What she didnt expect was all the blood. Her hands clasped at the knuckle, one on top of the other, pressed into the lifeless ribcage. As she pumped in a steady rhythm, acting as the bodys heart, blood seeped through her fingers in a steady flow.

Three, four, five, six, seven, she said in a hoarse whisper as she looked into her roommates lifeless eyes.

She looks dead, her mind concluded as her pumping rhythm began to slow. She looks dead, the young woman whispered, finally letting her voice lend credibility to the thought that had been constant in her mind from the moment she opened the door to find her roommate lying face down, blood pooling beneath her, but then blood everywhere else as well.

She leaned back on her heels, and using the backside of her blood-soaked hands brushed her blonde bangs out of her eyes, painting a red streak across her forehead.

She looks dead, she said again with a bit more conviction. Her voice broke an eerie silence that had enveloped her from the moment she had dropped to her knees next to her stricken roommateher friend.

Suddenly, a sense of panic seized her as she felt the full impact of the words she had spoken. No, she let out in an anguished cry. No! She took a deep breath and interlocked her fingers once again.

She looked at her hands, already pruning and wrinkled from being immersed in the wet, sticky liquid. She paused, held her hands up in front of her face, turning them slowly so that she could see both the front and back.

As the comfort and protection of shock began to provide a soft pillow for her overwhelmed mind and spirit, she studied her hands.

The coverage was complete. Blood had found its was into every nook and cranny, every nail bed, every line and every wrinkle. She pondered how the coloring was uneven, and how the cuff of her off-white shirt was now drawing blood up her sleeve like an absorbent paper towel.

For Tina Kennard, time had stopped. She was not in yesterday, today or tomorrow. She was only here, in this moment, with droplets of blood she loved falling from her hands forming a spreading stain on her light slacks.