Knife Life

In my free time at college, I decided I would write a story while I wait for my next class. This is what I like to call "Knife Life" for a reason you will see later on in the story. This story is different from most of my other short stories because I have it divided into parts, which are something like chapters. So before I spend too much time in here typing something totally unrelated to school and forget to read The Iliad, here's the story.

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Part 1: The Suits

   Dark eyes carefully watch the man stumble across the room, a slave to more than just them. Blood leaks out of his left leg, something that is long broken. He grunts with each movement, as each step brings his left leg down to the floor. The room that surrounds him is dark and undefined to him, but the room feels small and hidden away. There's an aura in the air that gives a sense that no matter how loud he screams, only the men in the room already will hear him. 

   "Why?" His voice slithers its way out of his throat, carry blood with it. The blood splatters on the floor and joins the blood from the million of other victims that he, himself, had trapped here. Death was his business, it was his life, and nothing seemed to want to stop him from letting anything like this happen. He used to lock them in the closed confined space of this room together, several people at a time, and would wait six weeks before going back in and taking out the rotting corpses. He would replace the bones after the rest of the body would finish decomposing. This was what his job was, a mass murderer. 

   But things were seeing change, it seems. The hunter had become the hunted, and now suffered a worse fate than he would have ever imagined. He only ever imagined a quick death, or jail. The ones who hired him were the ones who controlled who went in and out of the jails. In every case, he would have been fine. Too many men, woman, and children had died in his care; it was time that they ended his spree. No longer was he needed to wipe the scum off the face of the earth. 

   The men stay quiet, wearing their expensive suits. Men known across the world and yet unknown to all. Men who can do what ever they please, where ever they please, and get away with it. The world is at their finger tips; this pathetic excuse for a man is just another pebble under their feet. A click echoes through the empty room, followed by a ear-shattering bang. With a bullet in his torn leg, the man collapses. 

   "You've crossed us, maggot." One of the men say. The darkness shrouds them, concealing their numbers. The words bounce and echo through the room, colliding with the injured man.

   "John Mason, son of Jeffrey Thomas Mason, you have been ending the lives of the innocent for far too long. The council has decreed that in return, you must die a long painful death. Soon the loss of blood will knock you unconscious, but that will not save you." John Mason looks up to the men, or where he thinks the men are. Shock overtakes him and his head begins to feel light. Knowing that soon he will no longer be conscious, he attempts to speak in response. 

   "Innocent?" He says, barely audible. Every breath is dreadfully hard, stopping him from getting very many words out. "But they told-" An absolute darkness takes over and he collapses to the floor, unconscious. 

Part 2: The Wakening

   Where am I? John Mason thinks to himself as his eyes open to the world around him. The dark room, his dark room, has faded away and he now finds himself hidden in the sunlight, hidden to none but himself. His pale skin glows in the unfamiliar light and his light green eyes burn like they were on fire. All he sees before shutting his eyes again is the light, nothing else. He tries to move, initially believing that he would be chained to the soft bed underneath him. But no chains bind him to the resting place of his glowing white body. Foot steps can be heard, coming from outside of the small room he lies in. 

   The room consists of a one window wall, parallel to the door, bright ceiling lights, and a confused man in a hospital bed. John Mason wasn't dead, he wasn't even close to death. The Suits brought him to the hospital after he passed out, and something inside of him knows it. Deep down, he might understand it, but on a conscious level, he knows nothing. His head spins as he moves his leg, fully healed. His eyes slide open, and he bears the pain of the light on his eyes. A small calendar of sorts hangs on the wall across from him. It's been six months? He yells in his mind, six months gone like they were never there. 

   What brought him here? Better question, why did they bring him here? The door opens and his head turns to the right to see who it is. A nurse of about his age walks in, with someone following her. "Oh, you're awake." The nurse says, sounding surprised that he was awake at all. She was not a believer in his survival, hell, John wasn't even one. But there is a reason why they kept him alive, a reason far beyond the usual reasons. The men in suits are long gone now, having finished their part in his story. 

