True Fear

She woke up naked to find her hands had been tight together above her head. Her feet felt the coldness of the floor. She looked at her left side only to notice another person was in the same situation as she was. The room was well lit. The spotless white tiles of the floor had many metallic color tables on them, which had many sharp objects on them, just to make her more unnerving. She moved her hand only to notice the firm tight rope. It was tightened masterfully—no room to wiggle.

She screamed.

Only then did she notice her mouth was gagged as well.

She screamed in desperation, even though she knew her scream was futile.

"Oh, you are awake. I was afraid that I had to start my work without an audience." The calm voice came from behind her. Then she heard the footstep that was coming towards her from behind. She moved her hand again in fright, but the knot was too good. The man came in front of her while tying the waistband of an apron behind himself. He had an average height with a muscular built body. He turned his attention to her. His black eyes were fixated on her. He looked average. Nothing about him stood out.

"No hangover?" He asked her. How could she answer him with her mouth being gagged? Maybe, he expected a nod or a head shake. She shook her head, but it wasn't the answer to his question. It was a desperate request. She wanted to live. How could she pass the message?

"Uhm, interesting. I could swear that you were one drink away from alcohol poisoning. You are tough. I give you that." He said and finished tying his apron.

He moved toward the unconscious man; he put his hand under his chin for examination. He went to the table and picked up a small plastic device. He put it under the nose of a senseless man.

Click.

The insentient man was startled from his sleep. He tried to open his eyes, but it seemed there was too much light attacking his eyes. He tried to move his head, but it made him moan.

"Finally, you are awake." He said to him.

"Good news. You are going back to sleep shortly, but a little permanent type. How about that?" He said while walking back to the table. He chose a knife, slim and small, and walked back to him. As cold as he could be, he cut his victim's wrist below the rope. A stream of red blood started to flow down his wrist. The blood was making branches while it was coming down. The victim woke up in fear for his life to free his hands.

"You thought that a friend of yours was pranking you, didn't you?" He asked the wounded person, and like her, his mouth was gagged for answering. He shook his hands violently to make room for his hand, but there was no hope. She tried again and noticed the more she struggled, the tighter the knot was getting.

Was there no hope for her? She thought to herself.

"It is natural. Everyone wants to live. We struggle all our lives knowing that we will die one day, yet we fight to live for a few more seconds. You see, I know what kind of death is awaiting me. Maybe, I'll die by a policeman's bullet, or even being bested by a stronger victim," Then he turned to her, "Or more cunning one." Then he turned back to the sufferer. "However, it doesn't stop me. This is how I pass my time." He said. "I know my hobby is dangerous, but so is climbing the mountain and riding a bike at high speed. I came to the peace how I live." He said and went to pull a chair for himself. He sat and put one foot on another and watched them.

"You see, this is the best way for you to die, no more pain than the initial cut; after that, you daze off from the blood loss." He said so calmly and relaxed that it seemed he was talking to his friend over dinner.

"Just look at him; he isn't struggling as much as before. Maybe, he figured that if he resisted more, his death would approach faster." He said to her and watched the other man.

"He is clever, isn't he?" He said in amusement. "Or maybe not. The blood lost could do that as well. However, I want to think he is clever and smart. If he or you talk and prove to me otherwise, I'll be disappointed immensely; hence, you are being gagged. I wanted to think that I bested the smartest people, even though it could be a lie that I keep telling myself repeatedly." He said and glanced at his watch. Then, he looked at them. "I guess everyone does that. I mean lying to themselves." He stood up and went in front of his victim. "Look at this discoloration. You lost a lot of blood." He said while trying to lift the chin of that wounded person. Then, he let the face drop. "You think I am killing you, but it couldn't be further than the truth. Your own body is killing you. It thinks that part of your body needs more blood, so it pumps more blood to that area. If your body was a little bit smart, as you are, you would have survived this. You only would lose a hand. That's it. Just that. But no, it wants to save it. You see, this isn't the only crime that commits. I am sure that you two are familiar with the other one. Yes, your guess is right; I knew that I chose a highly educated people. As you guessed right, it doesn't know when to store fat or when it shouldn't. All these books, motivational exercises, and other programs are out there to tell your stupid body that fats are not needed, but does it listen to you? Of course not. Because it thinks it knows best. Because it thinks you'll need it when there isn't enough food for you in the future. You starve yourself to get rid of that fat, but you just reaffirm its fear. It adds more and more fat to the point that a human can not endure standing on his feet. Easy prey for a predator, let alone all the complications that leave behind. What is the difference between that and this?" He pointed at the man that was bleeding. The face of his victim was getting paler with each second. He started to have difficulty for breathing. "See, your body is killing you unknowingly. It is no fault of mine." He said calmly.

