Please Stop Me

Please stop me, please stop me, please stop. This is what my mask says, that’s what my vest says. That’s what the back of my shirt says. That’s what someone has got to do. Someone has to stop me. Someone needs to stop me before I become just like father. Before I become exactly what he was, someone needs to put an end to my crusade. Somehow, someone somewhere must find a way to put an end to this thing that I am. Somewhere, someone somehow should be able to muster the strength and the will to do away with me. There has to be an end. Somewhere there has to be a red line I mustn’t cross. There has to be!

Father was an honest man, but he was also a cruel one. Mother was never there. She died when I was born. He had never blamed me for her death. Father blamed no one. He took it as it was, a painful fact of life he couldn’t overturn. He accepted the death of the one thing he actually loved. Father said he loved me, rarely, but he did. I believed him; I still do. The problem with my father's love was it was cruel. It wasn’t warm; it was cold; it was absent. I never felt the love of a parent a child should feel. I never felt the love of a parent.

My father was my teacher. My father was my tormentor, Father was the man who made me what I am. He made me the thing that I am now. Everything I own, and everything I know, everything I do, is thanks to him. He is the sole reason I am standing here right now. From the moment I was born, he groomed me to become what I am now; I was meant to continue the family tradition. A perfect servant of the family, of what lies beyond. He made me, then broken, then remade to be a perfect agent of this blacker than black darkness that roams this world. I was born out of love, then killed with love and remolded in the darkness by agonizing pain and unimaginable torment.

My destiny was to become a messenger of the void. As similar as I am to my father, we are different. We serve unique roles in this world; we serve the same mistress and yet our offerings are different. Our worship is entirely different, in fact. Father used to serve her gifts of the ghost. He took things that are not meant to be seen, things are poisonous to the human mind and he slaughtered them in her name. I, on the other hand... I offer her gifts of flesh and blood. Personally, I prefer to present her with gifts of human lust. She accepts my gifts, evidently, as I am still doing her bidding with no consequence, mortal or otherwise. Had she been unhappy with my offerings, then she’d take my head and serve it to the false prophets of this world on a plate. My mistress, my goddess, she’s a cruel one. A very cruel lady I serve.

She is the vilest, the most abominable and ungodly entity in existence, and yet the most beautiful. Commoners will never understand her repulsing beauty. To them, to the uninitiated, she looks nothing different from another girl. Unassuming, harmless, almost innocent. Her perpetual smile does not arouse the suspicion of those who do not know any better. She does not feel pleased unless something burns, someone dies a terrible, terrible death, or a world drowns in the flames of damnation. Her eyes appear aloof and uncaring, and yet she carries the entire universe in them. She carries the weight of every last reality imaginable and inconceivable inside those ghastly eyes of hers.

I’ve seen her true face. I’ve seen her true self. A thing of unadulterated darkness and depravity. A supermassive black hole that swallows every last ray of light that dares cross its path. She is the beginning and the end, a thing even gods fear. She lurks in the nightmares of nightmares. The ultimate end. The endless silent stillness where nothing ever escapes. The absolute bottom of the bottomless pit. A thing so awful human words cannot actually describe.

She is the only one who has ever shown me actual, true love. She was the only one who had ever shown any sort of genuine acceptance. My mistress is the only one who ever cared about me. The only one who was completely honest with me. For that, I will be forever grateful to her. For that, I will serve her goal toward the ends of the world. Her, I will follow onto the edge of sanity and, in fact, beyond. Without her, I have nothing and I am nothing. With her, I am invincible. I am the venomous fruit sprouted from the trees of perdition.

I carry her love on my back. It’s burned into my flesh in the form of flayed skin and scarred muscle tissue. She is the devil I carry on my shoulders. She is the priest I confess my sins to. The goddess who rides the shadows is the one I sin for. She is the one I was born and bred to serve and submit to. Her corruption is my oxygen and her poison the nutrition that fuels my soul. That is to say, if I have one at all. Knowing my bloodline, I doubt such a thing exists within this vessel I call my body. I am nothing but a puppet. A cosmic demolisher that rests in a temple made of human skulls and bones pulls the strings of this marionette. I am nothing but a tool, one of many who serve this marvelous bringing of destruction.

