4Author's Notes: As I am obsessed with the quote "the end justifies the means" there really shouldn't be anything surprising about me writing a short story on it. Finally.
Satisfy
It was wrong. It was immoral. It was illegal. Still, she contemplated it day in and day out, during class and after, while sleeping or awake; there was no end to it. She wanted to do it because it was the only way to get that which she wanted so fervently. The one and only path to satisfaction of the highest degree was resting in a kitchen drawer. Satisfaction that she wanted simply because she had never truly known it, after all, surely doing this decadent deed would bring her that smug yet calm feeling. Smug yet calm was the way she described it anyway, honestly she didn't know what she would feel and it was difficult to describe what you had never felt.
But smug yet calm sounded nice to her.
Camille twirled a lock of red hair between her fingers thoughtfully and stared at the cedar rectangle under the countertop. It stared back, simple and still somehow managing to appear impatient to her eyes. The swirls of the wood decorating it suddenly seemed like jeering eyes on a face hosting a twisted smirk. Open me, it seemed to beckon, I contain the tool you need for your smug yet calm satisfaction. Camille blinked slowly, considerately, and brushed her fingers over the smoothed over face of the drawer. Somewhere a clock chirped its alarm. Camille snatched her hand back and walked away, shouldering her backpack as she did.
It probably wasn't worth the trouble.
She had second thoughts about that the moment she stepped onto the bus, and wondered if it was the smartest thing to do to ignore the urge. So what of the consequences if indulging it the urge would give her what she wanted (or so she supposed)? Nonetheless, it was wrong, immoral, and illegal. This was what she chanted in her head, even after bearing the all too familiar sneers and taunts of her peers. That could ridicule her all they wanted, but she wasn't going to indulge in that disgusting urge. Still, even with the firmness she thought it with, Camille couldn't help it when her grasp tightened on the straps of her pack and her teeth pierced through the chapped skin of her bottom lip. A trickle of blood wandered down her chin, and she was hard-pressed to ignore it.
"Eww! Is that blood?"
"Where?"
"Camille, it's running down her face."
"Camille a cannibal? Who woulda thought?"
A small bout of laughter followed this and Camille walked by it, face blank and stride steady. She glared at them through her peripheral vision as she roughly slammed the door open, not caring that she almost crushed the boy behind it. His streams of curses were ignored in favor of going to her proper hallway to get rid of her bag. He shouldn't have been standing behind it anyway. She was pushed and nearly trampled several times by familiar faces in the crowded halls, purposefully she knew, and she started the chant up again. It's wrong, it's immoral, and it's illegal. But as she gingerly navigated her way through the high school, Camille found it increasingly hard to keep up the mantra. The drawer suddenly seemed like an appealing object, and its image never left her mind.
It's wrong, it's immoral, and it's illegal. But still… it was the only way to be smug yet calm, the only key to indulgence in a satisfaction that had never been indulged in before. Camille twisted and twirled a lock of red hair in her fingers thoughtfully as she stared at her reflection. There was something in the dull green depths of her eyes that she recognized as desperation. Please, her mirror-image pleaded, For satisfaction! For smug yet calm satisfaction! Camille watched blankly as her reflection seemed to speak on its own, all with its eyes. It's wrong, immoral, and illegal, but is that so bad if you get what you want? It wasn't so bad… or was it? Was she really arrogant enough to presume that her own selfish desires were enough to excuse that kind of behavior were she to take part in the scheme her mind came up with? The green eyes of her reflection suddenly seemed so much brighter and wicked. The end… it justifies the means. You're okay, my dear, indulge.
The end justifies the means? Camille blinked slowly in her usual, thoughtful manner, and a smile crept over her face. A small, soft, smile that could have been the ghost of one but was just the slightest bit too visible. The cedar drawer swam into her vision, and that was all that occupied her mind for the remainder of the day.
It was just like the previous morning. Camille stood before the cedar drawer, thoughtfully twisting her hair and staring. Her arm reached out and her fingers brushed the cool, smooth wood. She didn't snatch it back, just caressed the surface of the drawer before locking her fingers underneath of it and pulling it open. There were three rows of tiny boxes, each one containing either a small, medium, or large knife. Camille selected one of the large ones and wrapped the blade in paper towels. There was a ghost of a smile on her lips as she slipped it into her large hoodie pocket, and walked out the door just as the clock beeped. Her backpack had been discarded in her room; after all, she didn't need it for the day.