   John nods slightly at her and peers around her to see the visitor. A woman of about his age (around 25 or 30), stood behind the nurse and was a fine specimen for her age. That's how he would describe it, but most men would say she is beautiful. With long brown hair and stunning green eyes and a face that looks like it was carved by angels, it's easy to see what they mean. The woman walks up to the side of the bed and looks back at the nurse, nodding at her. In a matter of seconds, the nurse disappears through the open door. 

   "Hello, John Mason. I'm sure you're wondering who I am." She pauses and looks out the window, where the majority of the light radiates from. "My name is Julia Hassan. I was sent here to give you something." She says without taking her eyes off of the world outside of the window. She stares out the window like it's all that matters. John looks up at her curiously, with his head spinning like a top. No matter what comes now, he's still surprised he's alive and not feeling any pain at all. But at the same time a small suspicion grows in his stomach.

“It's...” He begins to say, surprised that his voice works at all. “It's a pleasure to meet you.” He sits up and looks at the table that stands beside his bed. A pair of blue jeans and a basic yellow t-shirt lie folded on top of it. He'll be out of here soon. Turning his head towards Julia, he lets a smile break across his face. He's free, he's safe. Nobody was going to harm him anymore. This was the ultimate realization that he suffered before she pulled a letter out of her pocket.

“They told me to give this to you.” She tells him, not knowing what might lie inside of the letter. He took it from her and opened it immediately. In the world outside the window, a dark cloud creeps over the deep blue sky, consuming the innocence that once was there. Julia recognizes the cloud like an old friend, and a saddened look crosses her face. “Not another thunderstorm.” She says, sounding incredibly disappointed. “I was supposed to go on a picnic today.”

Everything Julia had said goes in one of John's ears and out the other. His face, frozen in place, stares at the letter in horror. Julia doesn't realize that he might have stumbled across something dark, darker than the clouds that dared to approach the building. The lightning dances around inside of the thunderclouds, readying itself for the attack. “Time is running short...” John says, disconnected from the real world. He isn't talking to Julia, but more to himself. In a perceptual state of shock, he sits there, lost to the world. His world is still vivid and alive, but the clouds invade his world as well; the end draws near.

“Oh don't worry about it, John. It's just a thunderstorm.” Julia tells him before looking back at him and realizing that he is not in this world at all. Any and all words that she'll say will not be heard. “John?” She begins to panic a little, what could have caused such a reaction? It was just a letter, after all. The letter slips from his hands and she hesitates before bending over and picking it up. Her eyes quickly reads through the letter and the letter floats to the ground after she is done. A hand creeps up to her mouth, and she reaches out with her other hand, looking for something to support her.

“They're going to kill everyone here, not just me...” He mutters to himself repeatedly. His world begins to spin around him and an earthquake shakes his mind; it's the end of it all. Despite being the hand of destruction for so long, he feels this feeling surfacing from a place he had forsaken many years ago, a need to save them. He doesn't believe, deep down inside, that his mistake should be the end of so many more people. A thousand souls, bearing a thousand pounds each, already rest upon his small shoulders. Now he can feel the anguish of all those souls, weighing down the man they once called Death. His back begins to buckle under the weight, one more soul will kill him, yet alone a million or more. Could he flee the attack and save himself? Or will he be stuck here, fighting to try and stay alive?

Part 3: The Attack 

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Actually, I think I'll end it there for now and post the rest later. Well that's all for me, off to go do school work!

Freedom or Death?

Blood trickles off of the chair like a crimson-red waterfall, staining the cement floor underneath it. A woman with ginger-red hair and ocean blue eyes lies in the chair, motionless. Her face is fair, and her body is bountiful. Many men would have wished to have her, but no man could ever own this woman. A bloodstained dress, once the same shade of blue as her eyes, clothes her cold body. Her makeup has faded away and her face was ‘all natural’ as some would say. There were men here once, but they did not touch her. They came in all sizes, big, small, somewhere in the middle, but none could imagine why someone would do such a thing to the woman in the chair. “Horrible” is how they described it, those men with badges, but a tragedy is what it was.