My purpose in this world is to feed the abomination that controls me. My duty is to make sure I have satisfied her appetite, allowing her soundly sleep inside her makeshift grave. If I fail at my task, everything will come crashing down, burning inside acidic black flames. Everything will come to a prolonged and torturous end. The magnitude of her unyielding cruelty is inconceivable, and she has all the time in the world to torture a pitiful rock orbiting an insignificant star.

Someone has to stop me; someone has to bring an end to my crusade. There has to be someone who will put a bullet through my fucking eyes. Impale me through the heart and stop this joke of existence. Someone needs to kill me to alter my course. Somebody needs to pulverize my bones and burn the ashes until there is nothing left. Someone needs to stop me from becoming my father. I cannot stand the thought of seeking justice in this cruel world where there is none. I cannot fathom my need to sacrifice a pathetic maggot such as yourself to her. If it hadn’t been for what you’ve done, I wouldn’t locate you. If it wasn't for your selfish fucking sins, I wouldn’t spike your alcohol! If it wasn't for your stupidity, I wouldn’t trick you into wearing those handcuffs! You had to commit your sins, you had to be stupid, and now, now you're chained to this fucking wall!

I never told you what’s the secret to this magic trick. By the way, you’ve always got to have a spare key in your hands. It’s all about the key. I don’t dabble in magic, in fact, if I never saw some of those things my father was after with my own two eyes, I wouldn’t even believe there is anything he had ever told me about these things out there, because they defy everything reality stands for!

All of it is natural, most of it is just beyond our limited understanding. Simple as that, we’re just mindless blind apes following orders of an unintelligent design. Sometimes people disappear without a trace. That happens when a predator we cannot conceive develops a taste for our rather dull flesh. Other times, it’s people like me. I guess you now understand where this is going.

There’s no point in being too upset about it. You’ve sealed your fate. This is nothing personal. Oh, who am I kidding? This is very personal. As I said, my father was a cruel man and I hate nothing more than people who do the kind of things you did. You don’t deserve to be locked up; you don’t deserve any kind of earthly punishment. That is too good for you, too humane, and I don’t like being humane. That’s exactly why your prolonged existence is pissing me off so much. Your punishment should be something that cannot be acceptable in society, something very cruel and pernicious.

Oh, don’t worry now, I won’t needlessly prolong your execution. Yet, you still deserve to suffer something that goes beyond the realms of reason. You must suffer the greatest terror, and pain one could conjure inside the deepest and darkest corners of their depraved mind. It will be long but not too long, at least not for me. For you, it will feel like an eternity in hell.

You have to suffer, but you must be the key to your own suffering. You know, that is something I heard a lot growing up, "you are the key to your own suffering." Took me years to understand what it actually meant. Now I know I am the key to my suffering, and you will be the key to yours. Speaking of keys, here’s the key to your cuffs. The key to your freedom. If you can get yourself free in time. I wouldn’t mind letting you go, as much as I’d hate to disappoint her and as much as I’d hate to see you continue your pathetic existence.

That said, if you do manage to get out of here alive, it will change you completely. I speak from experience when I say this. You will see the world differently. Trust me, you will want to live your best life, away from all the aches and pains of the life you’ve led thus far. I promise you this much. If you escape, you are free to go. However, in the case that you leave here in one piece and some day, I come across you again, I will end you. I will ram this cleaver inside the center of your skull, and I will keep ramming it there until I can see your brain stem. Am I clear?

Here’s the key. All you have to do is reach before the flames burn you to a crisp. Oh, come on now, don’t look so shocked. Are you going to pretend like you didn’t smell the sweet scent of gasoline all over your clothes? I don’t believe you. I know you better than this. I know you are not as stupid as you look. And trust me, buddy, I know everything about you. For example, I know you had two dogs, two vicious fucking hellhounds in here.

It’s pointless to thrash around like this now. Your dogs are dead for barking at me. Well, not really, they’re dead because you fed them the girl. You shouldn’t have done that, because if you hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here. Did you really think you’d never get caught, really? Trust me, my mistress, she knows everything and sees everything. She is everything and nothing.

Are those tears forming in your eyes now? Are you crying? Well, that’s a damn shame. You might choke on the gag there and miss your opportunity to save your own rotten skin. Why are you even crying? Is it the dogs?

