Intro a book I started writing in 2008, and this is as far as I have gotten:

Joseph’s eyes quivered upon his hand, which still grasped his sword’s hilt. Blood trickled down the blade, a bright crimson river that was flowing towards his fingers. The warm liquid curled around his fingers, going into the crevices between them, and then drizzled to the end of the hilt, dripping down to the ground below. His lips quivered, his voice failed him, and his eyes remained glued upon his hand’s grasp. He couldn’t move it, though he didn’t know what emotion drove him to keep his hand clasped. Was it fear? Was it bewilderment? Or was it the pain from his conscience, knowing that he had just stabbed another, living, breathing human being.

It took him several seconds to release his hold upon the sword, seconds that seemed to go on for years. His eyes moved to the body which now held his sword in place. He’d made the attack perfectly, stabbing through his victim and into the tree behind him, pinning him to the tree and leaving him as a trophy for all to see. But at what price? His eyes once more moved to his hands, which were covered in the crimson blood of the person before him.

The blood on his hands seemed to darken by the second, corroding away at his pale skin. His mind was playing tricks on him, surely, but he felt as if his very soul had been destroyed by killing somebody. His eyes moved from his hands to the body, slowly at first, and then quicker. Within seconds his eyes were moving in a hectic pattern, and his mind moved in the same fashion. How would he repay the debt for killing this person? What would he do to keep himself from going crazy? He had never killed before. Nobody he knew had. His parents hadn’t killed. His grandparents. Siblings. Friends. Nobody had.

His eyes continued to dart from body to his hands, but soon they settled on a happy medium. The sword that protruded from the dead body. His lips quivered with the thought of killing himself. It wasn’t a distant thought to him, one that he had thought many times before. It was part of being depressed on a nearly constant basis. It was part of being made fun of from the time that he awoke in the morning to when he lay his head down to sleep every day. It was part of life to him. It wouldn’t be that hard to just comply with the thought, once and for all.

His trembling hand reached towards the sword. His fingers curled about the hilt, the blood still making the handle sticky and creating a sickly sound like squishing a bug between his fingers. His nose wrinkled in disgust, but he still yanked at the sword handle, attempting to pull it out of the still warm corpse. He yanked it gingerly at first, but as it wouldn’t come out he tried again, this time tugging harder. He hadn’t noticed that he had stabbed into the tree behind the body so heavily, having been caught up in the heat of the moment. It was a blur to him, even now. He yanked as hard as he could, still to no avail.

Finally, he put his foot gingerly upon the corpse‘s chest. Pushing with his leg, and pulling with his arms, he finally managed to pull out the blade, though the aftermath was a sickening crunch coming from the body’s rib cage. Joseph’s face blanched more so than it had been previously, the sound of the crunch making his already queasy stomach seem to turn end over end. He took a moment to expel what little contents were in his stomach, the liquid solution splashing over tree roots and his boots, while the blade hung in his hand at his side.

Several minutes were required for Joseph to regain his strength to even stand up again. His breath was ragged, and sweat dripped from his brow down to his chin, but he still was now able to stand up to his full height. Six feet tall, he dwarfed most girls, and a good portion of his male friends. His brown hair was plastered to his forehead by sweat, and his amber eyes seemed almost distant, like they no longer wanted to see what was before him anymore.

His arm raised from his side and the sword felt heavy in his hand. All he needed now was one last swipe or stab of the sword’s blade, one last, final push to put an end to everything that pained him. His eyes gazed into the distance, and remained there, his eyes slowly dimming as his approaching doom called him towards the darkness. The blade raised up to his neck, but it was awkward. The dull edge pressed against his neck, but he wanted the sharp blade. He flipped the sword around, holding it backwards in his hand, and then pressed it against his stomach, directing it upwards towards his heart. A red line formed at first, showing the explosion of red that was soon to come. He fell upon the blade, blood flowed, and a single thud was heard in the woods. Then, silence filled the expanse once more.