creepypasta origins

Insomnia: origin

  Axel Ludwig, born March 3rd 1981, had been a problematic kid ever since he learned to walk. Having been born to a policeman and a teacher, he was always taught to straighten up and behave, which, due to his childish nature, led him to do the complete opposite. He used to get in lots of fights at school, but it was never anything grave. That is, until he reached the age of eight, when he threw one of his classmates to the ground and stomped on the back of his head, breaking his teeth and dislocating his jaw. Axel's parents were called to the school to discuss the issue, and it resulted in the little boy getting grounded for a month.

Of course, this punishment was never fulfilled.

Thanks to the fact that both of his parents worked and went to bed early because of how exhausted they would be, Axel was able to sneak out on a daily basis to meet up with his friends. This disobedience continued throughout all of his adolescence and teenage years, when he spent most of his after-school time on the streets, even starting to smoke at the age of 13. Having grown up in Detroit, he had learned about the street life at an early age and even got involved in it to a certain point. He became a bully at school, leading one person to commit suicide in middle school. Axel didn't care. He didn't really care about anyone except for himself.

When he turned fifteen, Axel got caught up in a street gang that provided drugs, caused trouble and spread panic all throughout the city. The gang was infamous for setting cars and containers on fire and being able to evade the police every single time. Axel was unable to keep himself from feeling a certain degree of admiration for these people and begged for them to accept him in exchange for his unconditional loyalty. Gladly, the gang leader accepted and took Axel in with open arms.

And that is where everything went straight downhill.

Within a year, Axel was taught how to smuggle, steal, break bones and even kill. It ended up being such a normal thing to him that he wouldn't even blink twice before making up his mind and slitting someone's throat. Slowly but surely, Axel Ludwig was becoming a ruthless monster.

Axel's parents tried to get Axel to speak about where he hung out until very late every night, but the now young man always screamed and insulted them, even engaging in fist fights with his parents over the smallest of things. As a consequence, as soon as Axel turned eighteen, his parents threw him out. Still, Axel was able to rent a small flat downtown with the money he got from selling drugs and performing jobs for his gang. The flat was dirty and smelled an awful lot like humidity, but Axel was happy. It would be enough to keep going.

On the 18th of August, 2000, one of Axel's gang mates turned up dead, his body having been cut up into six pieces and spread over different containers throughout the whole neighborhood. On the forehead, a note had been stapled. It was a threat note, directed towards Axel's gang. A new street gang had emerged in the same neighborhood as his and was ready to engage in a fight with them over the territory and commerce. Of course, Axel's gang went straight for it, accepting their not-so-kind invitation.

When the conflict started off, it was more passive than everyone had expected. There were close to no encounters between the members of the two gangs, although the presence of the rivalry was obvious in the drug dealing sector. Deaths were a rare thing at the start, but as things went to worse, that gradually changed. Slowly, more and more armed encounters between the two gangs happened, and everything just got more and more violent and bloody. Axel strictly followed his gang's leader's orders, killing one person after the other, risking his own life without even thinking about it twice. If he were to exit the gang, they would surely kill him, plus, the other gang would still target him. They knew his face, and they'd never forget it. Axel was caught in a spiral of murder and despair that he could only get out if he were to exterminate every single one of their rivals.

Axel's life became a living nightmare. The stress of feeling like being watched and risking your life each time you set foot out of bed was crushing. Nevertheless, he pushed himself to keep going, for he had no other option. The death toll was raising mercilessly, and both gangs thinned out at an increasing speed. When a conveniently located time bomb detonated, killing Axel's gang's leader and his three potential successors, he was elected as the new leader. Feeling invincible with the power in his hands, he mandated his disciples around, often without giving it much thought, which led to his gang having the losing hand. Axel knew he was the prime target of their rival. That is why, when he died from a gas leak in his apartment on November 8th, 2003, he died believing he had been murdered.

Unable to return to his now lifeless body, his mind found itself stuck in the world of dreams for all eternity. Slowly, his body began to fade as his memory in the mind of those still alive vanished. He was destined to be forgotten, to vanish, to disappear completely from the world, leaving behind only a poorly buried corpse that would soon rot away and turn into dust.

But that never happened.

Axel lost his identity, having been forgotten by those still alive, but he hadn't forgotten anything. He remembered everything clearly. His parents. His gang. The fights he used to have in school. Anyone would expect him to miss those and regret his actions, but Axel was different. He didn't regret anything. All he was thinking about was murder, taking revenge upon whoever had supposedly killed him.

In order to achieve his vengeance, Axel's unsubstantial form soon learned how to enter other people's dreams and how to control them. He would toy around with their memories, with their personalities, before tearing them apart completely. He would strike fear into the hearts of his chosen victims every time they'd close their eyes. He started with the rival gang members, feeling a slight disappointment as they all either commited suicide out of desperation caused by the nightmares or got killed, without him having found his killer. Next, he moved onto haunting his own remaining gang members, and even his own parents, desperate to find his inexistent killer.

Ever since, Axel, commonly known under the name of Insomnia, has been haunting the dreams of those he suspects might've been his killer or remind him of any of his painful memories of when he was still alive. Even though he was forgotten, he will never forget. And he'll keep haunting until he finds his killer. That is his ultimate and only goal.

That is why his soul will never be able to rest in peace.  

Written by: burningfury6 on deviantart