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Tissue paper flew across the yard as the excited little boy ripped his birthday gifts open. The little Superman gift bag fell into the grass as the little blonde boy lifted his toy in the air. Ignoring the fact that the wind was blowing away his tissue paper all over the backyard.
“Mom!” The boy exclaimed. “It’s the truck I’ve been wanting!” The little boy was showing a smile so bright it was like he was the sun itself.
The boy’s mom, who had been recording, chuckled warmly at her son who’d been so overjoyed to receive his new toy. “Well that’s good to hear, Alex.”
“I don’t think he’s excited enough, we should return it.” An older man piped up, picking up the scrapped pieces of tissue paper, causing a physical reaction from the boy.
Alex quickly held the truck to his chest and vigorously shook his head no. “You can’t get rid of my truck.” Alex had turned his body away so the man couldn’t even see it.
He knew his dad was messing with him, as his dad usually does, but even the thought of losing his truck was simply a horrible thought.
“Alright, seems as if you do like it.” The man placed his free hand in the boy’s hair and ruffled it until it looked like a mess, making Alex crack a small smile.
Alex saw his dad stuff the tissue paper into a trash bag, he always had a trash bag for every holiday that required wrapping paper, or tissue paper, or anything of the sort.
The kids at the party were still playing around the yard. It was the last present Alex had to open, so they continued on with the fun. Some kids were playing tag, a few of the girls were playing ‘Family’ beside the big tree. They had all already had cake before the gift unwrapping, so the kids knew they only had a few minutes before their parents would pick them up.
Alex was playing with his new truck with his friends. They were all having fun messing around with kid-made track courses for his truck.
“Joe! It’s time to go!” A woman’s voice echoed through the suburban backyard.
“Aw, alright.” The boy turned to Alex. “Bye, Alex. I’ll see you at school tomorrow.” The boys gave each other a small side hug before he left, dragging his light-up sneakers through the dirt over to the gate that led into the backyard, right where his mom was.
Joe was Alex’s best friend and really only good friend. The other kids at the party were from his neighborhood or school. Most of them thought he was weird so never really hung out with him. Alex had never minded not having a lot of friends, he wasn’t a center-of-attention kind of kid. He did enjoy his birthday party though, even if he was the center of attention just once.
Soon enough, there were two kids left at his party, but he didn’t bother to play with them. They were brother and sister from down the street. Brody, and Izzy. The two were playing a game of tag in the yard while Alex minded his own business.
The boy had been running from his sister when his small foot caught on Alex’s new truck and fell hard. His little hands and knees scraped hard against the dirt as he made a loud, ‘oof’ sound. He started to cry, it was a hard fall after all, but Alex was more worried about his truck, He scrambled to pick it up.
There in his little hands were two pieces of one of his newly prized, and sacred possessions.
Alex didn’t cry, he didn’t scream or yell at the boy covered in dirt and tears. But he was angry in a way he’d never felt before.
He looked down at the boy holding his scraped knee to his chest and felt a sense of hatred. Could a seven year old boy feel hatred? He wanted this neighborhood kid dead for all he cared.
He snapped out of his thoughts as he saw his mom tend to the injured boy’s knee. He felt a bigger hand rub his shoulder, he looked up to see his father. Feeling bad that his son’s new truck had been broken this way.
“Don’t worry, kiddo. We can get you another truck, or we might even be able to fix it.” Alex’s dad grabbed the two pieces and shook his head. “Uhh, well why don’t we try getting you that new one?” Alex knew his little truck was beyond repair.
His dad tried to consult him, but Alex didn’t want a new truck. At this point he didn’t want a truck at all. He wanted to see that this boy learned a lesson.
“I’ll be right back, Brody, okay? I’m gonna get you a Ninja Turtles bandaid.” Alex’s mom tried, and failed, to cheer the hurt boy up. And Alex’s dad followed her inside to help her find the themed bandaids they got for Alex when his ninja turtles phase started.
Brody’s sister had been inside in the bathroom because she didn’t like blood. That means Alex was outside alone with the kid who ruined his perfectly good truck. Perfect for Alex to get his revenge.
Alex had set his broken toy down, the pieces of plastic making a sorrowful sound to his ears as they lied there. Alex then searched around his back yard until he found a pile of sand next to the tree. He picked some sand up and approached Brody.
Before anyone could blink he was rubbing the handful of sand onto the scrape, getting the sand deep inside the tiny wound, it caused it to have a scratchy rough sensation that was extremely painful.
Brody screamed in pain as Alex wouldn’t stop shoving the sand into his bleeding knee. “Alex, get off me!” Brody screamed louder. The sand made his nerves feel like they were on fire. And Alex enjoyed it.