Cuts that would have healed to be scars litter her face in a seemingly random fashion. But there is nothing random about how the cuts were carved into her delicate skin; it was premeditated. “He has motive.” One of the men that came earlier had told the others, thinking they know enough of the story to find the suspect. But the story they know is no more real than “Everything’s Eventual” by Steven King. They will never find out that not everything was ‘eventual’. The man they were discussing was wearing a suit made in Indonesia and had been here before them. He ran off not long after recognizing the mark that was carved into her face, something most men would not see.

These marks were not born of hate, carried no allegiance to Satan, and were long lost to most modern men. But the woman knew the secret few men knew. That secret is why she died after all. The marks look like two separate smiles, just the regular parted lip one, with an ‘X’ going right through the middle of them. To the untrained eye, it merely looks like random cutting out of hate. Few men have found the secret, the cause as they call it. Many men have searched for it, looking for it out of childish curiosity, totally unaware of what it really is. Few have found the cause, even fewer have been admitted to it. The men with badges didn’t have any idea that the mark even exists. They didn’t even realize that they’ve already found the human who marked this woman.

It was a human who chose to end this woman’s life, a hurt human, but still a human. This human spent its life feeling like it was trapped by society and went out seeking freedom. It found it along a dirt road on the island of lost dreams. The night that brought the end of this woman here, was a night spent living totally free for that human; no punishment would be found in the morning. At first the human did not know what to do with its newfound freedom, but it found the answer when a man angered it at a convenience store.

Now only the camera watching could tell the story, the human is gone and everyone is dead. There was a click, then a bang. The man fell to the ground, and some woman started screaming for help. “What was that?” An unknowing clerk yelled from the cash register. Blood ran out of the man’s heart like slaves running to freedom. The human looked down at the man, who was large and bulky, much unlike the human who had murdered him and freed his blood from its cell. Then there was another bang.

The woman who was screaming for help had begun to run away. It wasn’t fear that made the human kill her too; it was the empowering feeling that freeing the slaves gave that drove her to do it. The bullet ran right through the woman’s dyed black hair and flew through her skull like it wasn’t even there. Her face showed shock and faced the clerk, who realized what had just transpired. Fighting the urge to run, he pulled out his cell phone and started to dial 911. The human noticed the clerk holding the phone up to his ear. “Dammit!” The clerk yelled; the phone had just died on him. A bullet flew through the small hole in the bulletproof glass and pierced him in the stomach, a slow death that felt like forever.

This was the beginning of the human’s spree of freeing the slaves from the shackles that bound them. The woman in the chair was the final act of freedom. No rope was needed to keep the woman in the chair while the human carved the marks into her face. The woman was willing. She felt trapped by the world and understood what it meant to be free. To be truly free, you must be truly alone and in death, you’re alone. She was sick of being trapped by the world around her, and chose to escape.

The man in the suit knew the woman well. He had once been her husband, before the incident with the iron toe. She divorced him, but they both knew the secret and that bound them until death. The divorce happened no more than two weeks before her death. To most people, it seems like he killed her. But he had no such intentions; his intentions were not cruel. Police would find no evidence against him, just a motive and no alibi. He is innocent of murder, but knows who did this to her.

Just now, the men in badges have decided on the cause of death. They believe it was a loss of blood, but the woman was dead long before that could happen. She let herself die early, having lost the will to live. She was much alike the human who killed her, perhaps even the same. The knife was held by only one person since being stolen from a store in the city. That person was the woman; she carved the marks into her face carefully and seemingly painlessly.

The cause that she followed in life was simple. It was an underground railroad for the forgotten and trapped people of society. Those admitted to the cause brought freedom to others, then themselves. The men in badges will be surprised when they see the videotape from the convenience store and see the woman in the chair murdering people as if it was better for them. True freedom only comes in death, and now she’s free.

