(Note: More than anything, I'd like to hear criticism. I'm still editing this, so I need to know what doesn't sound right, and what doesn't make sense. One thing I have been criticized for is moving too quickly--but I'm not sure if that's the case here. At any rate, this is just something I've done on my spare time.)
The events of recent times are a vast jumble for me, and I still have difficulty piecing them together within my own mind. I am fairly sure of the details, yet I am shocked to now realize what has passed. I can scarcely believe, either, the number of years I spent living under the oppressive shadow of this “thing.” I question why I never took permanent leave of my apartment during these years—certainly it would have been difficult from a financial perspective, but it was by no means infeasible. I suppose there was a certain quality about the entire matter which drew me in and made me feel as though I must bear through it for as long as necessary. In honesty, I think I would have found its presence inescapable had I challenged it.
The “thing” I have alluded to was the manifestation of a night-specter in my apartment, who, for many years I believed I fancied thumped, scratched, and crawled about endlessly within the walls of my bedroom at night—only coming out occasionally to walk about in the deepest hours of the night, long after I have resigned to a night’s rest. Awakened from this sleep at odd intervals, I have, for years, often been witness to this image: the figure of a deathly thin and corpse-like person silhouetted from the light in my window, robed only in ragged, non-descript grey garments and an exceeding abundance of wiry hair of the same color, which obscured its facial features, if it had any. It had a rough, outwardly resemblance to that of a woman, but by no means an attractive one, even from as little as I could discern in the moonlit room—the frame was hunched, rigid spine visible, and the legs bowed at a strange angle as if they were broken. I cannot say where it appeared from, for it was simply always there when I awoke, and ceased to be when the sun rose. It walked about the room in an awkward, noisy, pained gait, pausing at intervals to stand erect—as best it could, at least—at different locations. It would retire, perhaps, into a dark corner of the room, barely visible, where I would find it upon waking, or it would stand directly in front of the window, making its presence apparent all at once, or, even yet, the bizarre creature would pause overlooking my bedside, wheezing hoarsely in that way it did, shrouded face pointed directly toward me, spindly grey hairs inches away from contact. I could not help but feel as though it was accusing me of something in this horrifying way, and I was always too overcome with fear to make the slightest movement.
I have said that the specter also crawled within the walls of my room when it was not visible to me. Oftentimes, these instances were even more frightening than when I beheld the monster near to me, for it apparently scuttled about with amazing haste within the walls, uncharacteristic of its awkward, pained gait from within my room. I can tell you that I did at first believe that there were two specters because of this. However, I have been led to believe that it was indeed the very same creature, only heightened and exhilarated from being within its proper element. For instance, always, during its frenzied thrashings at night, I heard the noises it made emanating from corresponding parts of the room—sometimes to the right of me, sometimes to the left, far above, or below, or in a hidden corner of the room. I once, foolishly, went so far as to place myself near the source of these noises, so as to hear them more clearly. The louder noises ceased when I came nearer, and I soon heard two new sounds—one after the other. First, a subtle, rusty, springing noise that seemed to confirm that, while no activity was now present, there indeed had been just recently. Second, I heard hoarse wheezing from inside the wall, in every way identical to that which was produced by my bedside. I recognized this immediately, and was made alert. I also came to the delayed, yet terrifying realization that the sudden cease of activity within the walls had been in answer to my proximity to the monster—that is, it must have known exactly where I was, and what I had been trying to do. I wavered there momentarily in the dark near its breathing, unable, for the life of me, to decide what I should do next. The breathing grew hoarser, as if trying to say something, and quickly rose to the level of a high, womanly shriek of not fear, but of monstrous, idiotic glee. I could have said it sounded like laughter, but... such was clearly not the case, as you might have noticed had you heard it yourself. It was, as I have said, truly idiotic, as if it came from the throat of one criminally deranged. There was only one syllable to it, and no change in pitch—almost like the bleating of an animal—and also something else truly wrathful evident within its character. Immediately the shriek was joined by loud thrashings signifying the creature’s return to its activities just as before, now with much more fervor. I jumped quickly back under my sheets, and the thrashings continued the rest of that night, much louder than they ever had been, and now accompanied by bursts of that horrible, repetitive shriek. It may not even be worth noting that I could not sleep at all that night, only lay awake in absolute dread until the sounds ceased with the rising of the sun. From that point on—almost like a punishment for my curiosity—I would hear that awful shrill noise repeat endlessly every time the monster materialized itself.
