Now normally a sudden unexplained nearly painful thud echoing from your chest should probably incite some form of fear, maybe even panic as the thud claps back harder than before.
But I just couldn't muster up the energy to pay the growing thudding of my heart any mind, the blood on my hands pulling my attention to what I had been forced to do.
I looked past my hands, at the dead body laying on the ground, one of its hands having my pants leg in a death grip.
I swallow the bile that threatens to rise at the sight of a headless corpse and have to forcefully tear my eyes away from the deranged man's body.
I'll tell myself that I'd done what I did for the greater good, that the man had tried to target a child but I knew it wasn't enough.
I knew with absolute certainty that I'd just stared into another man's eyes as his life was stolen from him in the most brutal fashion I could imagine.
And it was for nothing, the kid I'd tried to keep safe had met the same fate as his attacker, their heads blown clean off.
I felt the thudding of my heart pick up unnaturally, the tempo changing in ways a heart beat really shouldn't before a crackle of electricity heralded the arrive of the monster that had caused such destruction.
The monster when it had first arrived had been almost cute looking, it small frame and furred body making it almost look like a baby goat. Then it had detonated a person's head for back talking it, and all hell had broken loose.
I could tell it was talking, even make out the particular words it was saying but for the life of me I just could hear it.
At first I was worried I'd gone deaf, the lack of natural sound making that fear more likely but I was definitely hearing words being spoken.
But it was all distorted like it had been run through one to many audio filters and become a jumbled mess of random sounds.
Only a single thing sounded normal, I looked over at my previous seat on the park bench and even through the blurriness of my tears I could make out the outline of my discarded headphones still playing the cheerful song like nothing had happened.
I gently reach for the headphones, hoping that this was all a dream and that the music would ground me, unfortunately my hopes were dashed when the only effect that placing my headphones back on was that I could actually make out what was being said but the monster.
It paddled on about humanity having it piss easy compared to everyone else like it was entirely humanity's fault alone and not happenstance.
Before saying something about sponsors and how incredibly lucky we were to be gifted the opportunity.
I flinched at the sudden appearance of a blue pannel with text on it but was able to push my fear down to read through it, the comforting beat of the song grounding me enough to ignore the blood soaking my hands and feet.
[You have attracted the attention of a number of constellations]
I tried reading the list but every time my eyes would hover over a name they'd seem to become increasingly blurry and unreadable.
[Error, incarnation already has a constellation]
The pannel bugged out on the last word and the entire screen shattered after a moment before I blinding headache overcame me and I had to hold my hand over my mouth to not throw up what tasted like blood.
I feel myself tip forward, my knees crashing into the ground painfully as I hack and cough up more and more blood. The colour going from a healthy crimson to much more concerning gold flecked black syrup like substance that clogged up my throat as I threw it up.
All through out what felt like my death the cheerful pop music happily echoed in my mind, the beat becoming more and more prominent and the lyrics slowly fading into background noise.
With one final cough something managed to claw its way out of my throat painfully ripping it way out and clattering to the floor.
I stared, my mind becoming numb to the fuckery my life had become in the last half an hour as I stared at the old-school gold and blue Walkman I'd apparently had in my stomach somehow.
[The constellations watching are both disgusted and confused as to why you threw up a Walkman]
I wiped my mouth with my sleeve, paying no mind as the material of my jumper seemed to sizzle and burn from just the small amount of contact with the sludge I'd thrown up.
I reached down and plucked the walkman from the sizzling sludge before it might become damaged, the moment my hand came into contact with the device I felt my already too loud heartbeat echo even harder. The comfort from my music fading as the connection between my phone and the headphones seemed to fizzle out.
I stared at the device, unsure as to what the hell it even was let alone what the hell I was supposed to do with it.
I flipped it in my hand to check the back as found a aux cord tightly coiled around it, I didn't question why or even how as I uncoiled the cord and plugged it into my headphones jack.
After making sure it was properly connected I pressed the play button and was almost disappointed when nothing happened.
And I reached up to unplug the device I felt my heart thud again, but unlike the other times this time my headphones seemed to pick up the sound and I was treated to a song that stayed completely in time with my unnatural steady heartbeat.
(The beacon (extended edition), the glass pyramids)
A new pannel flashing in my face as the music stated building more and more.
[The stigma "rhythm of Hathor" has synced with your heartbeat]