Even in childhood, Eldon had an inquisitive nature. Rather than play with a gift, he would tear it apart to see how it worked. He liked to know how things worked, and his interests went beyond mechanics. He also played with model rockets, and experimented with chemistry to build their composite engines.

Sci-fi books and magazines fueled his imagination, and he’d get lost in far away worlds for hours at a time. He had a great ability to extract how the futuristic ideas he read about, could benefit him. Armed with these ideas, he’d dream about where they could take him. He conducted thought experiments like Einstein was known to do; dreaming about the possibilities and then building something out of them in his mind.

He seldom sought the comfort of others. He found the one’s around him wanting; stupid in the way they lived. He just paid them enough time to understand how he could control them, but nothing beyond that. Even as a child, he was interested in people’s capacities, and their differences. How far he could push some of them, but not others, and the difference between the two. He found he could manipulate most people with persuasion, and fear.

He even conducted experiments. As a young teen, he was fascinated with death. He loved to kill animals with various degrees of torture and watch how they died. They tended to squeal and struggle right up to the last moment. Sometimes they almost showed human reactions towards him, like they were chastising him or something. It was all very curious.

Killing small animals was fun, but something seemed to be missing. Animals weren’t very good at conveying the emotional component to death Eldon was looking for. They didn’t have the reasoning to understand the concept of death. They couldn’t look ahead a couple of minutes, and come to the conclusion they were about to die, before they did. It would take a human subject to reach this type of death. That’s where all the fun was, Eldon believed. The time between knowing you’re about to die, and dying.

With that in mind, Eldon went into town and came across the man he was looking for. The community tended to look upon him as the resident fool, and tolerated him. He was unable to hold a job, and relied upon the county to provide for him. He was also visibly gay, and this was all that was required for the small minded members of the community to make him the butt of their jokes. He good naturedly took the jibes, and because of this was accepted in the community.

Eldon headed towards the man. He knew he would flirt with him in spite of the fact that Eldon was only fourteen years old. He flirted shamelessly with all the young boys, even when their parents were around. He was known to be harmless, and his flirting was what the community loved to tease him about the most. The parents used such interactions as a teaching moment; putting the lowest member of their society into his place.

‘Well look at you, Eldon,’ the man said. ‘Aren’t you getting big. I bet you’re starting to grow hair in some of your special places’.

‘I’m going home,’ Eldon replied. ‘Why don’t you come with me? You can find out when we pass through the forest?’

The man was set back by Eldon’s reply. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. He knew that, but he didn’t know what to do.

‘Well, I would but I’m getting my hair done. My appointment is in just a few minutes,’ the man replied uncertainly. He was torn between his unfulfilled desire and the thought it was probably wrong.

Stolen story; please report.

‘Suit yourself,’ Eldon said. ‘I just learned how to beat off and I thought it would be more fun if we did it together’.

This image was more than the man could resist. The truth was, he had never had even that degree of sexual contact with another male and he hungered for it. Eldon saw it in his eyes and turned to walk home. The man followed.

When they reached the forested area, Eldon stopped by a tree and turned to the man. ‘You can kiss me on the cheek,’ he said.

The man gushed and giggled and then bent forward to kiss Eldon who at the same time, unsheathed a Bowie knife he had hidden under his jacket. He struck the heel of the knife close to the man’s temple. The man crumpled and with a rope he had hidden on the way into town, Eldon tied him to the tree.

When the man woke, Eldon showed him the knife and told him he was going to kill him. He saw alarm in the man’s eyes, but not fear. It wasn’t the fear of death Eldon was looking for. The visual cue of the knife and threat of death were not enough to spark the realization he was about to die. Rather the man begged to live, and tried to bargain with Eldon.

Eldon concluded the man didn’t have enough information, so he shoved the blade into the man’s stomach, pulled it out and stood back to see what effect that had. This definitely heightened the man’s fear, but he still didn’t seem to get the fact he was about to die. He kept begging and pleading to be let go.

Eldon watched this for a few minutes. The man was bleeding heavily. It should be obvious to him, he was dying, yet he kept crying for Eldon to get him help.

‘Don’t you feel like you’re dying?’ Eldon asked the man.

‘You can get an ambulance,’ the man replied. ‘It’s not too late’.

‘But it is too late. Why would I help you when I brought you here to kill you? You’re going to die. No one besides me even comes through this forest. No one’s going to save you. You’re about to die. How does that feel’?

‘What?’

‘Knowing you’re going to die?’

The man looked at Eldon. He looked down at the blood flowing out of his belly. Then he looked back up at Eldon, and realized the boy was not going to let him go.

‘There! Right there!’ Eldon cried. ‘What does that feel like?’

‘What?’ the man asked.

‘Knowing you’re going to die. What does that feel like?’

The man didn’t respond.

‘Tell me,’ Eldon demanded, as he stuck the man again.

The man groaned but didn’t speak, and soon after fell into unconsciousness.

Eldon stabbed the man a few more times to make sure he was dead and untied him. In disappointment, he kicked him, and that felt good, so he kicked him some more.

Since then, Eldon had experimented on a number of human subjects. It was all about the time between knowing and dying. He found once people knew with certainty they were going to die, they simply shut down and waited for the inevitable. The trick was to make them believe they were about to die, before accepting it. That’s where pure fear and suffering could be found. The proper combination of psychological manipulation and pain would take Eldon’s victims to this place. He learned how to manufacture belief and prolong acceptance. This was where the horror of the imagination lived, and Eldon learned to live in there with his victim. Eldon’s victims died truly horrible deaths. One’s only the imagination could produce.

Eldon let out a sigh. Now, it was Ethan’s turn.