Lights flash from passing cars as I attempt to follow my new friend. I don’t know why, but I have an indescribable urge to know where he’s going, what he does with his time.

I’m careful not to be seen as I weave through traffic, always staying two cars behind him. The city is alive with the scum of the earth. Beggars line the streets, and assholes make no attempt to hide their annoyance with their fellow man in the form of honks and middle fingers.

My excitement is immeasurable at this point, and it keeps building the deeper into the city we go.

Where are you taking me?

What have you got planned for our day today?

The radio turns on, some shitty pop song playing and beginning to spoil my mood. Just as I am about to turn it off, he finally begins to slow down. And then, he stops.

Following his lead, I pull off to the side of the road and slide out of my car. As my eyes adjust to the light, however, I am bombarded with the stimulating view of fishnet leggings.

And not just one pair.

Ten.

I have found myself in hooker alley.

I watch him get out of his car, where an okay-looking brunette whore comes to greet her next client. He smiles at her, and she smiles back. They begin walking, and so do I.

I stumble across some blondie sitting on the curb, a needle in her arm.

I see my new friend walk into an alley behind a bar. The sign reads:

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“Slots, Sluts, and Shots.”

Classy.

Just as I go to step over the addict on the street, I feel her grip on my shirt.

“Heeeey mister. You know you don’t gotta spend all your time alone, don’tcha?” the whore explains.

I feel the urge to kick her in the mouth, but the sight of her missing teeth makes me feel like any more damage might stop her from being able to talk.

I bend down and roughly grab her arm. On it, I find darkened veins and track marks running all the way to the crotches of her fingers.

Smiling, I lift up her arm to show her.

“Seems like you’ve been having plenty of fun on your own.”

She releases a little chuckle.

“C’mon man. We all gotta get through the day somehow, right?” she smiles, seemingly genuine.

“You know something?”

“What’s that, mister?”

“If you weren’t such an ugly fucking skank, I might have fucked around with you.”

I stand up.

“FUCK YOU!”

Ignoring her incessant cursing and yelling, I quickly make my way towards the back alley.

Broken glass cracks beneath my heel as I eagerly push through the alley to catch up to my new friend.

Fear begins to fall over me as I continue my march through the muck.

What if I cannot find my friend?

My fear soon turns to bliss as I finally come across James.

There he stood.

Bloodied hammer in hand.

His whore now lay on the ground, convulsing.

I hide.

I watch with burning anticipation as James grabs her hair, now muddled to her forehead from blood and brain.

Amazing.

He is so calm, and his face never changes, even as he cuts into her left breast with a serrated knife.

I see.

So he uses the hammer to stun his victim before he kills them.

This way, they cannot scream.

As I watch him mutilate and disembowel the girl, I find something.

Something I cannot ignore.

The girl is still alive!

It starts as a snort, then a chuckle. Then, I begin to laugh.

I laugh and scream, and I do not know why.

I howl with laughter to the point where I feel like I’m going to piss myself.

The fact that he has been carving into this chick for the past hour and a half and yet she is still alive?!

I could not contain myself.

Blinded by tears, I roll around on the cement. My voice echoes through the alley.

James probably hears it, and I couldn’t even care.

She held on to her life, and for what?!

So she could be conscious when her right tit got cut off?!

Slowly but surely, the laughter begins to die.

Unlike the girl.

And there stood my friend.

Hammer in hand.

Smile on his face.

Standing over me.