Villain

A group of police officers approaches the villa of one Ed Goon, a local businessperson whose neighbors reported to have heard disturbing and loud noises coming out of his residence. They find the entrance door unlocked and slightly opened. Sergeant Joseph McIntosh cautiously pushes the door open. The building is completely dark; the police force enters slowly, carefully inside.

One of the deputies calls out into the apparent void of the building, “This is the police, anyone here?”

No response, the building is completely silent. The deputy goes on to say, “We’ve received a report of disturbing noises coming out from this very building, if there’s anybody here, please come out, we won’t harm you.”

Silence echoes through the building, another officer says, “Maybe it’s a false report or something”.

At the same time, the Sergeant finds the light switch and turns on the lights. The group of police officers is stunned. They begin fumbling for their guns, one of the officers starts shouting “Motherf…” but the Sergeant hushes him, as he pulls out his own gun he signals his men to turn around slowly.

They turn around, aiming their guns at whatever might be behind them, their eyes widen, some stumble backwards, others curse under their mouths and one stands with his mouth open agape.

The corpse of Ed Goon is hanging on the wall facing them now, as if crucified, his hands are nailed to the walls by a couple of throwing daggers and his throat is slit, crimson liquid covering his white shirt, his black pants and the floor beneath him. Above the corpse on the wall, scribbled in fresh blood, are the words; "Behind you"

The group is broken out of their trance by an almost maniacal laughter coming from the second floor of the building. Before the Sergeant can say anything his men begin rushing up the stairs, their guns pointed foreword. He tries to stop them but he is too late – they are already on the second floor by the time he manages to finish his sentence. He runs after them, climbing up the stairs as fast as he can, but he’s frozen in his tracks by the sound of screaming men in the room that is located just a few feet above him.

The Sergeant wills himself to run into the room, but once he reaches it, he freezes once more, the sight of his comrades being slaughtered one by one by a hooded screeching maniac is just too much for him to bare. Blood is flying everywhere and the hooded man wields some sort of crooked machete thus tearing apart young police officers in their physical prime apart. Mere moments pass, and the hooded man stands in the center of the room, covered in blood and gore as a pile of bodies lies around his feet. He begins walking towards the sergeant who finally manages to snap back into reality and call out to the hooded man, “Stop or I will shoot you!”

The hooded man stops and says, “Shoot ahead, chief!”

The Sergeant’s hands begin to shake as he says, “Raise your hands and lose the machete”

The man raises both hands and as he does, he says, “that’s a Kukri knife, see this curved edge?” pointing at the blade of his weapon. Once he finishes his sentence he throws the Kukri right at the sergeant who doesn’t even have the time to react.

The weapon slightly grazes the Sergeant’s face and the hooded man begins laughing again. maniacally.

“Looks like I’ve missed the mark”, remarks the man as he approaches the sergeant who in turn keeps shouting for him to stop but is unable to actually shoot. The Sergeant had never shot another human being before, let alone killed one.

The hooded man gets to a distance of mere inches away from the sergeant and stops; he makes a gun shape with his hand and presses it against the sergeant’s face, “Bang!”

The hooded man pulls back his hood and reveals his mask to the Sergeant, a kind of helmet, colored in black with two holes for the eyes and a large monstrous grin drawn upon it. He grabs the sergeant’s gun and places it against his mask, placing his fingers on top fingers of those of the frightened sergeant.

“You can’t even shoot me… ha ha ha ha… seems like the Villain has finally found himself a proper Hero!” the masked man calls out loudly, stuttering the already frightened Sergeant. He tightens his grip on the sergeants hand and goes on, “You are not as stupid as the others, you somewhat value life, therefore, you get to live. You see, I was once a brush one like them. I was a cop too, and I got killed.”

The Sergeants eyes widen in disbelief, he’s beginning to wonder if he’ll ever leave this place alive, assuming he is faced with a completely insane individual.

The masked man keeps on going, “Don’t give me that look, you’re smarter than them, you’re smarter than all of them! Let me tell you something, there is hell, believe me, I’ve been there. I mean, have you ever seen a man move like I just did? I’m a freaking zombie! Ha-ha!”

“You see, once you die, you go to this dark, pitch black, dark, wet, silent place, and there, your mind, or soul or something... That, that thing inside you begins trying to come up with things, to keep you away from the nothing, and that’s when something akin to hallucinations starts happening. You hear voices, you see faces, that’s not too bad, but then, then, my friend, you begin feeling as if you're being constantly shot, stabbed, cut, beat, burned, all at once. You try to run away from the sensations but you can’t, that is when you realize your frozen in place.

Fear, it becomes a constant. Eventually you get used to it, you get used to being always exhausted and in pain and it becomes fine, trust me, it does…”

The man tightens his grip even further, causing visible discomfort to the Sergeant, “Then you begin feeling like you’re being torn apart, skin from the body, flesh from the bones, organs being pulled out, you even feel like your bones are being crushed, all of this, this is just the darkness around you that’s doing this to you. Oh and the worst part is when you begin feeling yourself, your core, your soul, your whatever makes you – you being torn apart to bits and pieces, memories, knowledge, feelings, all is slowly stripped away until there is nothing left.” Says the man as his voice begins quivering

“How are you alive then?” the Sergeant interrupts him.

“Well, I’ve managed to hold onto myself, or a tiny bit of myself, I don’t really remember anything before being killed, I most certainly don’t feel anything, I don’t feel the warmth of your skin, or the heat leaving my body whenever I touch a piece of metal, neither do I feel pain or happiness or sadness or anything.”

“So what is your point in doing all of this?” asks the Sergeant fearfully

“That is a great question, dear friend; I do this because every hero needs a villain, because you people don’t appreciate life, I do this to make you want to live, to make you appreciate life, so you won’t have to deal with hell earlier than you should…” Answers the masked man as he begins chuckling, and then says, “Now that I think about it, I actually end up doing the opposite… ha ha ha ha!”

“Oh well, I guess, I’ve made you want to live slightly more, haven’t I, Sergeant McIntosh?”

The Sergeant’s eye widen even more, now they are aching due to the strain, as he tries to understand how this hooded maniac knows his name, hoping to buy himself some time he nods.

The hooded man takes a deep breath and says, “Well you know, you either die a Hero or live long enough to become a Villain, or in my case, you die a hero only to end up coming back to life as a villain hahaha. Now let’s find out if there’s a Heaven out there.”

Before the Sergeant can even process what is happening, the masked man presses on the trigger shooting himself in the head, falling onto the floor – dead.

The Sergeant falls onto the floor as well, shaken by the ordeal, he is unable to leave the building until reinforcement arrives and picks him out of there, along with the bodies of all of those that were involved.

Sometime after the ordeal, Sergeant McIntosh enters the morgue of his police station in order to pay respects to his fallen comrades. What he finds him scars him for the rest of his life and makes him turn to the monastic life out of the fear of hell.

The corpses of the fallen policemen are seated on the floor, smiles carved up on their faces and a large writting on the wall behind them that says, “They aren’t ready to take this villain back in just yet…”

The thing that had made Sergeant McIntosh fear for his fate was not the fact that the corpses of his comrades were mutilated or the cryptic writing on the wall, What scared him so badly  was a naked body of an unidentified woman hanging by her intestine from a hook on the ceiling, and not just some body.

This...

This body...

It appeared as though it's face had twisted into a smile the moment he laid his gaze upon it…