Of course, I had reason, back then, to believe that these torturous visitations were purely the makings of my own imagination—the most implicating evidence being, of course, my drug abuse in my twenties. It is not too difficult to imagine that these alarming sounds and visions, as clear as they might have been, were merely the by-product of roughly a decade’s worth of addiction to hallucinogens (I had of course quit long before these incidents occurred, but I assumed they continued to happen because a lot of irreparable damage had been done.) Additionally, its wanderings up to this point had been completely at random, and aside from the frightening nature of the visitations, had been harmless—for I always found the room unchanged the following morning, and I, none the worse myself. Furthermore, many of the specter’s activities (such as its noisy migration through the walls) were proven impossible by certain facts about my apartment which I inquired upon. Let me explain: for many years I have lived alone in an apartment in the more impoverished part of town. The outer frame of this building is very old, but only the outer frame. The inside has long since been hollowed out and redone in such a way as to accommodate very cheap housing, so the walls between rooms are exceedingly thin—perhaps close to two or three inches—and there is no reason to believe that something the size of the specter (about the size of an average person) could fit within them or move about so dexterously inside. Also, because the flimsy nature of the walls, it is common for someone in one room to hear what goes on in his neighbor’s. I have questioned many tenants about loud and bizarre sounds issuing from the walls (of course doing so in such a way as to not draw attention toward myself), and not one of them ever noticed anything like it. The appearance of the specter inside my room is also inexplicable, due to there being no passageway, visible or hidden (I inquired about the latter to be sure) large enough for its entry. The only reasonable source could have been the ventilation hole, and this, aside from being very small, was covered by metal grating that had been screwed on quite firmly. I satisfied myself with the idea that even if such a creature as I had imagined could have possessed the intelligence to enter through this method, I would have easily been able to tell by the sound of metal hitting the floor.
However, my investigations never put an end to the nightly visitations. It had been easy to deny them while they were infrequent, but that was changing rapidly through the course of years—and now they occurred nearly four days out of the week. I found myself unable to remain comfortable at home, or to focus on work. What were these occurrences? Why so vivid? Indeed, if they were only a product of my mind, what did they represent? I pondered myself haggard over these and many other beleaguering questions, and this eventually led me to the strange, accusing manner with which the monster regarded me—and so I thought, searchingly, “this most surely must be related to my own guilt or regret over some matter long past... but what? What?”
I came to nothing. It was inevitable. I could not understand the nature of this madness—no matter whether it was simply my own, or otherworldly. And because of this, I only felt myself further consumed by it.
Let me forward to the previous month: by this time, the haunts had become chronic, and I felt myself becoming more absorbed than ever. I took leave from work so that I could devote to the creature all my time and energy (I do not remember if I slept during this period), and I waited, every hour of every day, for the coming of nightfall with a mixture of anxiety and morbid enthusiasm. No matter what the cost, I had to bear myself directly to this madness—I felt as though I absolutely must.
Always, always at night I was greeted by the chilling presence of the creature through either the horrid racket it produced, or its inexplicable appearance coupled with that horrible, repetitive, mono-syllabic shriek. Leaving the lights on and staying out of the bedroom amounted to nothing, I might add. When it appeared, the lights would shut off, and it would find me. My hopeless fear of it turned to pure hatred as days passed, and thus I soon came to the realization that whenever the creature made itself visible I was kept in a state of unexplained paralysis while it moved freely about me in the dark. I could be sitting in a chair, or standing, but no matter. It seemed to be ridiculing me as it presented itself in such a casual manner—listlessly ambling by unconcerned with my being there on some occasions; staring face-to-face with me for hours on others.