The poor girl didn't know which one was colder. The room or this guy?

He went to the area where it looked like a kitchen. He put some water in a kettle and put it on heat.

She grappled a little bit, only to see the ropes get tighter.

He turned back without any worry in his eyes. He knew he did a great job on those knots. He came and sat on his chair.

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"Where was I?" He asked them. "Oh, yeah, I am not that of a horrible person. I'm just another human with peculiar interest."

She didn't know when her eyes even started pouring out tears. She screamed——knowing no one heard her.

"Yes, yes, the point is taken. You think otherwise that I'm the big and bad monster everyone is talking about. I take away people's life. It is an unspeakable act that every religion and society condemns, though they see it as heroic when it follows their own agendas. At least I'm not torturing them to the death. I just have a twisted hobby. I don't know; maybe if I was in any military or secret government agency, I would be applauded; however, I am not as heroic as they are. Isn't it as different as slicing up any other animals? We don't even think about it when we are slicing up those muscles and cooking them to put them on a fancy plate in a fancy restaurant while the piano and violin play in the background to show our epitome of class." He looked at her, "Or you think we are not animals. Don't mistake me; I have the decency of not judging people. I don't condemn them if they want to eat another carcass of animals that have been dead for a long time. We close our eyes to that. I do it too. I closed my eyes to that, too, So I could BBQ them for my gathering as well. However, the difference is that I won't lie to myself about that. The difference is I just take one more step." He said.

He walked to his victim. "Almost there; you are almost done." He said to that victim. He went to his little kitchen to brew himself a coffee.

"Tonight, I'm going to be extremely busy." He said to no one and took a deep sigh. After making the coffee, he poured some cream and sugar into it. He took his cup and came back to see the draining life of his victim. He took a sip. "Well, it needs more sugar; however, I like this imperfection as well. I want that feeling of surprise when I hit perfection. It is crazy talk, isn't it?" He said to them. He took another sip. "It isn't that bad; see, I already surprised myself. I'm just enjoying the small things."

She moved her hand again to free them—no luck.

"What are you going to do if you free yourself? Do you think that you can overpower me? Let's say you could do that; what then? Kill me to be a hero? Then go to the police and tell them what happened here? Being on the news for a few minutes even though they won't let you have peace when you need it the most? And then what? Wake up in nightmares, thinking about this moment. Taking a bottle of pills one after another, just to have a moment of peace, which never comes. The distrust you will have when you see any men that ask you out. At that moment, in that desperation, you would wish that you could turn the clock back to this moment and let me finish the job. Understand this, your life, whatever it was before, is ended. So, if I were you, I would just enjoy these last moments. When your turn comes, you'll see that it isn't that bad. Just.Like.This.Coffee." He said and took another sip. He looked at the man whose head was lifelessly down. His killer wasn't fazed. He just continued drinking his coffee.

After finishing his coffee, he walked to that lifeless man.

"Well, he left us without saying goodbye." He said. "Now, the real work starts now."

He went to the table and took a long tube connected to a piece of machinery.

He walked back to his victim and freed one hand of the victim, and inserted the tube in a cut that killed that man. Then with a different rope, he secured it in his hand. He walked to that machinery and started it.

