Simon and the Duality of Victory

"I cannot believe you let yourself get caught," I said, as I stood behind the woman on her knees, a dagger pressing against her throat.

She turned her head, her long blonde hair brushing over my arm. Her face was smudged with red and black, but I could see it was quite pretty. She had a wide mouth and thin nose. Her eyes were not big, but they were blue and clear. She looked at me for a moment, then went back to staring at the wall in front of her. "I did not want to."

"You saw the knife in my hand," I said. "You know what I am capable of."

She nodded. "Yes."

"Then why didn't you run?" I asked.

"Because if someone is going to kill me," she said, looking down at her hands, which were bound behind her back, "I'd rather it be you."

My name is Simon and this is my story. It's about how I became a killer and how I made a woman fall in love with me. It's about a house that stood in the middle of an empty field; a house that no one lived in anymore because it was haunted by ghosts. And it's about the burglar who got himself in over his head - because he lost more than just his wallet that night.

It all began when I saw the woman standing outside my window, looking up at me as if she knew me; as if we were old friends reunited after years apart. The first thing that came to mind was: "What kind of idiot stands right in front of his own house? Doesn't he have any common sense?" But then again, this wasn't my house. So why did she look at me like she knew me? I opened my mouth to ask her but she suddenly turned around and walked down the street towards my car - which was parked on the side of the road next to the house - and jumped into it before driving away silently into the night.

I watched the car disappear into distance for a moment before something caught my eye: there was a light on inside the house! Nobody was supposed to live there anymore; all the windows were boarded up from the inside so no one could break in! Yet here was one room glowing with light through its boarded-up windows! Was someone living there after all? And if so, how had they gotten past all those boards? It didn't occur to me that someone might have been standing right behind them before they clicked their way onto their hinges...

So off I went to check out this mystery! A puzzle like this was just what I needed today, when things hadn't gone exactly as planned...

I'd been watching that house for days now: waiting for someone to show up so I could rob them blind. But nobody ever did. Not even when people walked past and glanced at it curiously while they passed by on their way home from work every day - unless they just happened to stop outside once or twice when they saw lights flickering through its closed shutters before continuing on their way again - for who would live in a house like that?

But tonight someone had broken into it! My curiosity piqued, I left my car where it was parked and snuck across the field towards it until I reached its walls...

And so here we are: she sitting on her knees with a knife at her throat; me standing behind her with a gun pointed at her back; both of us thinking about what happened next... And about something else... Something neither of us can admit aloud yet... Something we'll never say out loud because doing so would make everything we've done together meaningless... Because anyone can talk themselves into anything when they're faced with death... Especially when they know what's waiting for them afterwards is far worse..