-Zero

Autumn (Introduction)

   I start down the long beaten path ahead of me. Red, yellow and orange leaves decorate the trees, making the path seem like it’s surrounded by a forest fire. The trees seem to be the only things that grow in this forest. There’s no sign of anything else. Maybe it’s just like this during autumn. Autumn… I miss you. The sun shines bright in the sky, with clouds to keep it company. Occasionally a shadow will be cast over me, but it never lasts very long. As long as it doesn’t rain that is. But I do love the rain too.

   Rain is like the looked down upon god who really does more than most people give him credit for. Rain is like Hades, except not a total prick. When the clouds get dark and menacing, the sun hides and people used to think it meant evil. But once it started raining they would praise the gods for it, because water is life and without rain, nothing would live. Even lush places like this forest would die quickly without rain. Rivers would dry up and humans, like me, would die as well. This gives it perhaps more purpose than the sun does, but we cannot live without either. Today will not see any rain, however.

   Perhaps I ought to reveal my own appearance rather than the appearance of everything around me. I am a man of many years, with a face that tells its own stories. My hair is medium length and snow white, but will probably grow quite long by the end of my final adventure. I do have a beard, which is also medium length and white. For some strange reason, I cannot seem to grow hair above my lip, so the beard is entirely from my chin and sideburns. My eyes, as I am told by many, are deep blue and are easy to get lost in. A scar of great importance to me goes across my cheek; perhaps I may tell you the story behind it, but not now. My clothes are dirty and ragged, my pants being brown and my shirt being a dull red. I have a medium build, well, medium for where I come from. My village lies far from here, but we spend our lives doing hard labor so even the small boys are fairly muscular for your city people. A claymore with a gemmed handle and sheath rests on my back as perhaps the only thing still fully intact on me. Oh! I forgot to mention that I do not wear shoes! My people are not known for our love of shoes, especially not me.

    I can feel the rocks under my feet, but just barely. After all of my years walking barefoot, pain does not exist when you step on something sharp. Some men from our village could crush rocks with their feet. The path is rugged and seems rarely used. Very little men take the road less travelled; it is surprising that I find myself searching along it. Normally it is forbidden to leave the village alone, but none could stop the Chief from leaving. That is what you can call me, if you wish. I wouldn’t normally leave the village either, but these are dire times. My daughter, Autumn, disappeared from her bed one night. Her hair is auburn, and when the sunlight hits it in a certain way, it resembles fire. She was praised by the village for her beauty. She was my pride and joy after her mother died. Now I search the world for her. There was only one thing left behind and it lies in my hand, a religious symbol of some sort I believe. It is merely a curve with three lines going through it like a claw mark. Not a person in my village had any idea what it could be. I must find out, somehow.
  
   A snapping branch in the woods to my left draws my attention in that direction. I feel eyes upon me and I draw my blade. “Care to dance?” I yell into the woods. I pocket the little black symbol and stare deep into the trees. Silence sings its song through the woods. There is no reply, not even a sign of an animal nearby. I shrug; acting like I actually think that there’s nothing there and keep walking down the long winding path. Very few men travel on this path, yet it seems that dangers of more used paths are here as well. And to think I’ve only just left my village. Autumn disappeared two nights ago. I slide the blade back into its sheath on my back. A shadow casts itself over me.

   The sky turns dark like the night; there will be rain after all.

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   Here's a little taste of a new, uh, let's call it a story. I feel that the story itself will go on quite long on its own so I figured I would post it in parts. But first, I had to post the beginning of it. As you could probably tell, this will be telling the story of someone I like to call the Chief. The Chief is a small village man whose daughter went missing two nights before the part you see above. The Chief is about to discover the secrets of a thought to be lost world. I invite you to join me in following this man in his adventure. I'm sure we'll have fun. 

Until next time, Kuna Zero.

