Post by demonfire on Feb 14, 2008 15:27:05 GMT -5
The bright light of the interrogation chamber shown on me, making me wince from it. Like the officer knew that fact, he adjusted it to perfectly shine on me and nothing else, as if I were the headlining performance at a Talent Show. I put my hand up in front of my face to block the glow and allow my eyes to slowly adjust to the rapid change out of darkness. My balance shifted a bit, revealing a loose leg in the chair I was sitting on. It matched the dull, dreary room of gray. Just endless gray all around.
The officer who was in front of me—now by reading a badge he put down on the table I could see his name was McKay—took out a file folder and did a quick run-through of the basics. “Now, you’re an honor student, good track jumper—what would someone like you be doing with these charges?” McKay asked. His voice was like sandpaper, coarse from most likely years of smoking. It was like it began to violently rub against my ears just because it could.
I saw the sheet earlier. Theft, murder, aggravated assault—all I didn’t do. All it did. But McKay wouldn’t believe me, hell, he shouldn’t believe me. I hardly believed it myself. The only way he would is if he used it, and then he’d be dragged down with me. Down into this same spiral of defeat. Almost like that reversal of fortune that I learned about in English Class, in Oedipus Rex. He had it all, and then disaster struck and ultimately he had nothing left.
“So, in your own words, why’d you do it? Stress at school? You finally snapped?” McKay asked as he pressed the ‘Record’ button of a tape recorder and put it in the center of the bare, metal table that was the only furniture besides the chairs of the room.
“I didn’t do it! It was that…that…thing!” I shouted at the officer half frustrated and half afraid of what else it would do. Images flashed back through my mind. Oh, why in God’s name did I pick it up? Why?
“This thing?” he asked, producing an ebon MP3 player, with a silver apple on the back. The one difference about this apple from Macintosh’s was that a black line ran through it, almost like a worm in the apple. It was a bit unnoticeable, but it was there as sure as Sunday. “How would a cheap iPod knock off have caused all of that chaos? Some unpopular music on it?” McKay asked sarcastically.
He was so ignorant and oblivious; he was absolutely stubborn to the cold, hard fact—that of the black shuffle.
“Now, what do you have on here?” the officer asked as he unwrapped the headphones from around the MP3, and then pressed a button. Life silently crept out of the thing as the screen flashed on. His finger moved around, pressing buttons and such. “Not a music fan?” McKay sarcastically asked as he showed me the screen of the evil apparatus. Nothing. There was no music on it. Just before he brought me in here, there was music on it from everything—the entire gamut. Everything from 50 Cent to Slayer had been on it, everything. And now it was gone, all gone, like McKay was playing some cruel joke on me. Like it was playing a cruel joke on me.
“It’s doing this! How can you not tell?” I asked, once again afraid, terrified even. A cold sweat escaped my skin and began sliding down my brow. Had it gotten its icy grip on McKay too? God help me if it did.
“Listen, boy, this is just a regular old music player your generation had grown accustomed to, and now you’re trying—trying insanely I might add—to pin the blame on it,” McKay stated in the serious, gruff cop voice movies had grown to love.
“Please, just get rid of it. Encase it in cement and throw it to the bottom of the ocean. Just don’t use it,” I said, pleading with the middle-aged cop. The thing was nothing but trouble, no matter how much it was dolled up.
“Y’know what? I’ll give you some time to think about this. Think about what happens if you don’t cooperate,” the gruff man said as he got up and left the room for a moment. I didn’t move. In fact, I was horrified even more so now. I was alone with it.
The door slowly closed, as if it itself was trying to protect me from the evil contained in that ‘harmless’ device. The cop was behind the one-way glass. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he and a buddy were discussing what they were going to do to me. Two cops had brought me in, after all.
Utter quiet soon overtook the small room, like a tidal wave overtaking a small boat. The change was effective; it was doing it. The room started spinning, and then, I heard a simple song. “Master of Puppets” began to play, with Metallica rubbing it in. The thing was off, though! How was it doing this? How?!
The room started spinning; I heard laughter emanate from all around, overpowering James Hetfield’s vocals. All that I could focus on was the vile machine. I jumped out from my seat and attacked the MP3 player. Blood-lust was the dominating aggression in my eyes, mind, and heart. I did no thinking, it did. Why was it so bent on torturing me like it did?
I grabbed the MP3 player quickly, as if I were trying to snatch up a snake before it could retaliate. I began to slam it against the metal table with such force that my fingers that had been also in the line of fire began to bleed. I grunted and screamed and cried, all in one strange emotion. It seemed to be the grotesque love child of hate and fear, and this new emotion consumed me in my pursuit to rid the world of this work of Hell itself. My nails began to bleed more and more, as well as some of them beginning to fall off. Adrenaline gave me more strength than I bargained for, and I might have kept going on for hours if McKay and another bulky cop hadn’t come in and stopped me.