As I watched it before me night after passing night like this, powerless, I was filled with nothing but the most venomous anger, and struck with the insatiable desire to beat the life out of the terrible thing through whatever means possible—but my muscles refused me, and I could do nothing. I could do nothing when the beast was not visible to me, either. I was free to move about then, of course, but this did not abate my ever-rising temper. I simply ran about the room in a fury, screaming and pounding on the walls in a frustrated search for where I might find it—and this, only to its heightened content. It shrieked with all that inhuman delight which it had expressed months past, thrashing even harder than I thought possible. I swear it entertained itself by moving through the walls and ceiling faster than I could keep up. Surely it mocked me knowingly.
Eventually, I was allowed the chance to break free of my paralytic bonds and act out on my violent feelings; though at the time I did not understand how or why. I did not care to question, though, preoccupied as I was with my wicked intentions. I had stood by silent and immobile for far, far too long, and my only thought was to put an end to all this. Indeed, I killed the creature with my bare hands and with the whole of the wrath contained in them. After seizing the creature by the arms, I threw it to the ground, making sure the back of its head struck the corner of a nearby end table. I had expected more resistance, but was undaunted, and continued, crushing its unexpectedly fragile ribcage with my feet, then beating its head many times more upon the same corner of the end table until blood came out. It struggled quite a lot during all this, flailing its limbs about madly and shrieking with greater volume than I cared to hear, but this availed it nothing. It was pathetically weak compared to myself—helpless. When it had ceased movement and my thoughts began to clear, I wondered if this really had been the creature that had troubled me for so long. I became curious about its facial features, which I had never seen before, and were presently still obscured by its hair. I unburied them, and found that it had none. Its face was a pale—and now bloody—featureless orb.
I was fairly unsurprised. I did not expect this, exactly, but on the other hand, I hadn’t at all expected anything remotely human. Furthermore, I hadn’t found these features quite as shocking as I anticipated. I began to feel unsatisfied with the way I had killed the monster—I almost pitied it. It seemed, somehow, anti-climactic.
When at last I turned away from the corpse, I was immediately met by an absolute chorus of shrieking. Dozens of voices, all identical to that of the specter’s, rung through my apartment from all directions—and now I knew for certain I was being mocked. I searched the room madly, and in vain, while this insanity continued. Eventually, I burst out of my room exasperated, into the apartment hallway—and found something more was amiss. The walls, the floor, the ceiling; everything was black and white in coloration, sort of like a monochrome photograph—but not quite—for extremely bright portions of the area, such as a window or light socket, were directly adjacent to extremely dark places, such as doorways and most of the hallway. There was no middle ground between these two extremes, and so I found that while I was being blinded, my vision was cut off by the darkness. Immediately I lost my sense of location. I stumbled about gropingly for a moment. And soon I noticed several grey figures before me, hunched, featureless, and seemingly identical—the only objects of actual depth. No amount of shrieking, I must add, had quelled from the moment I left my apartment onward. If anything, it had increased, and I noticed a great amount of it was coming from the direction of this party. I immediately recognized them as my aggressors, and I was filled anew with violent and irreconcilable wrath. I took a mad dash at them, knocking one over and beating it into bloody submission. They—all of them—retorted with the loudest, most horribly inhuman racket one could have imagined, and for this, I grew even more enraged. They dispersed into different parts of the long hallway, apparently aware of their newly exposed weakness against me. It was a poor defense, however, because as there was no cease in their screaming, I could hunt them by ear. And this I did, in a blind, raging madness, for what seemed like hours but could have been only a few moments. I was relentless in my pursuit of them—far worse than they had been to me, perhaps. The dead lay innumerable.
My senses came back to me much, much later on, and only once I had satisfied myself with the deaths of my final victims. I was in a bedroom—not my own—with the slowly dying body of a very young woman on the floor at my feet. My quarry, so to speak, had not entirely been what I thought it to be.