As Alex made the boy suffer, he saw out of the corner of his eye a man in a suit. His presence felt scary, and uncomfortable. Yet it felt comforting in an eerie sense. His feelings contradicted one another. He felt feelings that were nice and sickening. But he didn’t exactly hate it either. The man in the suit almost felt proud of the little kid for sticking up for himself.
“Alex! You get away from that boy!” He felt his father’s arms grab him and physically pull him away from Brody. He was too out of it to hear exactly who said it, but he felt bad for being caught like this.
His mom went to check on the kid with the sandy scrape on his knee. The boy was still screaming as Alex’s mom assessed the further damage of the scrape.
“Get inside, boy! And wait in my room for a spanking!” Alex’s dad used that angry tone when he did something wrong. It made him feel shameful, guilty even.
What Alex didn’t understand is why he wanted to hurt him so bad, this was a new behavior that he’d never experienced before. Sure the boy broke his new truck, but it was an accident, and Brody got hurt because of it.
Alex dipped his head and went inside into his parent’s bedroom. He found his way to the edge of their bed and sat on the floor, his back against the foot. His go-to spot when he was getting punished.
He knew he was getting a spanking, but he didn’t feel bad because he knew he was in trouble. No, Alex felt bad because he hurt Brody more. He wasn’t a violent kid. If anything, Alex couldn’t even defend himself at school when older boys would push him. Why did he feel so hateful?
Alex didn’t understand the concept of hatred yet, he was newly seven after all. He knew the difference between good, bad, and somewhat of the morally grey area. Like when it’s okay to punch someone, or yell at someone. If a kid is being mean to him, or an adult does something they shouldn’t, then he can do those things to protect himself.
But this was pure hate, Alex didn’t quite understand hate. He didn’t hate Brody.
And that man, he just watched, and he didn’t even remember his face. He didn’t even remember if he had a face. Alex had previously felt pride in his doings, especially when the man watched. It was almost as if the man was whispering for him to make the boy suffer for his little accident. But, even Alex knew that was a stretch.
The back door opened and shut loudly and he heard the footsteps storm into the room. “Alex. Do you understand why you’re getting a spanking?” His dad stood in front of him as he sternly asked the trembling kid in front of him, removing his belt in the process.
Alex felt his face get tingly with shame as he nodded his head. He always hated disappointing his dad, he gets a spanking when he does, but he also loves his dad and never likes to be the cause of him having a bad day.
His dad helped him stand up by placing his free hand on his arm and lifting him up to his feet. He proceeded to put his same hand onto his tiny shoulder. “Why did you do what you did?”
Alex finally felt his eyes get heavy with tears, a small croak welled up in the back of his throat making it hard to speak without sounding like he was gonna cry.
“He broke my truck, and it made me angry.” He shakily spoke, his eyes never meeting his father’s, in situations like these his feet or the ground always looked more interesting to stare at then his dad.“I’ve never felt so angry before, I’m sorry, dad.”
His dad nodded and knelt down to his level. “Well, he knows not to run without looking, he hurt himself enough without you making him hurt worse. Just because he broke your truck, that doesn’t mean you can take it into your own hands to harm him more. He’s been punished enough.”
Alex felt a tear slip down his face, he didn’t really know when he started crying or if this was the first one he shed, but he nodded in understanding.
He didn’t know if he understood or not. He never wanted to feel that way again. It was consuming and harmful to everyone around him. He didn’t know where it even came from, but he hoped to stop.
“When you go to school tomorrow you’re going to apologize to him and ask if he wants to be friends again, do you understand me?” His dad squeezed his shoulder when Alex sheepishly nodded and stood up to punish his son.
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Each step he took made the leaves and dead grass crunch beneath him. Each tree so tall they probably touched the sky, or the moon, maybe even heaven.
Alex didn’t believe in heaven. No matter how much he wished there was one, he couldn’t. God can’t exist if The Operator existed. A god is an all-powerful being. The God most people believed it performed miracles, and saved the sick, and sent his son to die for our sins. But no proof he existed. If anything, if there was a God then he’d save Alex from his horrendous life he lived. The creature who wore that black suit was the strongest power proven to him, he didn’t need faith to know he was there. He always lurked, stalked, watched his every move. It made him sick, physically, mentally, hell, even emotionally.
Despite not believing in heaven he believed there was hell. He didn’t know what hell he believed in, but it existed. He was living it right now. And maybe once he dies he’ll engulf himself with flames, and feel happy that he wasn’t stuck on earth living what he’s living now.
