We Used to Live Here

by Marcus Kliewer

Eve had often thought but never voiced.

That absurd image summed up her entire mental landscape: repressed, chaotic shame.

Always felt this nagging sense of guilt for everything, as if her very existence was a violation of some stone-etched decree.

And the man writhing beneath, begging for his life, was no eldritch monster; he was just a man, flesh and bone, terrified and breakable.