Blank and Bloody

Chapter 1: Blank

I stared at myself in the mirror, my face looked pasty and dead. I barely look human, I don't know if I could qualify as one anyways. Not with all the things I've done. I want to be good and pure but I am not, and I never will be again. I turned on the sink and splashed some water on my face, I'm smart, calculated. Nobody has yet to catch me, not even look at me with suspicion. After all it takes a monster to kill a monster. I haven't met anyone as demented as me. There's a chance I never will. I walked out of the bathroom and into my small living room. The kitchen was dirty, bloody knives on the counter. I didn't like cleaning them, they were like prizes. I picked up one of the knives. The blood glinted in the dim lights.

 Let me set something straight, I don't kill because of revenge or something. It's more twisted than that. I kill because I like it. It fills me with a strange adrenaline. A rush. I crave the rush. I've been like this since I was young, it started with bugs, ripping off their limbs and watching them struggle, using magnifying glasses to burn them. Then it was animals, bunnies first then I'd advance to bigger animals. Now I kill humans. I relish in their screams.

 After a while of staring at the knife I decided to at least put them somewhere where my neighbors wont see them if I were to open the door to them. I collect them and bring them to my bedroom, stashing them under a floorboard with my full face mask. I'm supposed to stream soon. I flinch when my phone goes off, reminding me. I sit at my desk and get the stream ready. 

You know... sometimes, sometimes I regret the murders I've committed. But not usually. I do have a cause you know... I trace a photo on my desk. Him. He's my cause.  I kill for him, all my victims are for him. He's been chasing me for a while, he's not a very good cop, that's okay... he's still chasing me. I turn the stream on and greet my viewers. There's lots of them, but I can spot his username. The detective has no idea I'm the one he's chasing. I load up my newest game. Like all my games... they're a walkthrough. Of every single murder I've committed.

 This one is my oldest murder, from when I was a child, before I had a cause. The game illustrated murder perfectly. From the victim to even the recreation of the screams. This murder had been my first, I remember how warm the blood was, it was my first taste for blood and I loved it. I ended the stream after I finished playing then I pulled up the case files about me. I'd been sending cryptic letters to the police station, naming their flaws. It was hilarious really. They had all the facts wrong. That poor detective, the answer is right in front of his face. It's a shame really, he's not a real thrill, he's just cute. I stood from my place and left the apartment. It's time for my next murder. I'd been stalking my victim for a few days. They like art, today they'll be at the museum. Ironic, I tell my relatives I'm an artist, that I'm an expert at art. The art of dying that is. I followed my victim to the museum. Inside they stared at different pieces. But it seems like I'm not on my best game today...they caught me following them. 

"Can I help you...?" She asked. I jolted and quickly thought of something.

"Ah. My apologies, my father works here, he thought you were a suspicious character." I said. The word "father" rotted in my mouth. She frowned and laughed nervously.

"Right. Well I assure you I'm not." She says. I nodded and left with a scowl. How annoying, I need to sharpen up, that was quite the mistake. I went to he men's bathroom and locked myself inside it. I stared at the mirror, I do this a lot, stare at myself in the mirror. Odd though, sometimes I wonder, what have I become? A freak? A monster? All of the above? But those aren't words I use to describe myself instead, I am the architect of my own destruction and I will be brutal. I left the bathroom and was able to get back on my victim's tail, this time being more secretive. She stayed round until closing. Then she walked home, alone, at night. She wasn't very smart was she? Even worse she did the classical, "walk down a dark alleyway as a shortcut." I gripped the handle of the knife in my jacket pocket. She stopped for a moment to put headphones in and I used this time to strike.

 I grabbed her, putting one hand over her mouth and drew the knife. Her eyes widened with fear and she tried to scream but my hand stayed firm over her mouth and muffled her. She struggled against my grip, I hate the fighters, they make this so much harder. I quickly stabbed her in the side to make her less likely to move due to pain, but her adrenaline was high and she fought still. I sighed and instantly stabbed her in the heart then removed the knife, she gasped and lost consciousness from the shock. She slumped in my arms and died 3 minutes later. I waited patiently and stored the knife back in my pocket. Then I laid her body on the ground and left. No clean up, nothing. Now you may be asking how do I get away with this if I don't clean up? But that's classified. Some of you are freakier than I, who knows what you'll do with my tactics.

 After the murder I walked over to the supermarket and shopped like a normal person, someone who hadn't just committed a murder. As I looked at the two different types of chips I saw a family. A father, mother and daughter. I stared. The daughter was on her father's shoulders and giggling, the mother was smiling sweetly and looking at her husband who was grinning proudly. A happy family. A sense of hatred and jealously filled me. Why couldn't that be me? DNA doesn't make a family you know... that does. Happiness, love. I was lonely as a child, my mother was emotionally absent and my father always at work. And when he was home he was drunk and violent. 

When I was a child I had constant blackouts, often I'd wake up and have hurt someone, or worse myself. The worst blackout lasted two days, when I woke up I was in the hospital. The blackouts started after my father had violently slammed a chair over my head. My brain had been damaged. The blackouts don't happen much anymore but when they do... it's not good. So when I woke up in the alleyway beside the supermarket, knife in my hand and the family I had been watching dead I knew exactly what had happened. I dropped the knife my eyes staring at the little girl. 

"No." My voice was weak and scratchy. Had I been yelling?

I don't kill children. I don't hurt children. That's against my few morals. I scrambled trying to see if the child might be alive.

When I was younger my older brother used to tell me that I can't blame myself for what happened during the blackouts, that there was someone else in my head during those times but it wasn't me. So as my trembling fingers lay on the child's dead wrist I could only think of how wrong he was.

They had been a happy family and I had ruined it, my blood stained hands had never looked so wrong. I needed to clean up. For once I took the time to clean up. I carried all three bodies to my car, laying them carefully in the back. I went and laid them on a patch of grass out in the country, laying them close together.

What have I done?

 I reported the murder on my burner phone then left. My apartment felt more unwelcoming than ever as I shut the door behind me. My hand were still stained with blood. Remorse is a rare emotion from me, one I don't normally have. But my heart felt so heavy, like it was going to drop. My stomach was queasy and my eyes bleary. I felt so strange and I didn't like it.

That night I didn't sleep, I normally don't but this time it felt more weighted. I'm afraid of my dreams, they tell you that your dreams always come true. But they forgot to mention that nightmares are also dreams. Sometimes I think that this world was never made for me, someone like me doesn't belong here. I've heard people say that if you do a terrible thing it doesn't actually make you a terrible person, but I beg to differ. Doing terrible things shouldn't be excused, now that's rich coming from me but it's still the truth and even if you do something terrible and people forgive you, you still carry the weight of that terrible thing on your mind forever. It's an endless cycle isn't it? And I'm stuck in it. 

I feel more demented than ever. Usually I remember nothing from the blackouts... but I can still hear their voices. I just want it to stop, make it stop. 

"Make the voices stop, those thoughts, those tears. Please make it stop." I would beg to nobody. But it didn't stop, I took a break from my streams. Even the detective didn't excite me in this time. I didn't leave the house much until the next Tuesday, I needed to go for a walk to clear my mind. I saw another family as I walked through the park. 

I woke up with a bloody pipe in my hand, hovering over the bodies of yet another child and parents. 

~ End of Chapter 1.