Hi, this is my first pasta. I would appreciate any feedback anyone could give me.

Thanks!

Part 1: Music

"Think I'm gonna kill myself
Cause a little suicide
Stick around for a couple of days
What a scandal if I died"

Victor could relate with Elton John.

He laid awake on the couch, a blue quilted blanket pulled up to his stomach. His hands
fumbled around with a 20 year-old Rubik's Cube he found on a table in the other room. He
was looking outside a window at the morning Vermont treetops outside the cabin.

"Fuck... my... life...” he whispered to himself.

The classic rock station played quietly on a set of speakers in the middle of the room. Victor
hated that type of music, but he was too tired and didn't care enough to get up and change the station.

"I'd make an exception
If you want to save my life
Brigitte Bardot gotta come
And see me every night"

Elton was finishing up his song, but Victor didn't care. Victor's mind was too preoccupied
with his father. More specifically, hating his father. Every year it happened again. Being dragged up to Vermont for the weekend to waste 2 days of his life lying around his father's old bug-infested cabin under the sweltering Summer sun with nothing to do. He thought of his friends inviting him to laser tag and pizza and himself begrudgingly turning down the invitation because of the trip. This particular thought infuriated him the most.

"Shit!” he yelled. It didn't matter if he yelled, as his father had gone out to collect firewood in
the forest 15 minutes ago and he wouldn't be back for an hour and a half.

"Fuck! Bitch! Cunt! Twat! My dad sucks dicks!"

With that last one couldn't help but chuckle to himself.

He sucked in as much air as he could and screamed; "Stewart Johnston is a motherfucking cocksucker!"

Cursing his father's name calmed him down a bit. There was no way anyone could hear him,
the nearest neighbor was more than a half hour away and his father was also well out of
earshot of Victor's ramblings.

"Drive me insane, trouble is gonna come to you,
One of these days and it won't be long"

Elton John had made way for Led Zeppelin, and this is where Victor drew the proverbial line.
He finally got up to switch off the radio. "You'll look for me but baby, I'll be gone.
This is all I gotta say to you woman-"

Victor ignored what Robert Plant had to say and turned off the radio.

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It was not darkness, it was more like blindness. Still, silent, brooding, blindness.
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Part 2: Decision

Victor mostly spent his time in the cabin pacing around the living to the kitchen, flipping
through his dad's old Playboy magazines, or trying in vain to fall asleep once again. The
Rubik's Cube provided a small means of stimulation as well. He alternated between these
activities for a half hour before he had the idea of going outside.

Eventually he forced himself to take a shower and throw on a new pair of clothes. He also
decided to bring along his camera he packed just in case he found anything of interest outside, which he doubted. At this moment he remembered something his father said to him rightbefore he departed for wood. He usually disregarded most of what his father said, but the reason Victor could recall this particular warning so well is the way his father had said it before he had walked out the door, axe in hand.

"And Vic, please, don't go fucking around in the forest."

He had said in a slow, pleading voice that was reserved for only the most important matters,
and his 16 year-old son poking around sections of very secluded Vermont woods was one of
them. Nevertheless, even with that grave warning Victor's chronic boredom was more
important to him than his moronic dad's concerns. Still, those words continued to play in his
mind repeatedly as he stepped off the cabin porch onto the dew-covered grass.

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Each step was a tremor. And each one was stronger than the last. It started to quiver. It was a matter of time.
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Part 3: Fork

Walking alone was one of the things that Victor genuinely enjoyed in his life. It made him feel
like he was running away, albeit for a little while. He walked down a forest trail leading away
from the cabin for 15 minutes before coming to a fork in the trail. He decided to go down
each path to preview it and then determine which one to stay with.

The path to the left was more of the same, trees upon trees. The path to the right however,
lead to what seemed like a large open field Victor had never before seen on his father's
property. Naturally, Victor chose the more interesting option and went on the right path.

As he was walking, Victor thought back to in the cabin when he was hurling obscenities at the ceiling when he started cursing his father's name. Victor felt a pang of shame and regret at that thought. All his father wanted was to spend time with his son at his cabin. And what did Victor do? Act like an ungrateful prick. He decided he would apologize to his father when he saw him later. Then maybe they could chop wood together. Until then, Victor would walk on into the field.

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There wasn't much time left. The tremors were now replaced with full-blown earthquakes. It
could hardly contain itself.
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Part 4: Encounter

Victor felt very small in the field. He felt like a young child. He understood this feeling, but
didn't understand the other feeling he was experiencing. It sort of felt like he belonged here.
He looked down by his sneakers and saw a yellow Frisbee. Victor pulled out his camera,
turned it on, and snapped a picture. It was the first interesting thing he had seen since he  left the cabin 20 minutes ago.

