Chilling Details

Blood.
It was all I saw in that early morning light; practically everywhere from the splatter on the wall to the pool on the floor and the body, that lifeless body, floating in it. As I looked at the body, marinating in its blood, I got this strange feeling of both joy and horror. I have done this job for many years now and still this feeling never goes away. I looked around at the walls, unsatisfied at how bare they were. His signature had to be left and he liked it in blood. I looked down to my hands, the left having dry splatters of blood while the right, still holding the knife, was soaked in the now drying sticky, red liquid. There wasn’t enough and the pool wouldn’t work either. Walking over to the cabinet, I grabbed a bowl, bent over the body (it was female, probably in its late thirties), and slit a wrist. I hated doing this, but if I didn’t he would get angry. After filling the bowl, I went to work. During these times, I would let my mind wander. Most of the time, though, I would try and remember my past life. A young, naïve child with no cares in the world - who played a game that ultimately changed his life forever. His family was brutally murdered while he watched from afar, scared out of his mind. The doll who killed everyone came over to the boy and asked, “Will you join me? If you do, I will spare you.” Not knowing the consequences and being too scared to say no, I joined. My family was stuffed, sewn up, and became mindless slaves while I kept my consciousness and killed. But sometimes I wonder if it would have been better to say no, to become a mindless corpse slave or to kill while conscious? A question that has never been answered. After I finished the walls, I placed the bowl by the female and looked at her one last time before she was stuffed and sewn. I walked upstairs and looked in the first room. Two boys about the same age lay dead in their room. The one on the upper bed lay with his torso over the edge while the other’s legs stuck out from under the bottom bed. I headed to the big room where a man in his underwear lay face down on the floor. Try as he might, I won. And finally to the last room, the room from whence I came, the room of a girl. She, of all her other family members, was the worst of all. When I came out of the TV, she was not afraid. She sat determined to fight back, but like her father, she did not win. And for her bravery and her denial to join, she had to be… stitched up Before I left, I looked at her one last time. The blood from the stitches now dry, her face wet from the tears she cried, and the now lifeless eyes that she stared at me with, all kindled an emotion that I thought I would never have again: pity.

I looked away and stepped back into the game to wait for another victim, another naïve child.