Three things you need to know about me ahead of this slightly unusual adage to the Jo Blogs section of my website.

1. I’m a much better copywriter than I am fiction writer. I think.

2. I will ALWAYS support the missions of anyone in my GodDamnInspiration (GDI) private membership group.

3. My default setting is dark.

4. I make up words.

5. I can’t count.

And so, below is my contribution to Simon P MARSHALL‘s monthly #microfiction challenge.

300 words of fiction, on the topic (this month) of Shadows, in the genre (this month) of Crime.

With the limited function she still possessed in her right hand, she brushed the cat hair hastily away from her keyboard, feeling fairly sure that this motion would likely make the mess worse, as the shedded pelt of her one remaining ally forced its way further between the keys of the stolen laptop in front of her.

She felt her stomach lurch and her shoulders slump as the screen settled into life, shining a too-bright light to the back of her long since joyful eyes. Should she find herself being watched from outside her window, the flicker from the harshly lit screen would surely cast a foreboding shadow of a figure behind and slightly to the right of her on the dimly illuminated kitchen wall. Though it was evidence of her own attendance, the shadow was more fearful than any other darkness that could ever possibly follow her or cross her path. It was an almost constant reminder that she had become her own enemy, and the reason she likely wouldn’t make it through the night.

The email was not one that she wanted to send, and the document she attached was not one she thought – or believed – she’d ever have to think about again, since… well. But, neither time nor choice were on her side.

Within minutes, laptops and phones all over the network would ping into life, alerting their by now surely fast-asleep owners to a notification that they never expected to receive.

How could they? The name on the notification had long since been forgotten.

Forgotten, but never in this world forgiven.

What would happen next would do little to change that.

Click.

Done.

Sent to all.

Blood splattered across the flickering screen.

Cat hair bedded deeper among the lettered tombstones in its warm, sticky graveyard.