HER

The Queen of Instagram had abdicated, her story making its way around the world. The front pages and newsreels showed her at her best—pouty lips, enigmatic smile, sultry pose—but the internet opted for something a little less glamorous and much more befitting.

She had spent two years carefully crafting her online persona, showing the world a glamourous girl who spent her days relaxing, her nights partying, and her weekends vacationing. She didn’t show them the truth—the hours she spent serving customers and dealing with complaints. The makeup and Photoshop tricks. The credit card debt. But it didn’t matter. They followed her because of the glamour shots, the nightclubs, the dresses, and the bikini pictures; they followed her because she was beautiful, aspirational, perfect.

In their eyes, thanks to her careful manipulation, she was everything they wanted to be, everything they wanted to be with. And now, in one night, the truth had been revealed, the green curtain yanked open.

She was no queen, and she wasn’t perfect. She died in a damp-ridden flat, lying in a pool of piss and blood. A fitting end for a fucking fraud.

Everyone in town had learned of the Queen’s demise, including the woman who found a way into my every thought and played a part in every fantasy. As a bright morning gave way to a soulless afternoon, I watched her through Her living room window, Her eyes glued to her phone, Her weary features gradually turning from delight—a joke from a friend, a funny news story, a Facebook meme—to absolute horror. I witnessed the moment that the news broke, the moment that she realized a girl she probably knew, had maybe even bumped into, had been butchered in her own home.

The veil of stability and security had been lifted—the sweetness of her precious little life had soured. I watched the entire spectrum of negative human emotions fill Her features. Horror became anger became sorrow became fear.

She reminded me of one of my very first kills, an older gentleman and his wife. He returned home unexpectedly to find me standing alongside his bedridden wife, looking down at her lifeless form. Initially, he had been smiling, ready to greet his wife and gift her the flowers he had just bought. It was their anniversary. They had been together for just under half a century, a lifetime, but one that had been cut short in an instant.

The smile turned into confusion when he saw me. He was old, possibly a little senile. It took him several seconds to react, seconds in which I saw his features change as his mind processed what was happening. At first the confusion became contentment when he assumed I was a home nurse. This quickly turned to shock when he saw his wife’s face. He cycled through sorrow, depression, and panic before he got to anger; the thing that surprised me the most was that he didn’t seem to be panicking about his own fate. His attention was on her, not me, not himself. There was panic in his eyes, because in that moment, he realized that he had lost the woman he loved. He’d been abandoned, alone in the world without the partner who had been by his side throughout, the guardian angel who had been there when his family and his friends died; the companion who stayed with him when he lost his job, suffered a mental breakdown.

Killing him had been easier than killing the woman. He didn’t put up as much of a fight, despite being stronger, fitter, and healthier than her. The sorrow, pain, anger, and confusion had faded by the time he took his last breath. There was something else there, something unexpected. It could have been relief, it could have been contentment, it could have been a result of his brain shutting down—whatever it was, it was an image that stuck with me.

She didn’t process quite as many expressions or as much ambiguity, but as with the old man who died at the foot of his wife’s bed, she was shocked, appalled and, eventually, possibly when she convinced herself that it was a one-off, the result of an angry ex and not an indiscriminate killer, she was relieved.