I shot a woman.

In the face.

It was not an accident.

This is an action that I stand behind having done – one that I endorse. What I did was done out of mercy. She was broken in a manner from which she would not recover. My actions saved her from further unnecessary suffering. I can only hope that someone would be so kind as to do the same for me if I were in a similar position. I truly believe these words that I have written here. And yet for my actions I feel like a monster. I wish I was invisible.

“…But to look away is to risk letting those things slip lose and break free.”

The first several cabins we searched had proven to be empty – most suspiciously so, with personal objects and even furniture removed. The kind of furniture that on a ship such as this would typically be bolted to the floor and walls. The bolt holes were still there, predictably located and all but evenly spaced, but the beds and dressers themselves were nowhere to be seen. The unbroken layer of dust on the walls and floor stood as a testament to the fact that these rooms had been so for some time.

I wasn’t there when they found the woman – leaning against a wall, face dirty and hair unkempt. The first I saw of her was when she was trying and failing to pick herself up off of the floor, writhing about and gasping in ragged breaths not unlike a fish out of water. She had launched herself bodily at one of the sailors as he entered the room, clawing and tearing at his face and eyes with her fingernails. The other sailor that had entered with him pushed her off, knocking her to the floor. Her arm had twisted and shattered, her leg was broken in at least two places. Her cheek bone had crumpled and her jaw had dislocated and then snapped, cutting easily through her gaunt flesh and allowing blood to trickle down what had once been her face and chin. I can only imagine what state of malnutrition she must have been in to allow her bones to be so brittle, her muscles to be so atrophied.

Her eyes were closed when she was finally able to turn to face me. I already had drawn the gun that I had been issued, I already was preparing myself to take the action that I knew was decent and proper – to relieve this poor woman of her misery. I looked upon what was left of her face and my brain immediately tried to reconstruct what she might have looked like previously. It tried to extrapolate from what data was present in order to form a better picture of how her features might have been arranged when she was healthier and less broken. There were not enough points of data to get a clear picture – the face of the woman that I murdered will forever be a mystery to me.

No, not “murdered”! The face of the woman that I KILLED OUT OF MERCY. I should not need to keep telling myself this.

She opened her eyes and my head reeled. Up until that point I had been able to remain detached, but looking into her eyes must have reminded me of the humanity of the situation. With a nauseating suddenness, the math was gone. The numbers and angles and functions and curves of the world that had surrounded me up until that point fled away and left behind only the stark biology of her broken features. I felt like I was going to vomit, but I was able to keep myself steady.

The barrel of my weapon was already pressed to her bruised forehead. Her eyes looked into mine, so sad and hopeless. I think she tried to speak, but the action caused her to cringe and then yelp in pain. I could stand to see her like this no longer, so I pulled the trigger.

I have resolved not to feel bad for having taken this action.

I did the right thing.