Eric
As the darkness faded, Eric’s eyes had to readjust to the sudden brightness.
In front of him – floating in reality like birds in unreal skies – were dozens upon dozens of long wooden benches filled to the brim with half alive creatures. They were arranged in a half circle, the creatures sitting on the benches quietly whispering and exchanging words he couldn’t quite understand.
As he examined closer, he realized how familiar the creatures looked. He saw metallic half humans, people partly wrapped in present paper. There were heavily injured ones as well as remains of humans which clearly were supposed to be dead in the state they were currently in. But even in this pitiful state, he exactly knew who they were.
He had brought them into this state after all.
The masked figure slammed its hammer against the desk it was standing in front of, and the masses of Jim’s and Anna’s as well as the masses of Jack’s went silent.
What is the purpose of this? If they already know everything they need about what happened back then, why should they act out a court sentence ‘in here’, he thought. I have already won the game, they can just let me out now like promised. And even if it was all just a lie and they would decide to somehow continue this inside or outside the game, I could just figure out a plan and get rid of everyone standing in my way. I could keep on trying, continue pushing forward, until I have everything I desire.
Eric wanted to mock the masked figure, tell it that presenting all these dead people in front of him wouldn’t change a thing. He wanted to say that he didn’t plan on hiding what he had done anymore, since there was nothing that could bring harm upon him anyways. But to his surprise, he was unable to.
Instead, the masked figure rose its voice, the red box accompanying it as it said, “I will now proceed to name the crimes of the accused person Eric Hoffner, who will from now on been referred to as ‘the Sinner’.”
Eric looked up and down at all the versions of the three kids on the benches. Some of them were ugly, twisted and changed beyond comprehension, some weren’t changed much, almost as if they were actually still alive. But all of them were the definitive proof of his superiority and immortality, like a painting of the past underlining his might. Even though they were sitting higher than him, he looked down upon all of them.
Eric smiled, but yet something bothered him.
“Three years ago, on the 3. April at around 7 pm, the Sinner managed to break inside of the Reich family’s home. He entered by smashing open the front door with something heavy. It is expected that the father of the family – Gerald Reich – heard the noise and wanted to confront the Sinner as he attacked him and cut off his hands. Following the evidence, Gerald Reich then died from blood loss after struggling to fight the Sinner.”
Something about their faces, if they still had any, caused a feeling of unease inside of Eric. He didn’t like the way they continuously whispered, pointed at him and shot glances at him like upon some kind of circus animal. Were they still unable to see his supremacy? Were they daring to look down on him? It was almost like back then. That god damn kid had looked down on him. His family had felt the consequences soon after… and they had never pitied him again.
“The Sinner then proceeded to capture and restraint Claire Reich – the mother of the family,” the masked figure continued. “She was found later that night crucified in the garden in front of the Reich family’s house, on top of a small field of flowers. If she was already dead while being crucified couldn’t be proven neither disproven by the authorities.”
All of them were pathetic. They had merely been a stepping stone for him, a means to an end to reach his end goal, and now they were there staring him down like they had the right to pity him? These disgusting lowly creatures, unable to even exist out of this restricted reality created to keep him hostage. They would vanish as soon as he left here, and no one would ever remember them.
But yet they pity me, he thought.
Eric’s posture tensed up.
How dare they?
“The Sinner then moved to the younger child’s bedroom, where he strangled the two year old Lea Reich to dead. She was later found with her eyes cut out. If the Sinner has cut out her eyes before or after strangling her to death couldn’t be proven nor disproven by the authorities.”
Eric felt his insides tense up as well. He had to reveal to them what he thought, what he felt. He needed to tell all these dead scum how weak they were, how small, how unimportant.
But the masked figure somehow still made it impossible for him to speak. He couldn’t talk, whisper, or even raise an eyebrow.
The whispering of the crowd increased in volume, now more rhythmical than it had been before. It seemed to be a word repeated over and over, but it was too quiet to understand.
“At last, the Sinner made his way upstairs where the older child of the Reich family had locked himself inside of his room – Hendrick Reich. Authorities believe that Hendrick tried to attack the Sinner with a scissor after he had broken into the room by kicking it in, but the Sinner managed to smash in Hendrick’s head before he could do him any harm.”
The whispering had now built up to a chanting, grown loud enough to be clearly audible. Even though it was louder than the talking of the masked figure, the chanting appeared to stay in the background, as if it bent itself around the words of the mask.
“Sinner. Sinner. Sinner,” the crowd chanted in unison.
The mask continued, “The Sinner escaped before the police arrived. The neighbours had called them earlier because of the noise and screams created by Eric’s sins. A few hours later, the Sinner was arrested inside of a village by a police-officer named Jeff Grimes.”
As he heard the name Jeff Grimes, thoughts started circling inside of Eric’s head. Emotions towered and turned at high forces inside him. He struggled to move, but it didn’t work.
I will kill him. I will fucking kill that piece of shit police bastard, he thought.
The chanting hat raised to a deafening volume.
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The masked figure raised it’s hammer, brought it down.
Silence echoed through reality.
