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"Vin, would you like to do the honors?" Griselda asked, coming up behind him and offering him a towel; one that he promptly stained red, as he wiped the blood completely from his face.
"Uh…" Vin hesitated, did he really want to actually kill this thing? It was a person, wasn't it?
But then Vin continued to think. What was the issue? He had fought against it with the intention of killing it anyway, so what was different with doing it now? It certainly wouldn't have shown him the same courtesy. It wasn't a person anymore, it was a monster.
That last phrase echoed through Vin's head, as he vocalized his choice.
"Yeah, I'll do it."
Shambling to his feet, Vin clenched the gun in his hand 'till his knuckles turned white. Ejecting the spent magazine, Vin rifled through his coat to find another one, sliding it in, and cocking the slide of the gun.
Vin walked towards the nearly slain foe with hard, labored steps; the others watched his movements as he began to close in on the creature.
"Stray devil, you who can no longer be considered a person…"
Not a person anymore, just a monster…
"You preyed on the lives of the innocent for too long…" Vin climbed onto the downed body of the monster, walking up it's chest, until he was glaring down at the hazy eyes of his enemy.
...Just a monster…
Vin scowled, "So in the name of our lord in Heaven, I shall strike you dead…"
...A monster…
"You disgust me, and I hope that you never find forgiveness in passing on."
*BLAM*
*BLAM*
*BLAM*
*BLAM*
*BLAM*
*BLAM*
*BLAM*
*BLAM*
*BLAM*
*BLAM*
*BLAM*
*BLAM*
*CHICK* *CHICK* *CHICK*
Vin looked down at his pistol, the entire magazine spent. He finally lowered the gun, and looked over at what was left of his enemy, the thing that was trying to kill him.
You wouldn't have even been able to tell what it had looked like.
It's face, if you could even call it that anymore, was riddled with craters where it's facial features once were. Squirting fountains of sickly blood that squelched from the wounds, as the impact of the bullets mangled and disformed its face considerably. It's eyes, one shot and oozing, were falling out of their obliterated sockets.
Vin felt the venomous rage that was held within him a second ago vanish from his body without a trace, leaving him to be filled with a new sensation.
Guilt.
He had killed this thing. He did it. He didn't witness it, he wasn't an accomplice to it, he was the person that ended a life prematurely.
The fact that it was a murderous monster that killed people was irrelevant. This thing was once a person: a thinking, living, breathing, intelligent person, and he just ended it's life.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Vin acknowledged the fact that he simply did what had to be done. He put down a dangerous creature, the same way animal control would for a dangerous bear or something, but still, drinking in the sight of what he did, the life he ended, shook Vin to his core.
Vin dropped the spent pistol through shaky, bloodstained fingers.
"O-oh fuck…" Vin's voice broke, as tears welled in his eyes, and bile rose up in his throat.
Vin rushed off of the monster's corpse, and ran off to the lodge in order to get away from it all. Vaguely, he could hear the shouts of someone from his group, he didn't know who, or why, he just focussed on getting away from the dead body.
Making it to the lodge, and leaning against a nearby tree, Vin came to the sickening realization that the blood of the thing he killed was in his hair, on his hands, all over his clothes…
Vin tugged the coat off his body, rubbing the blood off his hands onto it as best he could, before he threw it behind him. He didn't care that the cold snap of autumn was blowing against his now much-less bundled self.
Leaning against that tree with his arms, Vin began to retch and gag, before finally, he emptied whatever was in his stomach onto the ground. He felt the crushing weight of guilt come barreling onto him, as the disgust of it all coating him helped coax him to throw up again…
...and again…
...and again…
...and again...
"Vin!"
Heaving dry breaths, his throat burning in protest as the cold air whipped against his acid-burned esophagus, Vin slowly wiped his lips with a thankfully dry section of his outfit's sleeve.
"Vin, can you hear me?"
Turning around, Vin couldn't see anything very well. Everything around him was just hazy shapes of color. Blinking, the world became clear, as Vin made the off-handed realization that he must have been crying.
As the world cleared up around him, Vin realized that it was Xenovia who stood before him. Concern and empathy painted her face in a way that Vin found equally as captivating as it was heart wrenching.
In order to give her an answer, Vin opted to keep his mouth shut and nod his head. Partly because he couldn't possibly be coherent, and also because his throat was stripped so raw, it needed time to heal.
"You can hear me? Good," Xenovia walked closer to Vin, and sat down on the ground.
Staring out across the setting skyline, Xenovia sighed.
"It's your first time killing something, right?"
Vin nodded again.
"That's what I thought," Xenovia lowered her gaze, and locked eyes with Vin, "It's always hardest the first time. I went through the same thing, actually. But look, it's alright, that thing was preying on the weak and innocent, and you were justified in killing it, so don't feel bad!"
Vin's eyes widened, before hardening. What?!
Regaining his voice, as weak and shaky as it was, Vin stood up, "You don't understand at all! T-That thing was once an actual person! Someone who had a life ahead of them, and I killed him, Xenovia," Vin jabbed a thumb into his chest, "I ended their life."
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