He felt some stick or bush cling to his black and blue stripped jacket, he groaned in annoyance and picked it off. He knew even then that The Operator watched him do that tiny thing. Especially in these woods, or in his apartment, or his local supermarket. He was everywhere. It didn’t matter where.
A wave of nausea flooded his senses as he removed the branch from his jacket, how couldn’t he have gotten used to this feeling already? He’s felt it many times before. The feeling of wanting to throw up all your intestines whilst you pass out from feeling too lightheaded. Of course that thing had to make him feel disgusting right now.
He placed his hands on his knees as he caught his breath, he was waiting for the dizziness to slowly fade away before making it to his destination.
Alex stood up straight after feeling so weak and used his middle finger to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose, the newly adjusted frames giving him better vision over his surroundings.
And once again he began to walk. Putting one foot in front of the other meant another small pile of leaves crunching making that sound that irritated him to no end. He doesn’t have anger issues, but some noises sure make him want to punch a wall until his knuckles bleed, or make him want to kill someone.
Finally he arrived at the tunnel, he dreamt of this place for a while now. Whether he dreamt of it by night or by day he couldn’t remember. God, he couldn’t remember a lot, but he wasn’t going to dwell on that.
The sound of running water made him notice a tiny stream flowing between him and the tunnel as if it were a barrier, or a boarder between his land and land that wasn’t his. Well it was all The Operator’s land, like how there are separate states to make one full country, same can be said about provinces. This is all technically Rosswood Park, but there are sections, different territories.
He did a tiny leap over the stream,—he couldn’t imagine the sound of wet shoes against dry leaves, that thought made his disgusted from the inside out— and he walked onto the concrete that led inside the massive metal tunnel.
The squeak of his sneakers meant he had halted. He stood there staring ahead for a few seconds. There was no particular reason, he just stared ahead. Alex realized there was no use just standing there, so he lowered himself to squat. One leg was up and the other was lowered, but the sudden change in position made me realize his body cam was pressing uncomfortably into his sternum.
He reached down and attempted to loosen the straps so he could breathe a bit better. It’s not like he could breathe freely like he used to anyways, but that didn’t matter.
crunch
Alex wasn’t on any leaves, he was on concrete. He knew The Operator couldn’t make human noises like that. Someone was out there in the woods, following him. Oh, and he knew who.
Jay Merrick
He whipped his head around angrily just to see nobody hidden within the bushes, or trees, or whatever else was in these awful woods. He knew Jay was dumb, but not stupid enough to stay around and get caught. Or maybe he was stupid enough, and had a single lucky thought to get away. There was no telling.
But, he had TOLD Jay not to follow him, especially after he broke into his apartment. Especially after following him for months, watching him with that big black camera lens that was attached to the front of his camcorder. The thought of Jay following him again made him see scarlet with fury.
He almost felt angry enough to kill him.
He was so distracted thinking about how furious he was at Jay that he hadn’t realized that fifteen minutes had passed by of him squatting in the tunnel. Doing absolutely nothing, like a freak. He’d been a freak his entire life.
“Hey, you alright, man?” The voice of a man asked casually behind him. Not angry, not mean, and certainly not threatening.
But, Alex took that as a threat, because somewhere in that twisted mind of his, he thought this was Jay. Despite the man not even sounding, looking, even resembling his old colleague. He thought for a while that this was Jay.
“I told you not to follow me!” Alex yelled, releasing some buried fury that was hidden within his bones. His face was burned brightly with a shade of angry red as he pounced at the stranger.
The body camera flew out of it’s case as Alex wrestled the poor stranger to the ground. The two struggled, however, Alex’s fury combined with adrenaline, and hate caused him to have the upper hand.
Both his knees straddled the man’s torso as his hands dug into his throat, cutting off his only way of oxygen. The man sputtered and made odd noises, he struggled to breathe. His face turned white, then purple as Alex kept squeezing. The sounds that came from this stranger’s enclosed throat was like heavenly music to his ears.
The man beneath him grew weaker gradually before he finally stopped moving. Alex removed his hands and stood up staring at the body beneath him, his work, his pride and joy. The stranger had these deep red marks on his neck, handprints that belonged to Alex. Slobber dripped from his chin onto his neck, if he’d been conscious maybe the cold saliva would’ve been soothing to the rough marks.
When Alex finally took his eyes off the unconscious man he looked around for a way to finalize the man’s death. His eyes connected with a cinder block, no more than a couple feet away.
He ran and stumbled over to it, feeling his heart race with so many emotions: Nervousness, fear, excitement, anxiety. In some twisted way he compared the feeling in his chest and pit in his stomach to the same feeling he gets when he rides his favorite roller coaster. One of the big ones with many drops and it goes upside down.
