𝐈𝐥𝐥-𝐅𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 ✔️

22

Rehab is supposed to make people better. Restoring them to be normal. I, a killer, a psychopathic one, seek rehabilitation for a girl. Valeria. To become better for her, to become a man she could feel something for, and I'm currently on step one of my rehabilitation plan. 

"Students, please go to the auditorium as soon as possible," the principal says over the announcement, her old voice waking me up from my sleep. 

I once again dreamed of her. 

I get out of bed, I change, I brush my teeth, I act normal and do normal things. Because that's what I was trying to become now. Normal. Better. Anything besides my true self. I could no longer be me if I wanted Valeria.

I walk out of my room at the same time she walks past my room. She looks over at me, I start walking with her since I knew she wouldn't come over to me.

"How was your party?" I ask her. Although I already knew. I saw her smiling, talking to another guy, not thinking about me while I thought about her.

"Good."

"That's good."

We reach the auditorium. I hold the door open as she walks in and I follow behind her. I take a seat next to her, it's packed as the students fill the room to see what the principal has to say now. 

She taps her finger against the microphone to make sure it works before speaking. She says, "Students, I have good news today. The faceless killer has been caught."

Some people gasp. I see Valeria's eyes widen out of the corner of my eye. The principal continues, "They are also deceased. It would appear new student Azriel Winston was the faceless killer. At around 3 am last night, the janitor found his dead body outside with his face blacked out. After a few hours, it faded, and his face was revealed."

That was step one. Getting rid of the constant anxiety she felt. To her, the demon was now dead, not the boy who sat next to her. 

"We're happy that things can finally go back to normal," she smiles. "And there will be a party to celebrate."

People start cheering as the word party gets mentioned. I roll my eyes. Students begin standing up and leaving, I do also, but I wait for Valeria. I know she wants to talk to me about it.

She grabs my wrist and pulls me to the library with her.

"Azriel?" she says. "He was the demon?"

"He must've been watching for a while," I say. Not to lie is not in my rehabilitation plan. In fact, it was a necessary step.

She continues to look confused about it. But after a while, she lets out a sigh of relief.

"I know I never mentioned this part, but I always dreamt about the demon," she tells me. "He'd kill me in nearly all of them."

My head tilts. She dreams of me killing her? She shouldn't, I'm not going to, I won't, I may have killed thousands of people before, but she would not be one of them.

"Strange," I say. "But he's gone now."

Lie, lie, lie. It feels like that's all I do. She runs a hand through her hair while nodding. The bell for class rings. She says, "Thank you for keeping my secret, Adi."

"Don't call me that," I say. But as she grins and walks away, I know it won't be the last time I hear it.

Good, that's what I'm going to be, that's what I'm going to become for her. It didn't matter what I had to do, endless prayers, becoming a new person, I was willing to do it. 

I walk back to my room. I open and shut my door. I plan to go smoke by my window, but those plans end. On my wall, in blood, is written, "You will never be good."