The Vision Given From Below

A Mask of Flesh

Chapter 1

Mask of Flesh

It's odd how humans cage their own kind for having different thoughts than them or if they have uncontrollable urges. They are all here; psychopaths, murderers, sociopaths, etc. They are all locked away here along with their thoughts and souls. There are hundreds of rooms and endless corridors branching out into each room.
Screams from deep inside broken souls of grown men whose eyes has seen sights that penetrate their eyes into their brain. Into their soul, imprinting the memory to forever be remembered.
I've wondered these corridors for years and years since my birth, I think my parents were both eaten by hungry savages. I've been alone for quite some while, and I thirst to talk to someone. Anyone.
I would say it was about midday( I didn't know if it was, the sun is never seen here), I heard a man weeping from room 328. There was a little crack on the wall that was just enough so that I can pass to see the man. He was a white man, covered in filth from head to toe. His skin, no different from the texture of the ground, had scars of what appeared to be bullet wounds on his chest and stomach. His hair color had faded with the lack of sunlight. He was bundled on his bed sitting, weeping and mumbling. Suddenly he let out a cry.
"Why couldn't have I have stopped them," he yelled. "Why oh why!" His face had turned red, barely noticeable with all the dust and dirt. I creeped closer and closer to him, eager to know his crime.
Then the most odd thing happened, his human voice had vanished and a demon within him awoke.
"He deserved it." His voice had become deepened and colder. "That bastard had it coming to him."
I slowly approached him, listening to his trembling voice switch from human to demon.
His shirt was torn up of to the side with a name tag, it read "Gen. Hernandez" with 5 stars over it. I moved a few inches forward little by little.
Without warning, his body seemed to tremble, and for a moment I thought he was going to have a seizure.
But just as his body began to shake he stopped. His face morphed into a darker color. A crimson color.
His face morphed from a dirt covered human injured face to one of a monstrous creature. Blood began to come out of his eyes, nose, ears.
Being quiet is never a bad thing . A murderer never plans a murder a loud.
"He had it coming," he said one last time calmly, with no rush, the deed was already imprinted in the history of this world.
"Why do you cry sir," I said as gently as I could to prevent the demon from answering me instead of himself.

His head spin, looking, scanning for the origin of the voice.

"Who's there?" He said frightened and with a human voice.

"Down here."

He looked down at me. He had a scar slashed through his haze colored eye into his faded pink colored lips. There was innocents in him. He was afraid, nothing a demon would want to posses.

"Why do you cry Sir," I repeated.

"I...lost...control..I couldn't stop myself from doing it," he said remembering the burden in him. His soul is more scared than his physical body.

The words "What did you do?" floated out of my mouth and glided into his ear. Such a simple phrase that anyone can say and cause no commotion. It was like a speck of dust that caught fire and drifted onto a fuse of explosives.

He processed these words in his mind, as if I asked for more than what he can give me. The demon revealed itself once more, consuming the weak and poor soul, using it only as a host to maintain itself alive. His eyes grew wide and red. His face grinned of satisfaction and his body twisted inhumanely as he stood up and rushed towards me.

"You want to know why I killed that bastard?" He asked as his nose, eyes, and ears began to bleed again. "I'll tell you why I killed him! We were very good friends but he replaced me with someone who was 'more important' than I was! We would have a had a company together, we would have been rich, but he had to get married to that whore! So I barged into his house at 3 am and simply shot his wife! Then I sliced his throat and hung his head on my wall to play darts with! The body I just fed to my dogs, no big deal!"

Blood was now dripping from his face and I had to dodge the droplets. His face was red from the excited of remembering the courses he had dismembered. But suddenly, again the demon began to fade back into his soul to rest once more. His face became pale and his lips white. His eyes had regained the innocence it once had and full of regret of the deed.

"I blinked... and I was covered in blood," said the trembling human. "The police surrounded me with firearms and threw me to the ground with handcuffs. I was taken to prison for a while at first, but he doesn't leave me alone. His voice echos in the corners of my brain and soul. My cellmate did nothing to me... once again I blinked....he was torn to shreds. I had pieces of flesh in my teeth. Blood was smeared in my face and clothes. I could taste it all throughout my mouth."

"It's tasted so good..." it responded from the shadows. "It was a feast! Those with poor souls taste best in this world than in hell!"

The body twisted more than before, dislocating its back and arms to form a backwards arch. His mouth widened like that of a snake ready to feed.

"Would you like to know how it feels, to be torn to shreds," the thing asked so calmly as if it was an everyday routine. His voice had got from human, to demon, to the devil himself face to face with me.

Before it could make a move that would cost me my life, I raced to the crack, my only gateway away from this monster that devours the souls and body of the innocent.

I heard his feet leave the cold moist cement of a floor as he leaped at me for a pounce. I dived for the crack, the small window of hope. I shut my eyes and hoped for the best. It happened so quick.

"Bash!" The sound echoed through the corridor.

I opened my eyes, I have made it through the crack and into safety.

"Don't leave me alone with him ,please!" he pleaded in agony and despair. But I knew who was hidden behind the mask of flesh, blood, and bones. I never visited room 328 again. The will to survive didn't let me.