Calloused hands connected with the handles of the block and he stepped over to the man’s head, who was lying helplessly on the ground.
The block in his hand was his tool to happiness, his key to freedom.
With one sharp move he threw the block down against the man’s skull. It had spurt blood everywhere. On his shirt, arms, face, glasses. He didn’t even realize he was breathing through his mouth when he did it and some managed to get on his inner lip.
He looked down at his head and saw a dent, straight through his skull and into his brain. Blood had mixed with his spinal fluids, making it this weird brown color. Blood was all over the man’s face and clothing to. Not to mention all over the area surrounding them.
Alex felt good. Peaceful. He needed that rush again. He scrambled to pick up the cinder block and rearranged the block’s position so the corner would slam into the same hole he made.
Instead of throwing the block he slammed it with all of his might. The corner of the hard concrete digging into his head with high velocity.
Blood shot everywhere again, along with little pieces of his brain and skull. This is exactly what Alex loved. Seeing how he could mangle a body in any way that he wanted to. Oh, it felt delicious to him— as he licked a drop of blood that landed on his lower lip— And it tasted delicious to him too.
He smiled and leaned his head back to sigh, letting a hand go from the block and running it through his bloodied, yet, soft hair. He’d washed it this morning.
He liked showering in the morning, it gave him time to think without the possibility of something or someone watching him, even he knew that The Operator would never stoop so low as to watch him during such a private moment. The Operator makes people crazy and evil, not perverted.
He felt some flesh drip from his cheek onto his arm. The blood from the former blow already cooling and drying on his skin, making this brown color that was similar to the spinal fluids. But the blood from this blow, still fresh and a beautiful shade of crimson that decorated their bodies and surroundings.
Another slam of the block shook him out of his thoughts, he’d zoned out for so long, he didn’t even realize he was brutalizing the dead man’s head again and again. He assumed he only did it maybe two or three more times before he stopped.
The face of the corpse was mangled and messy. His nose had completely broken off, dangling near one of his cheeks, around where his left eye was. It left a hole into his head that fascinated Alex. His right eye was gushing out bodily fluids too, it looked like some twisted geyser. Blood had decorated all of his features, and hid the handprints on his neck extremely well.
Alex threw the block aside, adrenaline making it to where he couldn’t even hear it land. His eyes glared over his work with such disgusting joy, he took his glasses off and found a part of his iconic jacket that wasn’t completely drenched in blood, and he cleaned off his lenses with it.
Slipping the glasses back on his face, he slowly retreated to go retrieve the body camera that had been flown off during the intense assault against the stranger.
It was as if he blinked though, he was on the ground, face up. He sat up groggily and felt that familiar uncomfortable sensation in the back of his throat to cough. He coughed in his bloodstained hands, and small black chunks of disease landed in his dry hands. It was painful and he was still dizzy, but all that matters is that he hides the body.
Except the body was gone.
Actually everything was gone. The body, the flesh, all but the blood.
His camera wasn’t gone though. So he stood up hastily to grab it. Once the object was in his grasp he had to hold on to the wall of the tunnel, he was dizzy from standing up too fast. His own blood shooting up to his head.
Once he caught his bearings he began to walk out of the tunnel, stopping the recording so it couldn’t catch anything else. He noticed with the way everything was angled that it must’ve caught his cold-blooded murder. In all honesty, he couldn’t wait to replay the tape once he went back to his apartment.
Usually one would feel panic at the thought of the corpse of the person you killed, disappearing. All your prints, and DNA, and whatever else a forensic examiner could find being on there. However, the body was gone and he wasn’t, which means The Operator probably took it away. That gave him some peace of mind.
A feeling of relief washed over him, and pleasure. He felt so many emotions when he killed that man. So many deep feelings. It was such contrast to how he normally felt. He felt numb, empty, like he was watching his own life. But when he did this horrific act, he felt differently.
Pride was one of his new feelings. He felt so proud of himself. So cocky that he had full control over himself for once. That this wasn’t a kill influenced by The Operator. This was a kill that was entirely of his choosing. Of his will. This act he didn’t watch through another’s vision.
He felt like he was riding a high. Taking this human life was like pumping gallons of heroine into his system to him. Giddiness and lightness was something he’d been chasing for years.
All the negative thoughts in his head went away. The blood draining from the guy’s skull made the whispers in his ears drain with it. What was more addicting than that?
Alex wanted to feel that again. So desperately. Oh to gaze over a newly soulless corpse. One that he forcefully took the life from. Maybe it’d be more thrilling, stronger, more interesting if he killed someone he knew personally. He couldn’t wait for the day when he’d finally get his hands on someone who he knew.
Maybe someone who even trusted him with their life.