Drip. Drip. Drip.
The water poured down the roof as I watched shadows dance on the pavement. I broke my gaze just long enough to throw the wood I was holding into the fire pit in the middle of the room. I watched as wood sizzled and cracked from the heat of the fire. Sighing as I walked over to the broom closet, I unlocked the padlock. The door opened with a loud creak. As my eyes fell on the black plastic bag hiding in the corner, it twitched and let out a muffled groan of pain as the chloroform wore off. I drag my feet towards the moaning bag and trail the moving bag behind me to the operating room, a decaying smell of flesh coming from my recent works almost unbearable as a quiet cough escaped my lips, next to the smell another one of my subjects who was tied down and gagged was waiting for me as they lay on the table, tears streaming down his face. “Hello, subject 16” I greeted him as I continued to drag and place the bag in the middle of the room and proceeded to open the bag. As a young woman looks up at me in a dazed state. I slowly hauled her out of the bag and pulled her over to a wooden chair, then I tied her wrists and ankles to the chair with rope as she moaned. As I stood to my feet I started to walk over to Subject 16 as he struggled to get out and looked at me with fear as I prepared my tools as well as sterilized his body for the operation. I go to the door of the cupboard and grab tools, cleaning supplies. As I'm about to close the cupboard a discarded pipe falls out. I pay no mind to it and walk back to subject 16. Once everything is finally ready I pick up my scalpel and I slowly begin to make a Y cut from the shoulders to the mid-chest in between his pectorals as he lets out a muffled screech. I then proceed to cut down until right below where his bladder would be. All while I do this he writhes in pain as he watches me in horror and awe no longer able to scream as I cut him open with such precision, such skill, almost as if it was second nature to me, well it is but it's nice to have some recognition. I look at the small metal counter with my tools and pick up my favorite pruning shears and start to cut off the ribs, staring at the very base and snapping them off on both sides. Once that's done I notice Subject 16 is passed out, or dead it doesn't matter to me. I lift the rib cage out of his torso and drop it into a bucket before proceeding to remove his extremely profitable vital organs, including the lungs, kidneys, liver, and stomach.. Finally, as I remove the heart of subject 16. As I began to clean up suddenly soft footsteps and turned to see subject 17 trying to walk towards the door in the still of the night I noticed the pipe that was once in the cupboard . I look at her furious as I walk towards her and grab the pipe me towering over her. She screams, wails, and cries that subject 16 is dead and how I killed him. She then shouts I'm a monster and starts begging for me to let her go. She keeps repeatedly yelling 'let me go, let me go!’ As I'm cleaning up, I sigh, fed up with her crying, and shout for her to stop but she doesn't. I keep yelling as she cries and suddenly my vision is red. I look down at my hand. I'm holding a pipe. I think I hear a voice calling for help but I don't know because my ear has gone numb to all sounds but the pipe hitting subject 17s head. I look at subject 17, she has no face. It's just blood, flesh, and fragments of a skull once whole. I stare at subject 17 as her body sits there unbreathing as her head lifelessly hangs from her neck. I started to laugh, I laughed and laughed and laughed. And then I stopped, remembering how I killed my daughter the very same way, how I bashed her head in along with her mother. How I cut them open as the candles in my wife's and I's bedroom smell like vanilla with a hint of chocolate, how “within the tall grass” sat unfinished on my wife's nightstand, how the dead silence took over after my wife and daughter's screams finally stopped. They were my first subjects, my favorite subjects. I looked at 17's body and kept smashing her body until it was nice and tender and the thought of my once family drowned out. Then I dragged her to the firepit. Then I cooked her until her meat fell off the bone and until the room was filled with the sickeningly sweet smell of burning flesh. Then I ate her, as I did with my wife, like with my daughter. Like all the other female subjects. For some reason, they tasted better than the male subjects. Maybe it's the extra layer of fat they have. I smiled, my stomach and heart full. I stood up and left the abandoned factory to find a new subject to play with and Devore. Whichever comes first. As I took one last look at the factory before I left I saw the window to my workshop, and the drops of blood from number 17 dripping down. I smiled as I made my way to town to find subject 18.
