Divine Darkness

Chapter 9

Despair.

It was an even more delicious concept than fear or especially death.

Naturally, fear is the basic reaction to something or someone deemed dangerous or harmful, induced by a chemical that raises the heart rate severely. When one feels fear, they unconsciously activate the fight-or-flight response, an instinct that is essential to any creature's survival. Different sections of the brain work to produce responses to fear. The amygdala stores memories of fear, whereas the hypothalamus produces said fight-or-flight response. Overall, people do not consciously feel fear or are aware of it until it runs its course; one cannot actively decide whether or not they feel fear.

Death is an interesting ideal. Once the human body, being as frail as it is, reaches a certain point, the flesh and cells inside the body start to rot and decay until it is reduced to nothing but ash. Several ways to die are still unknown to mankind, which is why death is so captivating. Sometimes even the simplest cut can develop into a neverending bloodbath if the blood does not clot normally. Death, like fear, cannot be chosen.

Unlike the both of those two concepts, people can decide if they feel despair. The feeling known as despair generally comes about from a lack of salvation. Despair may coexist with both fear and death; when someone believes they are going to die, they may not always shudder in fear, but rather lose all hope. One does not have to fear the hopelessness that comes with despair, but they will choose as to whether they acknowledge their disposition or not. Because of this flexibility, despair can be illuded or adjusted to varying degrees.

That was what was so tantalizing about murdering Jack Watson's wife to Acelia. No, he did not suffer death himself, nor did he fear her. Rather than horrifying him or killing him, she wanted to allow him the sweet taste of despair. The hopeless expression on his face was the most magnificent form of art ever, especially when he submitted to her and became her pet.

However, she had her fun with Watson. Sadly, she needed to proceed with the task at hand: acquiring the hard drive containing all military base locations from Mikaela Bridges' house. Who would have thought that the woman who was after her to begin with had exactly what she was looking for?

As she expected heavy security, Acelia parked the minivan far to the left curb in front of the house across the street, for the sake of appearing inconspicuous. After she exited the vehicle and stepped out into the street, her eyes rested on the red brick house in front of her.

Mikaela's house had a seemingly classic, plain feel to it. A single shingle dusty black roof rested atop the structure, colonial style windows built in on either side. It lacked any sort of chimney, so that discarded any chances of slinking in from above. Also, as Acelia observed the rims of the windows, she noticed a leather covering wrapped tightly around them. Within the wrapping, she caught a faint glow, as if a camera's light was concealed.

Acelia kept her violet eyes trained on the leather covering forming around the windows' perimeters, her mind working furiously as she tried to figure out how the cameras worked inside of the leather. "Hmm, I wouldn't put it past Ms. Bridges to have installed a security camera's microchip in the interior of her house. Perhaps she has an entire mainframe surveillance network running through the veins of her house."

It was all coming together. Acelia knew what needed to be done. In a fit of excitement, she hurried over to the rear of her minivan and ripped the backdoors open. Within the van, there were various duffel bags filled with unknown contents. Acelia leaned over toward the specific bag and greedily snatched it out from the van, closing the double doors shut afterward.

Dropping the bag onto the street with a loud thud, she started fidgeting around in it, finally pulling out what she was looking for: a remote rerouter. The clever device was used to manipulate video feed from any form of surveillance technology.