The silence is deafening you. The darkness swarms around you. It smothers your chest, comforting your body, protecting your very identity from any cracks of moonlight splitting through the curtains. A mere shadow in the night, you slip into the dead house.
Harmonising with the quiet around you, you take your first step, allowing your foot to seep delicately onto the staircase. You draw in your breath. Could they hear?
Not a stir. The house continues to sleep.
Up and up, your feet glide, one foot then the next. As you ascend towards your fate, you cannot shake the gaze of innocent eyes watching you from the walls. Trapped in their frames of happiness, they smile at the stranger making way towards their present selves sleeping soundly upstairs. Frozen in their poses of joy, Daddy will forever have a lively smile; Mummy will forever weep with laughter. The sun is always beaming onto the rosy cheeks of the little darlings playing in the sand. Forever blissfully unaware behind the shield to their rose tinted world.
Ignorance is bliss.
As you reach the highest step you look to see the shadow of your partner lurking in the doorway. He nods affirmatively.

It is time.
In the split second that it takes for the signal to be sent, your mind flickers. How can such a simple gesture, a mere nod of the head, unlock the fate you have chosen? How can such a terrible deed commence under the instructions of such an innocent signal? This one nod hits you like a bullet pounding in your heart. A bullet that can mark the beginning of something: a race around the world, perhaps, an adventure. A bullet that can simultaneously mark the end of a life: with just one shot, everything stops.
Yes, you know very well the power a bullet holds, as your fingers run across the hard metallic trigger clutched in your hand.
A mere shadow in the night, you slip into Daddy’s room.