DERANGED (Jeff the Killer P.O.V and Romance)

It's one thing to live.

And it's another thing to die.

The art of experiencing them both is not a hard art to perfect; that is, if you mean physically. As beings, the minute we are born we begin to die. We age farther from living and inch closer to dying everyday. Every hour. Every minute. Every second, we spiral closer and closer to our demise. That part is easy.

Then there's the illusion of living. We say we are alive only because we are not literally dead (no pulse, no heartbeat). They call it "living in the moment," this, illusion of life. It's almost sickening. Death is a certanty, yet people pray on the sweet time zone between before and later, best known as the present, and selfishly consume it before it all ticks away. Many people believe they have cracked the code to this parrallel. They come up with sayings and exceptions.

They simply state: Get busy living, or get busy dying.

Fun quote if you can actually achieve this standard, but what do the rest of us do; the ones who cannot get busy living nor dying. What choices do we have? We are forced to walk as skeletons, shadowing through the crowds of living people. There are no other options, especially for a man like me.

For I am already dead and fading away as we speak...

***

If you're intrested in a recap of my life up until this point, I'll keep it simple.

I was born.

I was reborn.

I killed.

I still kill.

I found a girl, and lost myself.

Long story short, I'm back now. Right where I need to be.

Strange thing is though, I am not happy when I kill. It used to make me feel alive, and happy, and whole. But now, all I feel is empty pleasure. I cannot locate the source of this emptiness, only that it comes from within.

I grazed the streets calmly, fatigue catching fire with each step. That's how I have been feeling lately...

Fatigue.

My shoes feel heavy on my feet and the shelter in my mind between sanity and insanity have been breached in the most unattractive way, bringing me discomfort to say the least. I spend my days, killing emptily, just wishing I could find joy. But I cannot.

When I had first left the past behind, I found myself committing mindless killings. Every person to cross my line of vision had to go, classifying this streak of murders as a rampage. I had hit the lists early on im my fit of rage, earning a high profile. But after about a 6 years, my status has recieted. I knew that damned investagator hadn't stopped searching for me, and he never would. Which is why I ran from state to state, never staying in one place for too long, never cutting a clear pattern. I stayed low, and unpredicatable.

As for Sarah, I watched her for a month or two after our last encounter on that drab hotel roof. She was in the hospital for 6 weeks, gaining strength everyday. I had no clue why they had kept her so long after a minor stab wound, but the doctors had worked with her torso deligently in an impressive manner. I was intrigued, but decided it was best if I didn't know; I couldn't afford to get involved.  After she was released, someone came for her and they left the building together. That was the last I had seen her, and I hoped it would stay that way.

I found myself now, high up in the mountains. I had no purpose on the busy streets of the city; I had no purpose at all. I stopped killing as insanley as I had been not only to keep safe, but I found no use in numb killing; if I killed all of the citizens quickly and unhappily, what would be the point? I took refuge in a small abandoned cabin that was deligently shaded by pine trees and the forest underbrush. The days here were calm and pristeen, while the nights were eerie. Lately I had been taking my time to sleep in the mornings and afternoons, shifting most of my activity to the night life. I guess this wasn't strange, but it is considering I wasn't out at night killing. Instead I would lay by the river bed, listening to the intresting sounds the forest made. I would watch insects flicker about as the moon cascade its stolen light onto the wet river rocks. The way they glistened made my insides churn the way they had when I was around Sarah. The green mosses seemed to glow like her eyes as well. The wolves that occasionally prowled around had grown comfortable around me, sitting on opposite sides of the river. By now though, a couple would strut right by me, looking up just to nod then walk away. There was a time when one of them, a strange one, had sat next to me. I told him not to fear me, for we were one in the same; killers. It seemed the wolves were my closest companions here, in my own little world. There was also the lovely dawns here, that seemed to go on forever, and I admired the bright orange sky infused with the golden glow of the sun. That reminded me of her too. Small toads with little spots on their backs were her freckles, bringing back memories; I knew the pattern on her face by heart. I had made many connections between her and these woods. I guess it kept me slightly sane and calmed me when I felt numb.