Oh yes, it has to be the dogs. It’s so funny seeing so-called psychos like yourself be willing to butcher a young woman for whatever sick satisfaction you might find in it only to cry about a pair of mutts you’ve used for torture, murder and all manner of other dogfights? Spare me the theatrics, mad clown! Those are just crocodile tears, meant to make me rethink my decision to burn you alive, isn’t that so? Well, that will not work, pal. You and I, you and me, we are a lot alike, but there is one difference, I don’t hold back and I don’t apologize. I am going to see this through, and you are going to be nothing but a pile of ashes in a few beautifully agonizing moments. That is, of course, unless you get to the key.

Oh, look at you struggling to reach it. That’s it, just like that. Keep going, buddy, keep trying. If you’re determined enough, you might even deglove your own hand there to escape, but I doubt that. I know all about your lack of fortitude. You had drugged all of those women before you had your way with them. You are the worst kind of maggot. Looking at you in your current state… You don’t even fathom how hard it is for me not to stomp on your head repeatedly until you give up the ghost. That, however, would be too merciful for you.

Now, let me tell you a little story. I’ll tell you how I became who I am. I’ve already told you about myself, so it’s only fair that I tell you everything. It’s not like you’re getting out of here. My father... He was a cruel man. A cruel man indeed. My first vivid memory of him was seeing him beat a man half to death for a reason I could never understand. I was too young at the time to understand such a thing. My second memory was when we were driving somewhere, and he ran over a deer. He pulled me out of the car and told me to get a good look at the creature as it was twitching and struggling to breathe. Blood and gore sprayed the car and the road. Bones were protruding through skin, and awful sounds assaulted my ears as the creature howled in a painful intoxication of blood loss. I remember him telling me how this is exactly what awaits everyone. A slow, painful, sorrowful state. Death was inevitable, he said. Death was a gift, he said. I’ll never forget that first lesson.

His second lesson was harsher. He beat me senseless when he found me with a girl. Father was drunk. He quickly turned, enraged about me bringing what he called a broad into his abode. He lost his mind and beat us both. My body took the brunt of the beating. She wasn’t unscathed either. I think he might’ve done some other things to her too while I was laying barely conscious in a pool of my blood. I’m not entirely sure about that. Father was a cruel man, after all.

He became increasingly more absent as the years rolled on. I only ever remember him being home when he was drunk and with that came the beatings and berating. This led me to teach myself to defend myself, but I could never fight back. I could never find the strength to use my newfound skills against my father. I could never fight against my father. Never. I took it every single time. I took his baptisms by fire every single time. Every time he beat me, he said he loved me; he said I needed to be a better man. I wanted to do something about it, but I couldn’t. These were my father’s lessons towards me. These were his ways of showing me love and appreciation. A cold and uncaring kind of love. He never spoke to me otherwise; I never saw him otherwise. Unfortunately, I only knew him when he wanted to torture me. I guess I deserved some of that for being a failure at the time. I knew I wasn’t good enough just yet. That’s why I did the best I could to improve myself.

I got into fights. I got into so many fights. All I did was hurt people. I’ve hurt so many people. It was a time of pure, blinding rage. I had no control. There were no brakes I could press on. It was a time I don’t remember very well either. The man before you became the bane of my hometown at one point. I was tried and locked up for killing a man. I remember nothing about the incident, but apparently, the first time I killed a man, I did it because I couldn’t control my rage. It was purely animalistic and went beyond what is seemingly possible for a human. A modern-day berserkergang. I completely lost it, being unaware of what I was doing. To this day, I don’t remember that entire day. They later showed me photos of the corpse. I caved his chest in, leaving black and blue marks of knuckles all over him. It made me happy deep inside, but I had to pretend my own actions shocked and appalled me. My father probably had something to do with the verdict and the outcome of the trial, too. He hired the defense to deal with my case. It wouldn’t surprise me if he bribed the jury, either.

That was when she turned my life around. That was when I met her, my mistress. In a strange turn of events, they decided I was unfit to stand trial and locked me up in a psychiatric facility.

Even behind the bars I knew one thing and one thing only. Fight, kill, fight. I kept on fighting. Everything at the time drove me off the wall. Everything and everyone. I couldn’t keep my hands to myself. I nearly killed another man while I stayed at the so-called hospital. The therapy didn’t work, nothing worked. I was a broken man. I was a murderous machine walking around wearing human skin. Until the day I met her.

