I only noticed the blood after the man had fallen unconscious.
It swirled in little red puddles, pooling beneath my shoes. Dripping off the tip of my knife, tainting my white shirt, and staining my hand. I swiftly rubbed my begrimed fingers on my spotless trousers, then cursed after realizing that the pants were now spotted.
The smell hit me like a brick wall. The back alley reeked of garbage, vomit, stale popcorn, and now, thanks to me, blood. Before today, I had never known that blood could diffuse such a strong scent. It sat in the stagnant air, coating my tongue with its metallic taste.
I didn’t know what happened. One minute, I had been sitting silently in a movie theatre, and the next, I was dragging a mostly-dead body by the ankles out behind a dumpster. The memories escaped me. I could feel them taunting me in the back of my mind, just out of reach. What had the stranger done to provoke me? Had he spoken a little bit too loudly, had he looked at me a little bit too strangely, had he smiled a little bit too widely? I knew that that other side of myself, that darker side, despised smiling people. That personality would kill to wipe a silly smile of a face. Normally, I could control that other person, my other self.
He was slipping from my fingers, now.
Or maybe I was slipping into his fingers?

I grinned at the bloody man lying on the pavement. I knew, of course, that he was unable to return my smile, but I couldn’t seem to stop the triumphant smirk from deforming my face. I breathed heavily from dragging the unconscious man out behind the movie theatre. I knew he deserved it. He had been smiling, and smiling at me, of all people! How dare he? Who did he think he was? Of course, I was smiling now, but at least it wasn’t from joy. If I disliked toothy grins, I despised smiles of joy. I didn’t know why it was, but something about seeing people happy made my blood boil as if it were on fire.
I suddenly felt my left arm twitch. I knew that sign. It meant that soon, in a few seconds, my main identity would resurface. I could feel it, hovering under the exterior, just beginning to become aware of its surroundings. This body was not my own, I had nothing of my own. I was just one of many personalities, of the multiple minor personalities of this man. I thought that I had started to get a grip on this person, but I was no longer in control. I felt my fingers flex against my will, and then I was under.

Thoughts swam through my mind like fish swimming in a lake. My senses awakened one by one. The pain came first. It was a startling pain, crawling through my insides, in and out, in and out. It was strongest near my stomach, where it felt as if knives had been using it as a hiding place. I was incapable of moving, but I was suddenly aware of the gash in my belly. I didn’t know exactly how I could feel it there, maybe the emptiness was filling up the hole.
Then, I felt the blood. It was sticky in some places, wet in others. It streamed down my sides, soaking my T-shirt. At this point, I didn’t care about my shirt, anymore. I was more preoccupied about why I was here and how I would get out of this mess. Finally, the sound of mumbling reached my ears. I couldn’t pick out individual words, as my head was still scrambling through a fog, but I could tell that there was only one voice. A man’s voice. He seemed to be talking to himself. My thoughts ended their rambling, when a stab of pain, much stronger than the usual throbbing, attacked my wound, and I fell unconscious, once more.