Underground Railroad

   It’s time to tell my story, not theirs. They’re tyrants, kings in their own minds. They try to control us all, and do. They control every single one of our movements and the only sanctuary we have from them is hidden in our death, or in uncovering the truth. But uncovering the truth is harder than it might sound. They’re always watching. We can’t see them, they’re shadows, specters. They are the demons possessing us to do evil things.

   I was born as Jesse Grohl, another slave to their torment. I am not that man now, I am far from it; I am not the pretender. I was a famous hip-hop star before my mind started to wander. I spent most of my time drinking, getting high, and having sex with what ever girls I wanted. That’s exactly what I sang about. I was a preacher, preaching that the life I had was the best. I was wrong.

   I found the truth by accident, well, almost by accident. I was looking for the truth, but I wasn’t looking to see the shadows rise up and control people. Most people look at their shadows and think that they control it, but it’s just the opposite. The shadows control us; we mimic its movement. The world is truly backwards. We are all slaves to this torment. You want to see my transformation? Do you want to see the truth as I found it? Then we’re going to go back six months, half a year, to October sixth.

   My friend’s birthday had just passed and we spent it drinking and getting high, like every other day. Sounds like a celebration, doesn’t it? Well it wasn’t much of one. I still don’t even know how old he turned that day. I didn’t care back then; it was just another reason to party as I saw it. I don’t even think I know his real name; I just called him “Fox”. The shadows gave me fame, gave me money, gave me power but they couldn’t give me a heart of my own. I only cared for what they did; I was as selfish as them.

   October 6th, the day of awakening. As the world fell into a deep slumber, I woke from mine. The very thing that led me to see the truth and fight the lies appeared before me. It was just a story by someone I would have called a “freak show” before. His name was Toby Tessier and he was the first I heard that broke free from the shadows. The story he wrote was of his own. He was born free as a black sheep among white ones. People feared this in him, but then the shadows got to him. He threw his life away, his happiness away, without realizing it. Destiny came calling one day, opening his eyes. He almost lost his life (even if he wasn’t really alive after all) but instead, he broke free from the shadows and became alive. His story showed me the difference between living a life and being alive. Living is just physical, but being alive is something far beyond that, something far beyond the reach of the shadows.

   I came across his story by accident. I was bored and my dealer was busy until later that night so I started searching random words up. I got curious about what a black sheep looks like so I looked it up. That’s when I saw, “Black Sheep”, a tale of freedom from the nightmares that haunt us all. At first I clicked on it because I was looking for a good laugh. I later came back to read it over and over again. By my third reading, I came to understand exactly what he was talking about. That’s when I felt the shadow looking over my shoulder, guiding my hand to close the page.

   They stood above me, guiding my hand. I knew the truth, and they were afraid. My eyes opened and I saw the darkness creeping towards me. I started fighting their control over me. “No!” I screamed as the darkness begins to consume me, bringing me to my end. My hand broke free, and the darkness retreated. I stood up and tried to walk away, but the weight of it all was just too much for me to handle. I fell to my knees, tears falling down my face. “I almost died.” I muttered to myself repeatedly. But you are not dead. I thought to myself.

   I stood up boldly and roared to the world, the train has arrived. “All aboard the freedom train, travelling along the Underground Railroad. We won’t stop until we are free!” I yelled to the world for all to hear. I felt empowered, like I had just broken free from the shackles on my wrists. I would not be the only one freed by Toby Tessier’s story, I had to free others.

   The phone rang loudly, and I slowly went to pick it up. “Hello?” I said into the receiver. The room around me suddenly became real, I could see it. The walls were white, pale as a ghost. The room was small, so small that just the auburn desk and chair occupied almost the entire room. The computer sat on top of the desk, a brand new computer with a touch screen monitor. The only light in the room came from the monitor and on the screen was Toby Tessier’s story, “Black Sheep”.

   A muffled voice came out of the phone. “It’s me. I got the stuff, you want some?” I scrolled down the page and saw something I missed before. At the end of the story, Toby Tessier left a link to something. He wrote “Listen to these words, my friend.” beside it. I realized who was on the phone and realized what they had said to be something they want me to do. That stuff blinds you, slows you, and binds you to the shadows. 

