Ezra’s breathing became normal and he opened his eyes slowly to the tune of Marta humming. A smile crept onto his face as he felt her fingers playing with his hair. He let out a small cough and turned onto his side so that his face was facing her stomach. He gave it a small kiss not quite registering where he was just yet. He wrapped an arm around her and snuggled in close so he could take in her scent. He could smell the salt from the sweat and that was when he propped himself on his one arm and looked around. His smile turned into a frown as he smelled the blood on their clothes.

Suddenly everything came flashing back to him. He saw himself like he was watching a movie killing Jeremiah and then killing the other man. He couldn’t remember his name at the moment, but he could still feel the pulse from his neck fading under his grasp. His face grew pale and he rolled off the bed to his knees and began to vomit on the floor. His hands began to tremble as he saw them stained in blood. He started to shake his head and he closed his eyes.

“No...no...I didn’t....tell me I didn’t kill them,” he said as more vomit came out of his body.

The images kept flashing in his mind. He was the monster he’d never thought he’d be. He couldn’t believe he’d sunk this far. He was essentially what Hitler had been saying his people were. Monsters. He looked over at Marta and saw her bandaged up. He fought to remember what happened to her. The man...he touched her in ways and then…

“Your arm,” he whispered putting a hand to his chest and feeling his own scar, “He marked you the way Oscar did me. I’m so sorry Marta. I couldn’t get to you in time. I was watching and I couldn’t do anything. He had me tied up...I tried be faster. I tried to reach you, but I failed.”

He crawled a little away from her feeling more than just ashamed of himself. He’d been too weak to get to her in time, but he’d strong enough to murder. He tried to tell himself it was something he had to do, but he couldn’t fathom the thought. Ezra kept his eyes to the floor unable to process how Marta could be so gentle with him when he’d just committed such a horrendous act.

“To die, to sleep….the sleep, perchance to dream. Ay there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come…” Ezra whispered remembering the line from Shakespears play Hamlet, “Death is just sleep....that’s what he was trying to say...right? They’re just sleeping and they will awake to something better. But I can’t help but think of one that lov’d not wisely but too well from Othello after he murdered his wife. I may not have murdered you but I murdered in the name of you. No, for the sake of you.”

He could feel his mind beginning to slip as he tried to rationalize his actions, when he remembered Daniel calling him a leader. He looked at the door and he could feet shuffling by. His chest began to feel tender and finally allowed himself to look at Marta. “Come to me...I need you to tell me I didn’t do this for nothing. I need to know I didn’t kill my morals when I killed my own people. I need to know I saved you. I need you to justify me or I might kill myself,” he said as his eyes began to grow emotionless and his voice started to lose all feeling.