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Prompt 3: In the dark of the night, evil will find you--and this is the worst kind. This is the kind you did to yourself. Before bed, between one tired, fluttering blink and the next, you see a figure in the darkest corner of your room--a ghastly silhouette hovering. You lock eyes with it--and then it hits you. A wave of regret, pulsing and unyielding. The combination of something embarrassing or horrible, or a regret nagging at you for an unfinished deed, or remembering a failure of yours--you are consumed with the thoughts of something you regret. It feels like an eternity passes as you're wracked with guilt and grief and regret; you don't remember falling asleep, but when you wake, the figure is gone. If you're lucky, the regret is too.
He hadn't done enough.
It was a thought that plagued him constantly, that drove him to push himself harder. He was powered by the need to do better, to fix things, to make the world a better place. He hadn't risen to the top by being complacent.
Alexei sat at his desk and lowered the pen he'd been holding and leaned forward a bit more, planting his elbows on his desk and rubbing at his sore eyes. He was tired. Coffee could only keep him going for so long and he knew he should have begun the drive home an hour or two ago. He rarely fell asleep in his office these days, not when he still had a reason to be home, but between one heartbeat and the next, he felt half his brain shut down. The wave of sleep was almost crippling and he lowered his hands and tried to pry his eyes open, tried to will himself into awareness by willpower alone.
He wished he hadn't.
He wished he'd just given in and taken a cat nap, however brief it needed to be, but instead he saw it. A black shadow hovered in the corner, like someone had somehow broken in through the still locked ceiling. It wasn't a human, he knew that, by some divine force. He couldn't claim it was a figment of his imagination because it gripped him with a steely gaze. He forgot to breath for a moment and went rigid as he stared it down.
He heard her scream behind him, so vivid that it felt like they'd been in the courtroom still. The way he'd had to listen as the jury came back with a declaration of innocence, due to a simple error in police work. The way he had no choice but to side with the will of the people, albeit publicly.
It wasn't his greatest regret. It was one of many. It was just the most recent one. The one he'd wanted so badly to do something about.
...The one he'd pushed aside because another big case had been thrown in his lap, and he had too much to catch up on, too much to review.
Too much.
The paper was too much?
And yet, he'd pushed aside this woman's fear, her anguish, her safety--so he could deal with paperwork?
No, that was wrong. He resented himself for it. He should have powered up and taken care of the man that night. It wouldn't have been the expected news for him, but he was certain that if she'd gotten a call in the middle of the night that told him he'd been attacked, she'd have forgiven the interruption and slept well afterwards.
His heart was pounding so erratically that he couldn't keep up with it, and Alexei found himself swimming with dizziness.
He didn't know if he fell asleep or if he passed out, but when he opened his eyes again, half an hour had passed.
He felt like he was drenched in a cold sweat, and adrenaline was still pumping through him. The specter across the room was gone, but the suffocating guilt still clung to him.
He looked at the clock; it was only just nearly midnight.
...He still had time. He could still make this right.
He gathered his papers, neatly shoved them into his briefcase, and made his way down to his car.
He resented the man for skirting the laws, for escaping justice.
Temporarily, at least. The laws of the court had failed.
The law of Mamertine would not.
