Redemption

"Noooooo! Dont! Please not again! Please, don't!" My voice snaked its way up the hollows of my throat and slithered past my lips in a plea that came from the center of my heart, betraying my weakness once again.

I had sworn to never beg, no matter what. I had never, ever begged for my life and I wouldn't start now. Or so I had once believed. But I had lied; it was a lie that had wound its way from the very core of my being.

By now lying had become second nature to me. It was as easy as taking a breath. Lying was simply a matter of opening my mouth and watching as the words tumbled out across my lips, winding their way into the ears of those foolish enough to believe the innocence portrayed in my eyes.

What other choice did I have but to beg? There was not a drop of pity in this Creature who now held me captive, a slave to its greatest wants and desires. The Creature's form held no pity, no shame, no guilt; remorse was nothing more than a seven-letter word to this being. Deep in the deepest part of my heart I wondered if this creature was capable of feeling anything but hot, cold, wet, dry, hunger or satiation. Was there the barest thread of humanity in this beast? I thought not. Was this Monster, this Creature capable of feeling the tiniest molecule of pain?

No. No, I think it cannot be so. How could a Creature such as this understand even the barest hint of pain, or of the sorrow that is borne between its breasts? How could someone who had brought so much agony to so many feel more than temporal discomfort brought on by the change in temperature in the room?

No one without mercy could watch victim after victim suffer excruciating pain and agony, terror filling every fiber of their being; as they desperately grasp at the death that is seemingly only a moment and yet a thousand miles away at the same time? Their screams, their moans, their groans, their pleadings, their demands, their refusals, and their final capitulations are now all a part of the most intimate pieces of my memory. The Creature has forced me to watch and record every detail as he tortured each and every one of them, drawing the very souls from their bodies, ounce by ounce, molecule by molecule until death formed a final grip on the bits and pieces that floated through the ether.

It had not been enough for this Creature to kill cleanly and quickly. To do so was the way of ordinary folk, those brutes who thought so little of their prey that they simply took only the lives of their victims, only to leave the victim's soul intact to be whisked away by whatever spiritual guide that awaited them on the occasion of their ultimate demise.

Heaven, hell, perdition, rebirth, oblivion, non-existence, eternal bliss, eternal punishment, eternal reward. These items only mattered to those individuals who sought a permanent place in eternity; yet not at all to this Creature, this being who seemed to hold matters of eternity in the spaces between the lines on its fingertips. Killing has become a form of art for this Creature, this being. Death was a gourmet event for this Killer of the Innocent, a buffet, every morsel to be savored, every crumb to be licked from ones fingers. To this Creature the death of another was an event to be embraced as though it were a meal created from the very last specimen of an endangered species; the last wisp life one which he had caused to leave its body.

"Don't, please don't." I silently begged my Jailer, my Captor, my Tormentor, my Torturer, my Worst Enemy; this Creature of Night, not Day; Dark, not Light; this Creature in whose presence evil was often found trembling with excitement and delight, so eagerly awaiting the imminent design of another's soul.

Even as I sent my silent pleas for mercy into the ether, I knew in my heart of heart that it was of little regard to the universe. I was utterly and completely alone in my agony.

"You are the One" the Creature insisted "You are my Crowning Achievement. It is through you that the world will know and finally understand the finality and fullness of my powers. You are the only one with enough strength to endure the ritual. Not one of the other was able to withstand the treatment I had offered them. You and you alone shall have fortune and fame and greater power than you have ever dreamed of in your entire life. I know you seek power. You are no different than anyone else. Each of you seeks power over another, to control another human being, the ability to bend them to you will. This gift of power; it is the greatest gift I will bestow upon you. But this gift, like all great gifts, comes at a terrible price. You should be very proud of yourself. Today is the first step you will take in your long and painful trek towards complete and utter fame; fame such as no other has worn before."

"Noooooooo!" I screamed as loud as my heart would bear, and yet no sound crept across my flaccid lips. The refusal bounced around my skull like a bb in a boxcar. The Creature had unearthed the first ounces of my soul and had torn them asunder by the roots. I dreaded every next moment, every next tick of the clock, my every next breath, every next beat of my heart. If only even one of these next moments would allowed me to end. Then and only then would I be offered a tiny measure of the peace that had been denied me in a previous life; the life in which I had lived from moment to moment, day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year, existing, enjoying, expecting, being disappointed and simply living.

This moment, each and every single moment I prayed for an end to my own existence, prayed to an end to my life, prayed for an end to my consciousness, my awareness, my essential being. Not one of these prayers were answered. I had prayed without a trace of hope, or faith; without a sense of any form of higher power in my life. In this moment there was no higher power than my Captor who was willing to intervene on my behalf; no greater power either benign or evil, neither good nor bad. My prayers faded away from my heart as though they were vapors in a windstorm.

I am alone and I am helpless. There is no such a thing as hope, or faith; each had run capriciously away with my innocence, leaving me with nothing more than the scars of abandonment and an increasingly maddening numbness that had a death grip on the innards of my very being.