The fluorescent lights above buzzed softly, casting a cold, sterile glow over the small, sterile interview room. Elias sat at a metal table, fingers drumming absentmindedly on its surface. The smell of old coffee lingered in the air, mixed with the faint scent of disinfectant. Across from him sat a man, shackled at the wrists and ankles, his piercing eyes never leaving Elias's face. Ted Bundy. His disarming charm was a far cry from the monstrous acts he'd committed. Elias couldn't quite decide whether the man before him was a man at all or just a mask, a facade hiding something far darker.

Elias took a deep breath, feeling the weight of the situation, the heaviness of the man in front of him. There was no doubt that Bundy was one of the most notorious criminals in history. Yet there was something... magnetic about him. The way he spoke, the way he carried himself. It was unsettling.

“Bundy,” Elias started, his tone sharp.

Bundy smirked slightly, his eyes glinting with something unreadable. “That’s quite the way to introduce yourself. But then again, I suppose you’re a man who doesn’t waste time on pleasantries. It’s funny... most people are scared of death, even talking about it. But you? You sound like you’ve already made up your mind about it.”

Elias exhaled slowly, looking down at his hands. “Maybe I have. Maybe I’m not as afraid of death as I should be. I’ve lost someone... someone I cared about deeply. And all I’ve been left with is this feeling that maybe none of it matters. Not love. Not anything. So what’s death really? What’s it all mean?”

Bundy tilted his head, studying Elias carefully. He leaned back slightly in his chair, his shackles clinking softly. "You think death has meaning, don’t you? You think there’s some grand purpose behind it all. But what if it’s all just... an end? The final curtain. No more questions, no more answers. Just... nothing.”

Elias met his gaze, his eyes narrowing. “I’ve been asking questions for a long time. About my wife. About everything. And all I keep coming back to is the same thing: What happens when you’re gone? What does it mean? All those things you left behind, all those people you hurt... does it just fade away? Or is there something more?”

There was a long silence before Bundy finally spoke. His voice was low, barely a whisper. “I didn’t kill them because I had to. I killed them because I could.”

Elias froze, caught off guard by the simplicity of Bundy’s words. “What the hell does that mean?” he snapped.

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Bundy finally looked away from Elias, as if he had said all he needed to say. But then, slowly, he leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as he spoke again.

“It was pleasurable, you know,” he said, voice steady and chillingly calm. “The act of it. The release. For me, it wasn’t about hate. It wasn’t about vengeance. It was about... relief. Death was my way of feeling in control. It was the only way I could escape everything—the noise, the thoughts, the chaos of it all. When I killed, I felt peace. I felt free.”

Elias’s stomach churned. He had expected a justification, a rationalization, but not this. Not this cold, almost clinical explanation. For a moment, Elias was stunned into silence. The words hung in the air like a weight he couldn’t escape.

He stood up abruptly, pacing the small room. “That’s insane. You’re telling me... you killed people because it made you feel good? Because it gave you some kind of release? How the hell is that even possible?”

Bundy didn’t flinch. He didn’t try to explain further. He simply looked at Elias, waiting for him to process it. His calmness was maddening.

“You don’t understand, do you?” Bundy said finally, his voice soft but laced with something dangerous. “Death isn’t an escape. It’s a release. When you pull that trigger, when you take someone’s life, everything else stops. The world fades away. All that’s left is you, in that moment, and you finally get to breathe.”

Elias’s chest tightened. The words hit him hard. He could feel the weight of his own grief pressing down on him, the ache of loss gnawing at his insides. Was that what he’d been searching for? A release? A way to stop the pain, the confusion?

Bundy’s eyes never left his, like he could see right through him. “You think I was escaping something... but I wasn’t. I was finding peace. I didn’t care about them. I didn’t care about what I left behind. I only cared about the relief.”

Elias swallowed, trying to steady his breathing. His mind raced. For the first time, he understood something about death—about the kind of death Bundy had given others. It wasn’t an end. It wasn’t some grand finale. It was a release. A brutal, final release from the pain of living, from the chaos of existence.

As he turned to leave, the door clicking open behind him, he paused and glanced back at Bundy one last time. The man was still sitting there, as if nothing had changed, his shackles barely clinking as he shifted in his chair.

“You don’t get it,” Elias muttered under his breath, his voice rough. “I thought... I thought I could find meaning in it. In death. In the end. But maybe I’ve been looking at it all wrong.”

Bundy didn’t respond, his gaze unwavering as Elias walked out of the room, the door swinging closed behind him.

Elias stood in the hallway, his hand resting on the cold metal of the door for a moment longer. His mind was spinning, the weight of the conversation settling in like a stone in his gut.

Death, he realized, wasn’t just an escape—it was a release. But it wasn’t freedom. Not really. And he wasn’t sure if that made things better... or worse.