The man struggles under my weight, frantically trying to tear my fingers from around his throat.

He kicks, but his high thread count sheets and his thick, expensive blanket restrict his legs.

I look down into his face as I choke him.

It's a face I've seen too many times before.

A face that haunts me in my sleep.

His name is Darius Fillmore III, and I feel like I've killed him ten times already.

But that can't be right, can it?

Maybe it is.

Maybe I have killed him ten times.

I loosen my grip slightly, lettingulmore suck in a breath.

Where is it? I ask him, whispering in the darkness of his cavernous bedroom. The deep red color

fades from his pale face as his brown eyes gaze up at me. Their dead eyes, certainly there is no soul

behind them. They're windows to avoid of indifference, cruelty, and even stark hatred. His thin

lips peel back from perfectly arranged teeth as he smiles up at me.

In the same instance, he tries to hit me in the face to knock me off him.

His punch is as weak as a child's, and it barely makes me flinch.

His weakness is no surprise to me.

After all, he pays others to fight his battles for him.

He has no need for muscles of his own.

I tighten my grip again, my own savage and pained grin, mirroring his as I feel

his windpipe collapse.

The cartilage crunches as I put my fury and my weight into it. Fillmore's black eyes bulge out of his skull as his face turns from red to purple.

...