I was in a rocking chair overlooking her in silence. She had already bled a very large quantity of her own blood, and was lying in it. She was far beyond help. Her pale and bruised body quivered every so often, with its final, fading pulses of life. Far beyond grief, I simply mused about how such a delicate thing could have, through the efforts of tireless love and human compassion on the part of her nameless parents, been born and raised through the long years of her youth, only to now, barely into the full bloom of adulthood, be killed so brutally and senselessly by a total stranger such as myself. And I was struck by how meaningless everything seemed to be at that moment. She must have had similar thoughts—or at least I wished she had—as her unblinking eyes pointed at me from the floor, eventually into eternity. Her death had been mechanical—as close to, and as concrete as the splitting of wood, or a spine. How condemnable could such a simple act have been? I felt as though I had not been present when my killing spree occurred—but, all the same, what is done is unchangeable. The results were directly in front of me: she and I were both covered in blood, but only she was covered only in her own.
My actions could not possibly have gone unnoticed, of course, and I was shortly apprehended by several officers who led me outside. I complied, numbly, and as I stepped out of the bedroom I gave one final glance to the corpse of the young lady—in particular to her face, which was bloody and pale, and obscured by matted hair. At a distance it looked indistinct and featureless—almost like an orb.
At my trial, which was a short one, I learned that I had begun my killing spree by murdering the aged cleaning lady, who entered my room at noon when I did not answer to her call. My blinds had all been drawn closed by myself, and apparently I had lost all sense of time because of it. I suppose this also explains the surreal effect I encountered upon leaving for the outside, since I must have been ill-adjusted to a normal level of light for days. The landlord and some of my neighbors were gathered around my door after hearing the disturbance. They I had killed, as well as many other people.
I am aghast by the gruesome crimes I committed that day. I am surprised, too, by the extraordinarily cruel manner of the killings. I have never associated myself with such cold-blooded qualities, and neither could I have imagined myself possessing such inhuman might and tenacity. I was consumed by such animal hatred that I willed it to happen—all of it. I have, sensibly, pleaded my case as insanity.
But, it does not end there—it hasn’t ended. I am still haunted by the specter—the authentic—to this day, every day within my cell. Still the same loud thrashings during the night, and still the same awkward, pained stroll about me while I remain paralyzed—and it seems as though this shall never cease. But, I can at last appreciate that I now understand why the creature haunts me. My guilt may have been delayed from the time I first beheld the creature, but it always knew. It knew. I can never forget what I have done out of anger. That was my sin—my only real sin.
The events of recent times are a vast jumble for me, and I still have difficulty piecing them together within my own mind. I am fairly sure of the details, yet I am shocked to now realize what has passed. I can scarcely believe, either, the number of years I spent living under the oppressive shadow of this “thing.” I question why I never took permanent leave of my apartment during these years—certainly it would have been difficult from a financial perspective, but it was by no means infeasible. I suppose there was a certain quality about the entire matter which drew me in and made me feel as though I must bear through it for as long as necessary. In honesty, I think I would have found its presence inescapable had I challenged it.
The “thing” I have alluded to was the manifestation of a night-specter in my apartment, who, for many years I believed I fancied thumped, scratched, and crawled about endlessly within the walls of my bedroom at night—only coming out occasionally to walk about in the deepest hours of the night, long after I have resigned to a night’s rest. Awakened from this sleep at odd intervals, I have, for years, often been witness to this image: the figure of a deathly thin and corpse-like person silhouetted from the light in my window, robed only in ragged, non-descript grey garments and an exceeding abundance of wiry hair of the same color, which obscured its facial features, if it had any. It had a rough, outwardly resemblance to that of a woman, but by no means an attractive one, even from as little as I could discern in the moonlit room—the frame was hunched, rigid spine visible, and the legs bowed at a strange angle as if they were broken. I cannot say where it appeared from, for it was simply always there when I awoke, and ceased to be when the sun rose. It walked about the room in an awkward, noisy, pained gait, pausing at intervals to stand erect—as best it could, at least—at different locations. It would retire, perhaps, into a dark corner of the room, barely visible, where I would find it upon waking, or it would stand directly in front of the window, making its presence apparent all at once, or, even yet, the bizarre creature would pause overlooking my bedside, wheezing hoarsely in that way it did, shrouded face pointed directly toward me, spindly grey hairs inches away from contact. I could not help but feel as though it was accusing me of something in this horrifying way, and I was always too overcome with fear to make the slightest movement.
