The Ghost of Him

1. Murderer

*Gerard's POV*

Eight.

That's the number of people I have killed. Sometimes when I'm bored or laying in my makeshift bed at night trying to doze off, I sit there and count the people, run my mind over the images of their faces. Replay the moment I killed them in my mind.

Or, occasionally on those nights where I sit and wallow in self hatred and disgust, I lay there silently and think about the families that they might have had. The people who probably miss them.

Murder is bad. I know that, it's common sense. But part of me, that disgusting, twisted minded part of me, enjoys killing those people. And it's not like I necessarily want to kill those people. They just kind of.... Get in the way.

I guess sometimes I underestimate my own strength. That's pretty much how this whole downward spiral got started. I had been in school like any other seventeen year old kid at the time, but I wasn't exactly happy in my school environment. I mean, really, who is? But when you're bullied day in and day out... You reach a breaking point. For the majority of people, their breaking point ends in suicide. But for others... It ends in anger. That was my case.

This kid, I can't even really remember his name now, had been bullying me since middle school. And honestly, I put up with so much of his shit for so long, from the typical stolen lunch money to weekly/daily beatings on my walk home.

One day - and this day just happened to be my birthday isn't that nice? - he was following me home, calling me names and disgracing me and what have you, he tried to reach forward and grab my sketchbook. (Yes, I snapped over a fucking sketchbook. Get over it.) I was an extremely bottled up person, and I let out all of my emotions into that sketchbook in the form of art, there was no way I was going to let some douchebag get a hold of it and file through all of my personal feelings.

I somehow ended up facing his direction and grabbed his arm. This is where the underestimated strength comes from, because the next thing I knew there was a horrible cracking sound and his scream filled the small wooded area along the path we were on.

I remember looking at his loosely hanging arm, bewildered that I, Gerard Arthur Way, had somehow gathered up enough strength to break someone's arm. He lunged at me, and the next thing I remember is being on the ground and on top of him, both of us throwing punches towards each other; obviously, you can guess who had the advantage in the situation.

I grabbed at his broken arm and tightened my grip along the bone where it had snapped in two. He howled out in pain and that sick, twisted part of my was going mad, feeding off of his pain.

"You hear that? How does it feel to hear yourself crying out for help for once instead of me?" My grip tightened and several tears were spilling down his face. I couldn't stop myself at this point. It was long wanted, sweet revenge. "I'm done playing by your fucking rules. So I'm switching it up," I said lightly, releasing his arm and trailing my hand along his chest and up to his throat which my hand gripped once again. "This time, we're going to play by mine."

His eyes filled with fear and I remember feeling him kick at me and claw at my arms with his free hand, but my grip around his throat just kept getting tighter and tighter, that is until the kicking and clawing stopped.

I think the sick part of me diminished, because I remember hastily getting to my feet and stumbling back, away from his dead body. I had just killed a human. I ran my hands through my short, black hair at the time and found myself scared. I was scared of being sent to jail, of course, which was probably why I ran. I could always use the whole "self defense" thing to cut myself some slack, but even then I didn't exactly have evidence because none of his punches had even left marks on me.

Everyone in school knew that I had been his bait for, like, ever so I knew that I was going to be the first suspect when they found his body, and it didn't help that my DNA was crawling all over the guy's neck at the moment.

But I was mostly scared of myself at that point. I didn't know that I was capable of doing that, and I didn't know that I could ever be so... Taunting. I hardly ever spoke, but that side of me had never been revealed to anyone when I did, even myself. It was as if I wasn't even me anymore.

I figured if I ran long enough I would be able to get away from myself. Stupid, I know, but seventeen year old me wasn't thinking straight at all at that time. I don't know how long or how far I ran, but it must have been a lot because I got another wooded area and ran clear into the trees, and kept running until I got dizzy and had to stop. I don't really remember much after that.

I haven't been out of the woods since; somewhere along the line I ran into an abandoned little RV and I claimed it as my own. I used to wonder a lot about how my parents were coping with this, and my little brother. God, especially him; we used to be best friends. It must have been hard, me just disappearing on my birthday and then them finding out I had murdered someone....

I tried not to think about that very often though, because it led to me feeling alone and scared and lost.

I occasionally have to venture out into the nearby town and steal a few things, food, drinks, cigarettes. That's why I had to kill the other people. A few of them tried to turn me in, one had tried to rape me, and some others were following me back to my "home." Each time, the kills got more violent, messy, and, unfortunately, more enjoyable for me. The last person I killed had their abdomen sliced open, a slit throat, and my now signature broken jaw.

I knew the whole thing was getting out of hand, but part of me found it enjoyable and the other part of me didn't want to go to jail. I would be torn to pieces there: the scraggly little twenty year old who enjoyed killing people and was high key very afraid of being taken advantage of by people bigger than me.

I mean, sure I'm strong for my size and yeah, I can do a lot of harm but a lot of the people in jail are probably twice my everything. And since I had gotten stronger over the years of hiding out, it wasn't so much the fear as the want. I had no desire to go to jail. I would rather be free, out in the open. I didn't really consider myself a danger to people anyways, unless they got in my way.

I had been getting reckless with my hiding lately, though. A couple of miles away from where my RV is, there's a little path going through the woods where these girls walk to schoool. It's a small group of them, and I noticed them one day as I was about to head into town. I normally get up about once every couple weeks, walk the two or three miles to the trail, climb a tree or sit in a bush or something and just watch them walk by. It's creepy, I know, and I curse myself for doing it but in the back of my mind I know I would never actually do anything to them unless they caught me one day. I would never hurt them or be inappropriate with them, even though I will admit one or two of them who look like they are probably seniors in high school have caught my eye a few times. I mean, I might be a murderer, but I'm still a human being and I still get little crushes. And its not like I was ever going to be inappropriate with any of the girls or ever get a chance to; this was all just for my own amusement, and partially because during the several months I go without having to go steal food, this is the only sight of other people I get. And honestly it's kind of comforting.

But at the same time, risky and stupid. They were going to catch me one of these days and I would be fucking done for. And probably labeled as a sex offender or a pervert as well as a serial killer. I didn't need or want that.

Tonight was one of the quiet nights though. Where none of the thoughts went through my head and I just laid there, on the small uncomfortable bed of the RV, staring at the ceiling and listening to the noises outside. I loved the senses. Sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. I could just listen, or see or feel the beauty in something, like any normal person. Everyone had at least one of those senses. If they were the only thing people would judge each other for, it would be an okay world. Because everyone has heard, saw, tasted, smelled, or touched something that they found absolutely beautiful.

And that was my closest thing to being human anymore.