Then, it raised its voice once more.
“The Sins have been listed, and the game has officially ended. All the goals of the game have been fulfilled and the wanted outcome has been reached. After all the information has been processed and analysed, the sentence will be officially stated and carried out in the real world. The Sinner will now have one more chance to say what he desires, then we will initiate the process of bringing him back to reality.”
The box in front of Eric’s vision disappeared.
He was able to move again.
“You are now free to speak, Sinner.”
---
Eric clenched his hands into fists. He got up from the chair, kicked it towards the audience. It disappeared with a glitch of reality mid air. He took a step forward towards the masked figure, pointed at it with one hand and slammed his fist on the table with the other.
“You finally done now? Done with your games, your tricks, all of that bullshit?”
The masked figure didn’t appear impressed, kept staring forward like before. The crowd was in silence, everyone and everything listening to him.
Eric backed off, turned back to the crowd.
“You – all of you – have lost. You are done, finished, hear me? The game is over, and once I leave here, you will all disappear into nothingness. You guys have thrown all you had at me, tried to stop me over and over again, but it is from no use, since I am the being that towers upon everything. And you have failed to stop my raise to power. Your single and only use in this fake reality was to be a burden for me, a weight dragging down on me and making it harder than it needed to be. You were created for that one single reason, and now look at you…”
He outstretched his arms, gestured towards the crowd, said, “All dead. Every single one of you. You have failed over and over to stop me, and you have merely been another stepping stone in the ocean of rocks in my way. You have made me more powerful than before, and finally, unstoppable and immortal.
“Jim, I know you are in there somewhere. Not the other Jim’s, which I don’t even remember individually. The one I’m talking about knows which one I mean. The one that dared to pity me.
“You might think you have tricked me, figured out a way to outplay me, but you are wrong. The deal you made with the masked figure hasn’t helped. It has failed. It was merely a last ditch effort to keep me in here, but in the end you knew you couldn’t kill me, right? You knew you would be trapped in here with me slaughtering your friends over and over till eternity and beyond. And now, after you have failed one last time, I can finally be free... I can get out of here, which means I can find you and your little friends’ real versions.”
Eric’s eyes burned with a wicked passion as he spoke. His eyes darted around as he searched for Jim, the Jim that had dared to look down on him. He wouldn’t let anyone get away with that.
“I am not dumb, I know that copies of you existing in here means you are probably still alive in the real world, and what I did to the Reich family will be a fucking joke compared to what I will be doing to you and your friends. I will rip them apart in the cruelest way possible. I have more than enough practice for that now, thanks to you.”
He held a hand in front of his face, started smiling. He couldn’t help it, the pure joy of the situation overwhelmed him. The helplessness of the people in front of him drove him to a feeling of overwhelming superiority. Eric realized he had started scratching his thumb against his middle finger out of reflex, had already plucked out pieces of skin from its side without even noticing it. He started to chuckle, then laugh.
He was trembling with pure joy.
He wouldn’t be able to hold himself back once he was out of here.
Eric’s laughter was silenced by the hammer once again hitting the wooden surface.
“Very well,” the masked figure said. “I think that is enough. It is now done, and everything important has been said. The Sinner will now be sent back to the normal world.”
And with another sound of the hammer, reality vanished.
For just a moment, Eric found himself enveloped in darkness from the inside and outside simultaneously, a peaceful calmness before the storm.
A storm he would bring upon the world.
And its forces would engulf everything.
---
Reality flickered back into being, but something was wrong.
It felt like nothing had really changed.
A soft, gentle light next to a fireplace crackled with an orange, embracing flame. On a comfortable chair in front of an expensive-looking table, the masked figure was seated in its usual formal clothing.
On the table rested two empty glasses. The mask turned its head, pointed towards the other chair with an opened palm.
“Hello Eric. Please sit down. We have matters to discuss.”
“What is this? You stated I will be able to leave once the game is over.”
“You will. It will take a couple of minutes until they will take you back, but before that I want to talk to you more privately. In here, nothing will leave to the outside world.”
He then repeated, “Please, sit down.”
Eric realized that the red text box was still gone. He was also able to move like usual, nothing forcing him to sit down like earlier.
What happened to your magical powers, huh? he thought. Don’t you want to force me to sit down again, asshole?
“I believe that won’t be necessary anymore. Please, sit down.”
It felt like the smile on the mask stared right into Eric’s soul through its teeth. He swallowed, moved over to the chair, and sat down.
A bottle of expensive looking liquid glitched into existence and started pouring some of its contents into the two glasses which rested in front of Eric and the mask.
“Will you listen to what I have to offer?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Yes.”
Eric repositioned himself in the chair, didn’t find a comfortable position. “Why should I believe a creature too afraid to show its face?”
The masked figure leaned forwards slightly, its body language open but at the same time non-expressive.
“Oh right. How impolite of me.” It put one of its gloved hands to the base of the mask, grabbed it with two fingers.
“I haven’t introduced myself yet, have I?”
The smile on the mask vanished.
“I am the C.U.A project…”
And it started removing the mask.
“...and I want to offer you a deal.”
---