The bus doors groaned as they always did. Camille stood before them until they fully opened, and then casually stepped inside. People looked up at her as she came down the narrow isle and as she walked past their eyes followed her until their owners ducked down in their seats to giggle. More than one foot reached out to trip her, and each she dodged whilst keeping a flippant air about her. No one seemed to notice how different she was. No one seemed to notice that confidence was oozing from every pore of her stark pale skin. The ghost of a smile graced her lips, and Camille leaned back in the seat, hands in her hoodie pocket. The opportunity would come.
It did indeed, but not as early as she would have liked. Camille tapped her fingers impatiently on her desk as the teacher droned on and on about things that wouldn't matter to her. Not anymore at least. She knew what she was doing. It was wrong. It was immoral. It was illegal. Still, as that tanned hand inched onto her desk with her binder as its goal, Camille unwrapped the blade in her pocket and took the hilt into her grasp.
Thud
And if that one sound wasn't enough to draw attention, the scream of the girl beside her was. Stunned eyes raced to the source of disturbance, and they gaped upon seeing the tiny streams of blood making their way to the floor.
Ever
So
Slowly
Like a thin red snake slithering over the edge of a cliff, until crimson droplets rolled off of the desk and splattered onto the floor. In the silence of the classroom it seemed like the loudest thing on earth.
Moaning and whimpering, the blonde haired girl gazed up at her attacker. Camille just stood there, traces of a glare on her face, but it was a bit vague. Cold contempt was gleaming in her unusually bright green eyes.
"Camille?" the teacher took a tentative step towards the scene after falteringly calling the redhead's name, stopping abruptly when those jade eyes turned to look at her.
"This is to indulge in satisfaction." She hissed darkly.
Camille ripped the knife from her classmate's hand, seeming to ignore the shriek that followed. Swiftly she pulled the blade across her throat, and suppressed a smile when warm red globules attacked her face. For satisfaction, she plunged the blade through one boy's eyes. For satisfaction, she cut deeply into the stomach of another girl as she dodged a shoddily thrown text. She stabbed someone's temple, as they watched in shock, and she slid across the wet red floor to avoid objects that sensible people attempted to stop her with. Satisfaction…
No…
Revenge
Years of torment, nights of tears… Camille ignored these thoughts as they persistently pleaded access to her mind. Her blood coated blade met more flesh.
Tears
Torment
Jeers
Her sight clouded as she chanted another mantra. Satisfaction, not revenge, satisfaction, not revenge, satisfaction, not revenge. But it was and there was no doubting it. She didn't approve of revenge though; it just wasn't possible that she was avenging herself. She did this for satisfaction because satisfaction would come when hurt those who hurt her. Abruptly, Camille stopped in the middle of the room, surrounded by her agonized, terrified peers. But that was revenge.
Footsteps echoed through the hallways, and there was a high pitched squeak behind her. Shoes on a wet surface. Reflexively, she spun herself around and buried her knife once more into the warm flesh of another human. Her teacher doubled over, gagging and coughing, and Camille stood there over the woman, staring down almost incomprehensively. Something washed over her, an emotion she didn't know.
"You saw them." She whispered, "All of it." her eyes were clouded, and she didn't recognize her voice. "Yet, with the power to see, you don't do. You don't deserve… to see anymore."
The door slammed open, sounding as though either it or the wall behind it had shattered upon the impact. Camille brought her knife across the wide, blue eyes of her instructor just as a navy clad man surge forward and grabbed her. A shriek filled the room, and the teacher clutched her eyes. The redhead stared at her as handcuffs were forcefully snapped over her wrists, no resistance she was led from the room. Brilliant red footprints left a trail behind her. A sense of calm yet smug satisfaction overcame her, and though she was bound in the back of a police care, it remained.
But it wasn't the only feeling occupying her mind.
Guilt
She refused to acknowledge it, even when it tried to come forth and overwhelm her with images of the vermillion room where the bodies of people, living people were laying dead. People that she had selfishly killed for her own satisfaction. She shoved these thoughts aside, paying them no heed.
Because…
The end justifies the means, right?