I put the necklace around my neck, doing my best to keep the images from the hallway out of my head. Those women were just memories; they didn't matter anymore, and their pity was meaningless. I wiped my tears away and turned to Vivian.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" I asked softly, hoping she would reconsider. "I will go through a lot of pain for this, and you may, too. You look like you've had more than enough, and I know I have. If we kill them another way, all that could be avoided."

I didn't know why I was caving in to this plea - perhaps the way Vivian was behaving reminded me of myself. And all those gazes... I had a bad feeling, a feeling that scream at me that my end was coming, that everything I had been through so far would be nothing compared to the experience ahead of me. My only comfort was in the thought that once I had died, it would all be over. I would never have to suffer again! That bittersweet thought was all that remained to me. It felt surreal to consider that less than an hour ago, I had been optimistic about the future. That feeling had been nothing more than an illusion, a distraction to make me forget that the only thing that would be constant in my life was suffering. 

Where... where was she? The girl who had been kidnapped all those years ago, who had died so soon afterward, only to be replaced with a frightened husk of what she once was. Why had she not reappeared after her ordeal was over? Perhaps she had moved on. Perhaps it was time for me to accept that.

"If you're going to go through with this, get it over with," I said, silently adding one last name to the list of those to be slaughtered: my own.