Doppelganger

[edited to correct a typo I hadn't noticed before, and to regularize formatting]

One of the reasons for the reboot of this blog is the reboot of my writing, which has long lain fallow due to a variety of life events.  Thus, without further ado I offer you a snippet of something I started working on this week, a sort of warm-up piece I am tentatively calling "Doppelganger":

Cybele’s slippers whisked across the flagstones too softly for him to hear over the chuckling water, and the constant murmur of his own voice echoing in the shadows of the bath-house. He had no idea how long she had been there when her voice broke into his private anguish:

"My god, what have you done?"

He jerked his eyes up to her, and the terrible grin that twisted his face made her flinch no less than the rasp in his voice when he answered:

"You’ve taken the words out of my mouth, sister."

She shook her head, rosebud lips moving silently and she stared wide-eyed and unblinking at what he had done.

"And it seems I've taken yours as well."

He glanced down, pressed his fingers deeper into the sticky mess as hot life pumped out and coiled across the floor. His heart clenched for a moment with rage and triumph and fear, and he looked back up at her.

Her pose had changed - now the fingers on one hand stretched out in a twisted claw that seemed unable to decide whether to reach out to him or to fend him off, the other was twisted into her skirts as though desperate to pull them up to cover her eyes, to shut out the bloody scene. Her lips still worked silently, and the horror on her face made his heart clench again at the realization that he was the cause of it. His throat tightened, the tears were hot on his cheeks, and his voice was thin and plaintive as he tried to explain:

"I've fixed it, sister - he can never hurt you again."

He had just a moment to realise that the hand he'd reached out toward her was the one that clutched the gore-soaked knife before she screamed.

Sort of Halloweeny at this point, but all is not quite what it appears.  Perhaps I'll share more scenes as I get closer to completion.