Alive

Chapter 2: Chaos

People love Hollywood's portrayal of serial killers when they're the 'good' guys: ridiculously attractive with an intense stare, an uncontrollable need to kill until he finds the perfect girl to take his pain away and she changes him and they all live happily ever after. But that's not how it goes down in real life, us psychopaths can't feel emotions, at least not ones as pleasant as love. Everyone fantasises about having someone bad that's only good for them, but people like me, we're not good for anybody.

Best case scenario: we find another psychopath to be with and we have great sex and maybe kill some unfortunate fuckers together. I don't think I could do that though, I don't really like sharing my toys. Despite what you might think, it's not all sinister, killing someone can be beautiful. In that moment, you're connected, you see each other for who you really are, the masks come off and you see the rawest versions of people, and then you end their life and end their pain and there's a moment of peace. Once they take their last breath, when they're perfectly still beneath you and they lose all fear and every atrocious experience they ever encountered leaves their body, their face untainted. Everything feels the way it should in the moments after, but maybe that's just because I'm crazy.

Nine people have died at my hands and I have no intention of stopping there. One was out of anger, my third victim, although the label 'victim' didn't really suit her. I was 19 at the time and we worked in the same cafe, she was a bitch and she loved herself, so I killed her.

I took her phone from the counter after a late shift and took it home, she used her house phone to call it and I picked up saying I must've taken hers by mistake, so she came over to my apartment to pick it up and I led her into my living room. She freaked when she saw the plastic tarp on the floor and my favourite knife on the counter. She was a screamer. I should've known, she'd always been a pain in the ass, why would it be any different when it came to killing her.

God she was such a drama queen. "Please don't kill me I'll do anything you want". Why do people think that'll work? Like "Oh sure okay I'll just let you go even though I spent hours preparing this room and going to the effort to get you here, but since you asked nicely I'll let you go." What do they think we want? I mean, would I really do all that just to let her run off to the cops? I prefer it when people understand that I'm twisted, that all I want is their blood on my hands, it makes the conversation a whole lot more interesting.

Jessica, the self-obsessed waitress, was reported missing the next day. No one knew she'd came to my apartment to pick up her phone so when her parents saw she wasn't home the next day they started to worry and called the police. A body was never found, because I don't leave bodies lying around. I'm not an amateur. I keep tokens or trophies of my victims, I know it's a dangerous game because if the police ever found them I'd obviously become their number one suspect, but I can't help it. I have this need to take something from my victims so that I still have them with me, they're still mine.

I'm not scared of going to prison, I could handle myself, and the other inmates, it's just that when you're in prison you don't exactly get to go out at night and kill people, which is kind of a problem for someone like me.

You may have noticed that so far I haven't told you anything about how I look or who I am, that's because I like to keep things hidden and I like to make people think. I wanted to reveal my mind to you before revealing my appearance, because it's so much more interesting that way. But now you know how I think, I don't see why you shouldn't know how I look. Statistically speaking serial killers are most likely to be white males between the ages of 20 and 35. And because of the romanticised versions of us in certain movies and tv shows you probably imagine me to be quite attractive, dark and brooding, in the 'good' way. Well, luckily for me, I don't fit the typical serial killer profile, my mask is probably the best one I could ask for.

22 year old Rosie Hikins. Yeah, Rosie, I know... Not what you were expecting right? I'm not overly attractive and not overly unattractive, just plain. Plain is good. Plain means I can drift through everyday life unnoticed, the guys don't stare and the girls don't single me out. 'It's always the quiet ones', we've all heard that before right? So I keep a small group of 'friends' to socialise with, occasionally go to parties when I'm invited, just a normal 22 year old girl, the perfect mask for a serial killer. Plus, who the hell suspects someone called Rosie as a homicidal maniac? This innocent, sickly sweet name is the one thing I have to thank my parents for.

People look at kids and they see hope, they see innocence and purity. I just see disasters waiting to happen. The girl playing on the swings by herself, with the pink ribbons in her pigtails, she'll probably grow up feeling isolated and angry at the world for not giving her what she wants. Sure she'll have a nice house and a cute little dog, there'll be nothing majorly wrong with her life, but nothing really right either.

She has everything she needs; food, water, a roof over her head, clean clothes, but she doesn't have what she wants. But the truth is, she has no idea what is that she wants. So she gets angry and desperate and she searches for something, anything to fill the void inside of her. Throwing herself at older boys when she's only 15, starving herself in the hope that she'll be as skinny as the popular girls, cutting her wrists in the bathroom at 2am on a freezing cold night just to make herself feel something.

I know that the way I see things isn't normal, but it's only because I understand this world better than most people. We're surrounded by chaos, and there's absolutely nothing we can do about it. So, I could either sit at home and watch the news and be repulsed by the madness in this small world, or I could embrace it. After all, if you can't beat 'em... join 'em.