdy friends arguing about whatever new MMORPG they were gonna play and how stupid the microtransactions were. He wasn’t-

. . . . . .

No. He was. He was a criminal now.  The weapon, the attempts to destroy evidence, the stalking; these weren’t the kinds of things students would do. A rational person would’ve called it quits ages ago, but he had long crossed that line and kept venturing even further beyond the veil. Months of planning went into this, months of groundwork were laid out, it wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. He had a much cleaner plan; do the deed within a large group where no one was paying attention, pin the blame on someone just as bad, disappear while the panicked group of criminals did the dirty work by contaminating the crime scene.  In, out, clean, no one would ever know. Everything was going so well… until it wasn’t. An unexpected action from a predictable target, something small, derailed his entire plan. ‘Why did you walk back into the alley?’ He still sees it, that brief moment of recognition from the target, his mouth opening and twisting in a sadistic grin. A predator who caught his prey. That’s probably what he thought he was at the time, little did the target know that it was the other way around. A spur of the moment thing, he was about to lose the advantage, so he took action when a loud sound caused the target to lose concentration just long enough for the predator to unintentionally reveal his neck.  “Hey little hero.” His spine stiffened as he heard those words in his mind. For a brief moment, he thought they’d tracked him, but thankfully it was just a ghost of the past. “Kageyuki Sora… what have you done now?” He asked himself, and knew the answer. The knife resting on the basin’s edge; pristine, clean, almost like it was never used, was proof of his deed even if there were no traces remaining. He dumped the rest of the cleaning solution down the drain and along the sink’s surface, just to make sure there’d be no traces. So what he had now in his possession was an empty water bottle, some latex gloves, a cleaned knife, a spare pair of clothes that he was just wearing, and a backpack to store it all. As long as the incriminating evidence stayed in the backpack, no one would stop him. A young man in a hoodie walking to a convention with a backpack, not even remotely suspicious — heck he passed by three of them just on the way here — still, although at a glance he didn’t seem out of place, it’d be anxiety-inducing if he got searched by police. “Okay, okay, okay. Calm down Sora, you have a plan, so just stick to it.” He inhaled, and then slowly exhaled as he carefully started separating the evidence into black plastic bags. “Drop the evidence into separate bins in different parts of the city. The perimeter will likely focus on one area, they won’t do a city-wide sweep.” He grabbed his wrist as it shuddered, “this is just a minor setback.” He gripped the hilt of the knife, the weight of the evidence to his sin feeling unusually heavy. This, out of all pieces of evidence, would be the most critical element to dispose of. If he was caught with this then- The sound of footsteps on the linoleum behind him, a tiniest of sounds not like the ambience around him. His body tensed as his grip on the knife tightened. Did someone overhear? He checked the bathroom before he entered, it was empty… right? He stepped out from behind the barrier separating the toilet stall and the sink. Gripping the knife tighter, he slowly crept toward the stall, his footsteps light, his breath held, he became like that of a predator.  His fingers wrapped around the hilt and flipped it into an ice-pick grip, the motion almost instinctual. The sound wasn’t there anymore, but the uneasy feeling hung in the air, thick and choking, an odd burning smell lingered in the air as he felt ice along his skin. He reached the stall door, the creaking growing faint in his ears like an echo, but the dread of someone — or something — being on the other side weighed on his mind. That other thing, that was someone who deserved it, this though… could he do it? Hesitation weighed on his mind, and yet… a troubling thought scratched at the back of his mind: “What’s one more life?” He slammed open the stall door and found nothing. Not a trace, just a toilet with the seat up from the last hurried customer who was here. His heightened tension turned to a small relief and… disappointment? In any case, the stall was empty, and nothing seemed out of place. He was alone. Completely alone. Just like he should be. He turned to leave, mind shifting back to the task at hand — until his eyes laid to rest on something right in front of him, his breath caught in his throat as he saw a blur of motion, autopilot took over, he swung the knife in one swift motion. He expected resistance, a deflected blade, tearing through flesh, a yelp, something. But his sudden assailant had just been the air. His chest rose and fell as his brow felt damp. “What… just happened?” For a moment, just that brief moment, he felt like he was somewhere else. Seeing something else. Not this restaurant bathroom but… a place of darkness and devastation, dark shadows swarmed, and he was alone against the tide. His legs wobbled as his hand shook. “Calm. Down.” He pleaded with himself through a quivering tone. “You’re just… stressed. Just take care of this, and you can forget everything. Everything will just go back to the way it was. Just like that.” His breathing steadied, and with a sharp inhale, he returned to his backpack. Grabbing the backpack from the counter, his movements were frantic and hurried. He shoved everything left into backpack, everything that could incriminate him, gone, sealed away for disposal. His hands fumbled slightly with the zipper, getting frustrated when it got caught on the bag’s fabric, still shaky from the moment before. He slung the bag over his shoulder, forcing his body to move despite the lingering tension in his muscles. One last glance at the bathroom, making sure he didn’t forget anything, and he turned toward the door. His hand lingered on the door, he saw his hands still shaking and so… he took several deep breaths, thought about something calming. Tried to hide his anxiety as best he could; he flashed back to the days of his parents at each other's throats... he was always good at blending into the background. “It’ll all be over soon, you can forget any of this happened, and go back to life as normal. Like nothing ever happened.” He unlocked the door and returned to the world of normalcy.