I have said that the specter also crawled within the walls of my room when it was not visible to me. Oftentimes, these instances were even more frightening than when I beheld the monster near to me, for it apparently scuttled about with amazing haste within the walls, uncharacteristic of its awkward, pained gait from within my room. I can tell you that I did at first believe that there were two specters because of this. However, I have been led to believe that it was indeed the very same creature, only heightened and exhilarated from being within its proper element. For instance, always, during its frenzied thrashings at night, I heard the noises it made emanating from corresponding parts of the room—sometimes to the right of me, sometimes to the left, far above, or below, or in a hidden corner of the room. I once, foolishly, went so far as to place myself near the source of these noises, so as to hear them more clearly. The louder noises ceased when I came nearer, and I soon heard two new sounds—one after the other. First, a subtle, rusty, springing noise that seemed to confirm that, while no activity was now present, there indeed had been just recently. Second, I heard hoarse wheezing from inside the wall, in every way identical to that which was produced by my bedside. I recognized this immediately, and was made alert. I also came to the delayed, yet terrifying realization that the sudden cease of activity within the walls had been in answer to my proximity to the monster—that is, it must have known exactly where I was, and what I had been trying to do. I wavered there momentarily in the dark near its breathing, unable, for the life of me, to decide what I should do next. The breathing grew hoarser, as if trying to say something, and quickly rose to the level of a high, womanly shriek of not fear, but of monstrous, idiotic glee. I could have said it sounded like laughter, but... such was clearly not the case, as you might have noticed had you heard it yourself. It was, as I have said, truly idiotic, as if it came from the throat of one criminally deranged. There was only one syllable to it, and no change in pitch—almost like the bleating of an animal—and also something else truly wrathful evident within its character. Immediately the shriek was joined by loud thrashings signifying the creature’s return to its activities just as before, now with much more fervor. I jumped quickly back under my sheets, and the thrashings continued the rest of that night, much louder than they ever had been, and now accompanied by bursts of that horrible, repetitive shriek. It may not even be worth noting that I could not sleep at all that night, only lay awake in absolute dread until the sounds ceased with the rising of the sun. From that point on—almost like a punishment for my curiosity—I would hear that awful shrill noise repeat endlessly every time the monster materialized itself.
Of course, I had reason, back then, to believe that these torturous visitations were purely the makings of my own imagination—the most implicating evidence being, of course, my drug abuse in my twenties. It is not too difficult to imagine that these alarming sounds and visions, as clear as they might have been, were merely the by-product of roughly a decade’s worth of addiction to hallucinogens (I had of course quit long before these incidents occurred, but I assumed they continued to happen because a lot of irreparable damage had been done.) Additionally, its wanderings up to this point had been completely at random, and aside from the frightening nature of the visitations, had been harmless—for I always found the room unchanged the following morning, and I, none the worse myself. Furthermore, many of the specter’s activities (such as its noisy migration through the walls) were proven impossible by certain facts about my apartment which I inquired upon. Let me explain: for many years I have lived alone in an apartment in the more impoverished part of town. The outer frame of this building is very old, but only the outer frame. The inside has long since been hollowed out and redone in such a way as to accommodate very cheap housing, so the walls between rooms are exceedingly thin—perhaps close to two or three inches—and there is no reason to believe that something the size of the specter (about the size of an average person) could fit within them or move about so dexterously inside. Also, because the flimsy nature of the walls, it is common for someone in one room to hear what goes on in his neighbor’s. I have questioned many tenants about loud and bizarre sounds issuing from the walls (of course doing so in such a way as to not draw attention toward myself), and not one of them ever noticed anything like it. The appearance of the specter inside my room is also inexplicable, due to there being no passageway, visible or hidden (I inquired about the latter to be sure) large enough for its entry. The only reasonable source could have been the ventilation hole, and this, aside from being very small, was covered by metal grating that had been screwed on quite firmly. I satisfied myself with the idea that even if such a creature as I had imagined could have possessed the intelligence to enter through this method, I would have easily been able to tell by the sound of metal hitting the floor.