When I met her, she appeared out of nowhere, out of the nothingness, I swear. I remember waking up and seeing her sit beside me on my bed in my cell. Those heavy eyes and that misleading smile. That’s all I remember. The next thing I knew, I was falling through the floor. Everything turned black suddenly and when I awoke again, I couldn’t see anything, nor could I sense anything else. I felt my head spinning in dead space, and I couldn’t understand what was going on. That’s until the first shot fired across my back. The searing pain awoke me. I remember screaming so loud I coughed. Another shot came, and I screamed again. A third one came, and I screamed. The torture continued for what seemed like an eternity, until all I could think of was the ungodly pain shooting through my back and my lungs. I was starting to fade when a cold but gentle hand grabbed my face. My vision refocused, and she stood before me with those same heavy eyes. That same god damned smile. The rest of her body was composed of some black substance, nearly as black as the mass that was surrounding me. With soul-piercing red eyes floating around. She laughed this soft laughter and then I felt a sharp pain in my neck… after that, everything turned black.

When I awoke, I was back in my cell and my back was burning and freezing at the same time. My entire shirt was wet. When the staff came to check on me, they noticed the wounds on my back. I did not know what had happened, but I relayed the dream to them. They brushed it off as a delusion and accused me of attempting to commit suicide.

Not long after, during a routine interview about another incident, I had with one of the other inmates, I could feel her close by. I knew it. I knew she was there. I knew she was close. It was undeniable. I told them she was coming, but they wouldn’t believe me. One of them even struck me. That, now that awoke some repressed memories and well, I slammed his head into the table. Then a hand materialized from the center of my chest, giving me this pleasant sensation. It was unmistakably pleasant. I cannot even put it into words properly. This hand crawled inside the nurse that hit me, and then pulled itself from within his mouth, with the rest of her body.

I still remember the sickening sound his body made as it was being bisected. It’s one of those unique sounds you can never forget, just like the ones you are about to make. She stood there, just as I imagined her, mundane yet so charming, ugly, and terrifyingly beautiful with those same heavy eyes ladened with the stars and that deceitful smile. The room turned black for half a second and when the lights came back on. We were standing in a pile of guts and bones. Her hand reached out to me and I held it.

At that moment, I saw everything, the past, the present, the future, things I cannot fathom, things I wish I had never seen, things I could never even imagine. I saw my father die from liver cancer. A yellow withered husk of his former self, still clutching a gun in his hand. I saw the birth and death of everyone whose life I’ll sacrifice in her name. She showed me their fates. I even saw this exact moment when I watched you burn here to death.

I saw myself telling you this story, and I saw the way your heart beats in terror as you realize the key to your freedom is just out of your reach. Your pain, I saw that. Now, I can see the pain in your eyes as you feel the flames eating away at your skin. I see you thrash and throw yourself all over, attempting to escape the all-consuming flames. I see you kicking the key away accidentally.

Please stop me, please stop me, please stop. This is what my mask says, that’s what my vest says. That’s what the back of my shirt says. That’s what someone has got to do. Someone has to stop me. Someone needs to stop me before I become just like father. Before I become exactly what he was, someone needs to put an end to my crusade. Somehow, someone somewhere must find a way to put an end to this thing that I am. Somewhere, someone somehow should be able to muster the strength and the will to do away with me. There has to be an end. Somewhere there has to be a red line I mustn’t cross. There has to be! There has to be someone who will sicken me so much I’ll just end them quickly and avoid sharing a story or two as I watch them slowly give up home. Someone has to come along and stop me from enjoying my job so fucking much. Why isn't there anyone who'll stop me from taking my sweet time telling them one final fable before I end their miserable fucking excuse of a life?

I’m not even sure you can hear me over your own muffled screams. I’ll be entirely honest, it doesn't seem like you’re capable of comprehending anything other than sheer pain anymore, but oh well… The family of this girl had contacted me. They told me to make sure you don’t see the light of day again. Paid a lot of money for it too. They never specified how I should make you disappear, unfortunately for you.

Now burn in hell, just like you did to the remains of that young woman you deemed unwanted.