I replied with something I never thought I would have said before. “No, I’ve quit.” Then I hung up without saying goodbye. I already said goodbye to the shadows. I looked back at the computer monitor and decided to click on the link. A video popped up on the screen and at the top of the screen it said, “The Pretender – Foo Fighters”. The guitar started playing and the band members took their positions. The singer began singing.

   “Keep you in the dark, you know they all pretend…” I realized that Toby Tessier was not the first to be free from the shadows. The rebels, the outsiders, even the outcasts of society were all free and that’s why we had forsaken them. The shadows wanted us to ignore them, so that they could keep their control over us. I began singing along to the song.

   “What if I say I’m not like the others? What if I say I’m not just another one of your plays? You’re the pretender! What if I say I will never surrender?” The men in uniform charged in towards the band and got blasted by some sort of red liquid. I turned up the volume and left the room after I put it on a loop. The song played over and over again as I tore my own house apart. I destroyed everything that represented their hold over me. I grabbed my bong and all the alcohol I had. I charged out my front door to find my red Ferrari F50 parked in front of my massive house. I placed the bottles down and looked long and hard at the bong. It had the shape of a regular bong, but had my face on it. My blood started to boil.

   A shattering sound was what came next. The bong collided with the side door of the car and shattered into a million tiny pieces, one for each life I ruined with my blind words. I started throwing all of the bottles at the car like I was a gun shooting bullets, shattering both the bottles and the windows of the car. After there were none left I looked at the car, something bought because they told me to. It was dented and damaged to hell. I looked out past the car and saw my seemingly endless driveway, surrounded by cleanly cut grass, cut by some underpaid person, and saw that despite all that they gave me they really couldn’t give me a heart of my own. A twelve foot gate surrounded the property, my property. No, their property.

   “I’m the voice inside your head, you refuse to hear. I’m the face that you have to face, mirroring your stare. I’m what’s left, I’m what’s right, I’m the enemy.” The song sung through my open door. I stormed into my house and found some gasoline. I poured it on everything and took some matches. I lead the trail of gasoline outside and covered their car in it. I lit a match and threw it onto the gasoline. I backed up to watch the whole thing burn. The house burst into flames and the song stopped quickly, on the last line the singer sung. “WHO ARE YOU?” He yelled at me as the house burned to the ground, a mansion reduced to ashes in what felt like seconds.

   I started laughing victoriously, and walked away from the things that they had given to me. Sirens sang as the police cars, fire trucks and ambulances came to stop the fire. The red and blue lights tried fighting the fires from the other side of the gate as I walked towards them. They were locked out. The firemen and police were trying to break through the gate without much luck. I stood there on the other side of the gate and smiled at them, then walked away. 

-Zero

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   This story was indeed inspired by the Foo Fighters' song "The Pretender". Not only was it connected to another story of mine, it is also the first story I have finished in a while. There was a time that I was focusing on my novel that I am working on and I got no short stories done. But then I hit a road block, or a writer's block as we would normally call it. I stopped writing entirely, I actually spent most of my time out with friends or playing video games. I appeared happy, but without the ability to finish a story or even write one, I wasn't really happy. I had to find that inspiration I had back when I was in high school (I graduated this year.) I may be conditioned to slack off in the summer (classical conditioning, something I learned in psychology) and I am more isolated to certain people and environments, but I see no reason why I should have stopped writing. So, as a result, I have decided to stop playing video games as much and spend most of my days writing because that is truly what I love doing. Actually, I'm going into a liberal arts program at heritage college this year. If you don't know what that is, as far as my understanding goes, it's basically english class times a thousand. It is very heavy on reading, writing and philosophy. By the end of the two years I will be spending in this program, I should be able to write thirty page essays easily. Anyways, I feel that I have gone on for long enough. 

Until next time, Kuna Zero.