Victor picked up the Frisbee and studied it for a moment. All at once a memory came rushing
back to him of his father throwing a Frisbee and Victor hobbling after it in his backyard. It
must have been a decade since that had happened. Once more Victor felt like he wanted to
see his father again and decided he should back to the cabin. After all, his father may come
home early and discover that Victor had disobeyed him. But then again, that happened most
all the time.

But before he went, Victor decided to throw the Frisbee and chase after it for old time's sake.
He pulled back, let go, and watched the yellow dot soar across the sky. And at once, Victor
was off. The Frisbee had landed about 100 yards away in the middle of a hayfield. He started to sprint towards the Frisbee. He was able to make it to about 75 yards before he was stopped. Victor kept his head down while running, which he had heard was good for your form. Unfortunately, it also caused to run head-first into something tall rushing toward him.

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The boy had flown a short distance away. It had gone perfectly. There was nothing left to do.
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Part 5: Annul

He came to many hours later lying on the ground, as it was just beginning to get dark. He could taste blood in his mouth and feel blood on his forehead. He reached into his jacket pocket to check on him camera. He determined it was fine and tried to stand up. This was when he realized his leg was broken. He looked at it unbelievingly for a moment before attempting to stand. He immediately regretted this as a unbearable pain seared through his body and he fell to the ground. Victor finally knew he had to get home before something worse happened to him.

He surveyed the land the best he could for a few moments before he saw it. It was a large brown blur several yards in front of him. Victor pulled out his camera and took a picture of the blur so he wouldn't have to get close to it to identify it. He switched the camera to preview mode and saw the object in better detail.

What he saw encompassed him with panic. Reality slipped from him as his chest throbbed and pulsated with terror. He sat in the grass and stared at the picture slack-jawed for several seconds before his vision returned to normal. He slowly turned off the camera and slipped it into his pocket. Victor looked up to meet the wooden figure's invisible gaze.

Victor could hear it in his head. It spoke in a soft, reedy voice.

"Come."

Victor's primal instincts took over and he tried to crawl away. He absentmindedly threw the

camera into the nearby tall grass. At this point he thought of his father, sucked in as much air as he could, and screamed. "Daaaaaaaaaad!"

"Victooooor!"

Victor was shocked and relieved at the same time to hear this. A few moments later he saw his father running towards him as fast as he could.

"Dad! My think I broke my leg!"

"Hold on a second, let me see..." was his father's reply as he got closer.

Stewart Johnston then slowed to a jog as he came within a few yards of Victor.

"Dad, what the fuck is that thing?" Victor asked as he pointed to the wooden figure.

"I don't know, but we have to get you out of here."

Victor closed his eyes and exhaled a large, shaky breath of relief.

Once Stewart reached Victor, he walked up to him, swung back his axe, and plunged it deep into his son's skull.

The last thing Victor ever saw was his father's face as he struggled to remove the axe from his skull. The worst thing about it wasn't that he had a maniacal grin or that he was laughing like a madman, but it was that he looked indifferent. Like he was reading the newspaper or stuck in traffic, and not slaying his son with a rusty axe.

Victor's life spilled out of him and his body went limp. The axe was finally freed and was promptly dropped on the ground. Stewart kneeled down by his son's corpse and checked for a pulse. After a minute he picked up the body and walked towards the Rootman.
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Epilogue

In the cabin there was a strong smell of gasoline as Stewart closed the front door and locked it behind him. The match he lit had ignited the gasoline and soon the entire building was in flames. In the living room the radio continued to play until it was destroyed by the flames several minutes later.

"Yeah, we all need someone we can bleed on
Yeah, and if you want it, baby, well you can bleed on me
Yeah, we all need someone we can bleed on
Yeah, yeah, and if you want it, baby, why don'cha b-"

All that remained a few hours later was a giant smoldering pile of ash.

It was a long drive from the cabin remains to Stewart's other house in Massachusetts. He had another identity he could use there if they ever managed to ID the body, but he doubted that.He looked out his window as he drove away from the scene and saw the Rootman turn its head towards him. It spoke.

"Better than last time..."

Stewart looked away and turned on the radio.

"...thank you Jamie. In other news today marks the fourth time that an unidentified body was found in the neighboring county of Rutland. This most recent discovery is the second time this year and fourth overall. The body had its head and hands removed and had been tied to some sort of wooden effigy and burned, just as the other victims were found. Curiously the effigy was not located at the scene, though officers found large tracks leading away from the body and into the nearby forest. This was reported with the other murders, but at this scene the tracks seemed slightly larger. Investigators had determined that the victim had been struck repeatedly with axe and that this had mostly likely had been the cause of death. A suspect has not been made in connection with this case, and investigators are urging anyone with information to call 86-"

Stewart turned off the radio and smiled.

"Jesus, the creeps in this world..."

He had to pull over so he could put his hands on his face and laugh.

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