As occasionally happens with the curious creatures of the night that I meet along the road, they do sometimes return. Surprisingly, Rihan wasn’t gone for very long at all. Only a breath, only a moment, and she returned in a flicker of light and shadow with another small chapter to her life, a glimpse into her mind and into her anguish…

The red regret. J R Manawa.

In the alley, Rihan breathed. She knew what she needed, what she wanted. Desired. But she had to escape it all. She pressed her forehead against the brick wall, feeling the condensation drip down its surface and onto her face. She wiped the blood out of her eyes and wrung her hands together. “I’m not a killer,” she whispered, knowing she was only lying to the dead. At the head of the alley, a noise, a scent, a scruffy boy on a beaten-up skateboard. Rihan’s throat screamed to his fluttering heartbeat.

“I am not a killer,” she begged the living.

Read Rihan’s first chapter of 100 words here, The red rain.