She was curious and wondered what he was doing, only to see that he was blowing air in his victim.

She screamed. She tried hard to free her hand. She wanted to wake up from this ungodly nightmare. She pulled her body down, even if it meant she was leaving behind her hands. Anything was preferable to this nightmare. The other man just laughed at her struggle.

"What? It isn't like I added more pain to him." He said calmly. She took a deep breath and screamed on top of her lounge, and with that, she fainted.

She gained consciousness only to see that the killer was busy cutting and separating the muscle from the bones. The pure joy on his face when he was holding the bloody parts of his victim; the blood on the table and on the floor, the scratching sound of the knife on the bone, or the way it cut the muscle and other organs; it made her sick. She cried; her eyes started a new set of tears. The scream came naturally after that.

"Oh, you woke up and missed the skinning part. What do you think I was doing? It was just to separate his skin from other orans." He said calmly. In response, she screeched and wailed. "Oh, you are just being unreasonable now. Do you think it is easy to do this job as long as I have, without being caught, not going this far? Trust me, it would be much easier for me after finishing my job just to dump the work in the open. Even though I am smart, I am not under any delusion that I don't think there are not smarter people than me out there, or just assuming that I'll be lucky forever." He said while cutting the muscle away from the bone.

The innards of his victim were separately put in different buckets. She bellowed again. She saw what was awaiting her.

She tried to free her hands violently.

"I see; you think you will live through this. No problem, I could help you with that." He said without any agitation or strong feeling and walked back to the table to pick a different knife. She gave a long, loud, piercing cry in a frenzy way.

"You don't want to faint this time because you may never wake up again." He said and walked towards her. She saw that death itself was walking toward her. This time, her howl and scream were locked behind her throat. She was just dumbfounded and couldn't break eye contact with him. She watched him as he got closer to her without any hurry. He reached up to her wrist and cut it. The cold, sharp metal made a honed sensation on her wrist.

"There, that would put you at ease. Now, you just need to accept that this is your end. You'll be more comfortable after this." He said and walked away from her.

In shock, she didn't notice when her blood was streaming down. She couldn't make any noise; no sound could come out of her.

"See, you are already relaxing. I'm sorry that you have to see this," pointing at his work, "as I said, it's necessary for what I do, and I really appreciate your listening."

She felt her heart beating fast.

"I'm not a wasteful person. This," pointing at clean-cut muscle, "goes back to nature. It will be food for the dogs and cats, or maybe some wild animals out there. They don't mind where this food comes from as long as it fills their stomachs——just like us. Exactly, the way we are." He said. He started to clean the muscle around the rib cage.

"Have you ever wondered how you ended up here?" He asked her. No sound, no reply came from her. "You were so drunk that you were out for quite some time. There was no friend around you; no boyfriend was looking for you. It was the easiest job I encountered, with no struggle, no resistance. You were the best prey." He said to her.

She felt the tears find an excuse to come down on her cheek. The warm blood found a pathway to her feet and came down with less resistance.

"I’m sure that your close family will miss you if you haven’t screwed that one up too.” He said and walked towards the skin-flayed head of his victim. With a swipe of a cleaver, he opened his victim's skull. He used the cleaver as a wedge to open the skull enough to let in another device to open the inside of the head. He started scooping out the brain, eyes, nostrils, tongue, and other head innards. He was scooping out every ounce of meat on that head.

She wanted to vomit, but her head felt so light. She felt so thirsty, though. Her throat was dry, and she was much dizzier. She was confused now.

She watched as he used another machine to break the bones into pieces.

She closed her eyes for a moment, only to open them again. She didn’t want to die. She tried to fight. This time she witnessed him use a different machine to grind the muscle and innards of his victim and use his victim's intestines on the other end of the machinery to make sausage rolls.

She closed her eyes and didn’t want to open them in a world that had created this monster.

She tried to open them for the last time, but her eyelid felt too heavy. She was too tired anyway. She welcomed the peace.