Would you ever kill a human being?/Theatrical Muse Challenge

Would I? The question best asked is have I? As a doctor I deal with life and death on a daily basis but that isn't what I mean and I wouldn't even begin to hide behind that as a way to avoid accepting responsibility for what I've done. I've lived through a war, seen my wife and two young children and far too many others taken before their time, but I don't even use that as an excuse for what I've done. No, I don't think it's fair to them or their memories to try and excuse my actions by using even the grief and anger I carry at those losses.

I have killed someone.

I don't know that I even realized how much rage lay hidden inside of me until that cold Chicago night when Abby and I were attacked by that anonymous mugger. We were walking along the river when he came out of nowhere, I don't know that I even saw him at first, I felt something strike the back of my head and the next thing I knew I was on the ground and I heard Abby's scream. The rest comes in a blur, I got to my feet and pulled him off of her, the rage had me fully in it's grip and suddenly he became responsible for hurting everyone I had ever seen in pain. I grabbed his lapels and slammed his head into the pavement and once I had started I couldn't seem to stop myself. I don't know how many blows he suffered at my hands before Abby was able to stop me, I do know his skull was shattered. He was alive when he arrived at the hospital but there was nothing anyone could do, I had killed him. I knew it, and there was nothing anyone could say to change that. The police excused what I had done by saying my actions were clearly ones of self-defense, but, I question that, knowing at anytime I could have stopped, if only I had been able to control the rage