Death Rush

Chapter 9: Insanity

Cozen's past was not an easy one. He lost his father at the age of 10 and lived with only his mother ever since.  His grandparents had died recently and his only uncle and aunt decided to leave the city 3 years ago.

His mother, when Cozen was 18 years old, kicked him out of the house. He lived alone for 1 year now.

His father was accused of killing 7 years old boy Jack and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. He always told his family he was innocent and that he got framed by someone he didn't know, but no one believed him. After 8 months of incarceration, he commited suicide in his jail cell by hanging himself.

Upon further investigation by the police after his death, he was later discovered innocent.

His hatred towards humans, after the guiltless death of his father was unmeasurable.

Cozen could never forget such thing. He lost his father for nothing at all. He grew as cold as he is now because, as he always said,

"Humans are nothing but animals. In this planet, we are too much. There is no need to overpopulate this planet with intelligent monkeys that can commit crimes and wrongdoings worse than every animal could ever do. This generation is sick. Humanity is sick and I'll be the one keeping order among these monsters I dare to call animals."

He saw common issues in this society and decided he'll be the one who'll fix them.

He thought that people were the basis of all problems, especially the people he didn't find adequate for social life; examples could be people who cheat, people who lie, people who procrastinate, lazy people, annoying people or rich people who don't work but have parents' money to buy whatever they want.

He saw only one way to fix this garbage society, and it was a really unethical one. Cozen decided he would kill everyone who wasn't adequate for social life by firstly becoming friends with them, to then proceed and backstab them and kill them. The murders would either be brutal or painless, it depended on how much wrong you did from his point of view. In most cases though, it was a brutal death.

The police knew him as "The Salt Lake City Demon", but his identity remained unrevealed, even after 16 confirmed murders and other 42 unconfirmed ones. Some people he killed were famous, some were not. His first confirmed murder was dated the 12th of June 2018.

The Salt Lake City Demon's most infamous case was the one that involved the 37 years old man Justine Marrow and his family. It happened the 27th of May 2020. He burnt their whole house while they were sleeping, killing all 6 of them. Marrow's family was a very well known one in Salt Lake City. They were really rich, they had a family food company and owned a good quantity of residences.

They were heavily criticised by the public because of the environmental impact their company had on the planet and for all the lies they told during interviews. Cozen, at one point, couldn't take it anymore and decided to put an end to this "neverending cancer of a company".

There were people that saw him as either a hero or a crazy psychopath serial killer. Cozen did not care about people thinking he was crazy, since he always thought what he was doing was the rightest thing to do and the only option this society had to heal itself.

He did not care about killing people close to him. He thought sacrifices had to be made.

The last person he murdered was his classmate Barry Morris. He was a bully, someone that in his entire life went against the weak to not show his own weaknesses. Cozen thought that this world didn't need someone like him. He drugged him, took him to his basement, tortured him for 2 hours by cutting his fingers and removing his teeth to then stab him in the eyes and kill him with a piercing cut in his heart.

He put the body in his car's trunk, drove by a lake about 1 hour and a half away and threw him in it.

He felt satisfied. This were the only times he felt alive.

Such monster could not be compared to Remi speaking of ruthlessness. Remi was becoming friend with a psychopath, a serial killer, a monster and he had no idea.

"I think this world doesn't need this guy." whispered Cozen to himself talking about Remi, while sitting on his bed staring at the floor.

"Such a weakling that hides behind the excuse of her disappeared girlfriend to do nothing but crying about it makes me mad." Cozen whispered again, still talking about Remi.

"I am the only one who can fix this broken and wrongful world. Step by step I'll reach my goal." Cozen started talking to himself and was interrupted by the television's news. It was talking about Justine Marrow's unsolved case, again. They were calling him a ruthless serial killer that had an impossible goal to reach.

"Medias.. they can call me whatever they want; psychopath, cold-blooded, merciless, ruthless, inhumane. I know who I am and I know my goals. My first step will be cleaning this city from all this "dirt" and "garbage" to then start killing on a larger scale. I will not rest until this sick and disgusting world will be fixed by ME and MYSELF only. Just sit and watch you ugly bitch!" Cozen started grinning and laughing like a maniac after ending his speech while looking at the television. During his speech, his voice got louder and louder until at a certain point, he started shouting. His crazed gaze, his trembling and loud voice made up for a person that had something wrong with him. Even him was scared of himself.

As soon as he got calmer, Cozen started whispering...

"Remi, you are next".