However, my investigations never put an end to the nightly visitations. It had been easy to deny them while they were infrequent, but that was changing rapidly through the course of years—and now they occurred nearly four days out of the week. I found myself unable to remain comfortable at home, or to focus on work. What were these occurrences? Why so vivid? Indeed, if they were only a product of my mind, what did they represent? I pondered myself haggard over these and many other beleaguering questions, and this eventually led me to the strange, accusing manner with which the monster regarded me—and so I thought, searchingly, “this most surely must be related to my own guilt or regret over some matter long past... but what? What?”
I came to nothing. It was inevitable. I could not understand the nature of this madness—no matter whether it was simply my own, or otherworldly. And because of this, I only felt myself further consumed by it.
Let me forward to the previous month: by this time, the haunts had become chronic, and I felt myself becoming more absorbed than ever. I took leave from work so that I could devote to the creature all my time and energy (I do not remember if I slept during this period), and I waited, every hour of every day, for the coming of nightfall with a mixture of anxiety and morbid enthusiasm. No matter what the cost, I had to bear myself directly to this madness—I felt as though I absolutely must.
Always, always at night I was greeted by the chilling presence of the creature through either the horrid racket it produced, or its inexplicable appearance coupled with that horrible, repetitive, mono-syllabic shriek. Leaving the lights on and staying out of the bedroom amounted to nothing, I might add. When it appeared, the lights would shut off, and it would find me. My hopeless fear of it turned to pure hatred as days passed, and thus I soon came to the realization that whenever the creature made itself visible I was kept in a state of unexplained paralysis while it moved freely about me in the dark. I could be sitting in a chair, or standing, but no matter. It seemed to be ridiculing me as it presented itself in such a casual manner—listlessly ambling by unconcerned with my being there on some occasions; staring face-to-face with me for hours on others.
As I watched it before me night after passing night like this, powerless, I was filled with nothing but the most venomous anger, and struck with the insatiable desire to beat the life out of the terrible thing through whatever means possible—but my muscles refused me, and I could do nothing. I could do nothing when the beast was not visible to me, either. I was free to move about then, of course, but this did not abate my ever-rising temper. I simply ran about the room in a fury, screaming and pounding on the walls in a frustrated search for where I might find it—and this, only to its heightened content. It shrieked with all that inhuman delight which it had expressed months past, thrashing even harder than I thought possible. I swear it entertained itself by moving through the walls and ceiling faster than I could keep up. Surely it mocked me knowingly.
Eventually, I was allowed the chance to break free of my paralytic bonds and act out on my violent feelings; though at the time I did not understand how or why. I did not care to question, though, preoccupied as I was with my wicked intentions. I had stood by silent and immobile for far, far too long, and my only thought was to put an end to all this. Indeed, I killed the creature with my bare hands and with the whole of the wrath contained in them. After seizing the creature by the arms, I threw it to the ground, making sure the back of its head struck the corner of a nearby end table. I had expected more resistance, but was undaunted, and continued, crushing its unexpectedly fragile ribcage with my feet, then beating its head many times more upon the same corner of the end table until blood came out. It struggled quite a lot during all this, flailing its limbs about madly and shrieking with greater volume than I cared to hear, but this availed it nothing. It was pathetically weak compared to myself—helpless. When it had ceased movement and my thoughts began to clear, I wondered if this really had been the creature that had troubled me for so long. I became curious about its facial features, which I had never seen before, and were presently still obscured by its hair. I unburied them, and found that it had none. Its face was a pale—and now bloody—featureless orb.
I was fairly unsurprised. I did not expect this, exactly, but on the other hand, I hadn’t at all expected anything remotely human. Furthermore, I hadn’t found these features quite as shocking as I anticipated. I began to feel unsatisfied with the way I had killed the monster—I almost pitied it. It seemed, somehow, anti-climactic.
When at last I turned away from the corpse, I was immediately met by an absolute chorus of shrieking. Dozens of voices, all identical to that of the specter’s, rung through my apartment from all directions—and now I knew for certain I was being mocked. I searched the room madly, and in vain, while this insanity continued. Eventually, I burst out of my room exasperated, into the apartment hallway—and found something more was amiss. The walls, the floor, the ceiling; everything was black and white in coloration, sort of like a monochrome photograph—but not quite—for extremely bright portions of the area, such as a window or light socket, were directly adjacent to extremely dark places, such as doorways and most of the hallway. There was no middle ground between these two extremes, and so I found that while I was being blinded, my vision was cut off by the darkness. Immediately I lost my sense of location. I stumbled about gropingly for a moment. And soon I noticed several grey figures before me, hunched, featureless, and seemingly identical—the only objects of actual depth. No amount of shrieking, I must add, had quelled from the moment I left my apartment onward. If anything, it had increased, and I noticed a great amount of it was coming from the direction of this party. I immediately recognized them as my aggressors, and I was filled anew with violent and irreconcilable wrath. I took a mad dash at them, knocking one over and beating it into bloody submission. They—all of them—retorted with the loudest, most horribly inhuman racket one could have imagined, and for this, I grew even more enraged. They dispersed into different parts of the long hallway, apparently aware of their newly exposed weakness against me. It was a poor defense, however, because as there was no cease in their screaming, I could hunt them by ear. And this I did, in a blind, raging madness, for what seemed like hours but could have been only a few moments. I was relentless in my pursuit of them—far worse than they had been to me, perhaps. The dead lay innumerable.
My senses came back to me much, much later on, and only once I had satisfied myself with the deaths of my final victims. I was in a bedroom—not my own—with the slowly dying body of a very young woman on the floor at my feet. My quarry, so to speak, had not entirely been what I thought it to be.
I was in a rocking chair overlooking her in silence. She had already bled a very large quantity of her own blood, and was lying in it. She was far beyond help. Her pale and bruised body quivered every so often, with its final, fading pulses of life. Far beyond grief, I simply mused about how such a delicate thing could have, through the efforts of tireless love and human compassion on the part of her nameless parents, been born and raised through the long years of her youth, only to now, barely into the full bloom of adulthood, be killed so brutally and senselessly by a total stranger such as myself. And I was struck by how meaningless everything seemed to be at that moment. She must have had similar thoughts—or at least I wished she had—as her unblinking eyes pointed at me from the floor, eventually into eternity. Her death had been mechanical—as close to, and as concrete as the splitting of wood, or a spine. How condemnable could such a simple act have been? I felt as though I had not been present when my killing spree occurred—but, all the same, what is done is unchangeable. The results were directly in front of me: she and I were both covered in blood, but only she was covered only in her own.
My actions could not possibly have gone unnoticed, of course, and I was shortly apprehended by several officers who led me outside. I complied, numbly, and as I stepped out of the bedroom I gave one final glance to the corpse of the young lady—in particular to her face, which was bloody and pale, and obscured by matted hair. At a distance it looked indistinct and featureless—almost like an orb.
At my trial, which was a short one, I learned that I had begun my killing spree by murdering the aged cleaning lady, who entered my room at noon when I did not answer to her call. My blinds had all been drawn closed by myself, and apparently I had lost all sense of time because of it. I suppose this also explains the surreal effect I encountered upon leaving for the outside, since I must have been ill-adjusted to a normal level of light for days. The landlord and some of my neighbors were gathered around my door after hearing the disturbance. They I had killed, as well as many other people.
I am aghast by the gruesome crimes I committed that day. I am surprised, too, by the extraordinarily cruel manner of the killings. I have never associated myself with such cold-blooded qualities, and neither could I have imagined myself possessing such inhuman might and tenacity. I was consumed by such animal hatred that I willed it to happen—all of it. I have, sensibly, pleaded my case as insanity.
But, it does not end there—it hasn’t ended. I am still haunted by the specter—the authentic—to this day, every day within my cell. Still the same loud thrashings during the night, and still the same awkward, pained stroll about me while I remain paralyzed—and it seems as though this shall never cease. But, I can at last appreciate that I now understand why the creature haunts me. My guilt may have been delayed from the time I first beheld the creature, but it always knew. It knew. I can never forget what I have done out of anger. That was my sin—my only real sin.
It's written well, and your language is top-knotch, but almost the entire thing felt forced to me. Your complex sentence structures are correct, but the lexiconic qualities don't work for the story.
Comment