I writhed and wriggled as the two held me down on my back, unable to smash the machine against the table. I looked over at the fruits of my efforts—the futile efforts I should say. Aside from some splatters of my own blood, the Hell-spawn was virtually unaffected by the smashing that would resemble the comic view of a caveman smashing something. I let loose a frustrated scream-cry, summoning back up that strange emotion of unimaginable fear and hate.
“What the hell is with you, kid?” Bulky asked as he held me down. My eyes seemed to move lightning fast, left to right, sane to insane. I wasn’t dancing gracefully on the razor’s edge of mental health. Somewhere in my rampage, the music had stopped. It had faded out with the noise and commotion I had created in my own mind.
Somewhere their all-powerful gripped failed and the arm held down by McKay was free. I violently flailed it around, hitting McKay square in the jaw. My hand had unconsciously turned into a fist before I struck. My right leg flailed and hit Bulky in the rib, some place the years of obesity didn’t protect him as well. As they both recoiled, I grabbed the vile machine and began to run for the door, closely followed by McKay.
The vile thing seemed to vibrate as if it didn’t want to leave. As soon as it stopped, the entire world seemed to go mute. The yells and screams from Bulky and McKay were just pointless attempts at communicating to me. I reached for the door, and then collapsed upon the cold floor of the room. It felt as if my heart stopped, and still there was no noise. All I could think of before my black out was that it was that thing’s doing. It was an instinctive feeling, and gut feelings had never driven down a wrong road before. Hell, even when I found it I could feel it was nothing but evil. Hindsight is 20/20.
I awoke disoriented. Well, not really awoke, just back to consciousness. I looked around, not seeing McKay or Bulky; that is, until my gaze drifted lower to my hand. The demon machine was still in my icy cold grip, and now it was adorned with a carmine liquid. Its features didn’t ring a bell at first, but then I came to a bitter realization. It was blood.
I looked at the other hand, and there was a metal chair leg, splattered with the maniacal nectar. On the damp, steel floor were two bodies, both of detectives, both of which I recognized instantly. It was McKay and Bulky, just lying there with a small splatter of blood on the floor next to the behemoth mass of Bulky. I used the chair leg and pushed Bulky, and received no response from his body. No reaction, no reflex, no retaliation. I did the same to McKay, and he was no different than Bulky. Dead. They were both dead, lying face down on the poor floor of some suburban town’s interrogation chamber. And it was my fault—no, it was its fault. It drove me to do it; it was guiding me like a master pulls the strings of the lifeless puppets that he had created. It, like the puppet master, had complete control, and I could do nothing to stop it. My hand dropped the chair leg in utter horror at what it had just done. The clang came out muted to my corrupted ears. What had happened?
I knew the thing was evil, I just knew it, but somehow I couldn’t put it down. I couldn’t just leave it there in that chamber—I just couldn’t. It beckoned to me; it consumed me. It was a drug, one that neither gave a high, nor any medical side effects, but was more addicting than any of them all the same. It was now rooted deeply in my mind, a weed that was slowly sapping my life away from me.
As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t put it down. I felt that if I just left it there, I would be leaving part of myself as well, and I couldn’t—no, I wouldn’t—do it. It was then a grim realization overcame me: I would never escape it. Thoughts began pouring into my mind, about how much it was helping me. Somehow it was in my head, reading my mind, replacing my thoughts. And somewhere, something snapped.
I walked out of the interrogation chamber and into the room they used to observe me through the one-way. Grabbing a pen and paper, I began to write. I put down the MP3, and even though it was so close, and I knew it was only for a moment, it still ate away at my inside. The pen began to mark up the paper; my hand was shaky as if I were going through withdraw from a drug. It read:
I killed them: McKay and Bulky. I don’t know how, when, or why, but I just know. It was the thing that drove me to do it. I’m leaving. Don’t follow me; don’t try to ‘convince’ me otherwise if you were to find me. I need to get away; I need to just be alone. Just be alone with it. It is what controls me, consumes me, and takes care of me. It knows what is best for me, and I know that I must follow what it tells me to do. It tells me to go now; I’m not sure if it wants me to be telling you this, but I am. It tells me that I have no name, that we are one in the same. Redundancies are needed: don’t follow us or find us. We want to be alone.
Sincerely,
Us
We snatched up the MP3 like it was a vital necessity of life. It was needed for us. The sleek black metal, the smooth touch to the skin, it provided us with comfort. We walked out of the Police Station, whistling some forgotten tune. A broad smile came across our face; we were finally free from the two detectives. That old smoker and his bloated sidekick—we did them a favor. McKay was most likely going to die of lung cancer, and Bulky was probably just going to keel over from obesity. We weren’t evil; we were just helping the world along by keeping some population control going.
We walked out to the road, holding up our thumb as to make a hitchhiking sign. A beat-up old pick up truck came out from the biting darkness of the night with the headlights slicing through the ebon curtain that had fallen over the land. It stopped for us, with a middle-aged man in the driver’s seat.
“Where ya headed?” he asked us. We just smiled and responded, “Anywhere.” We wish we could tell you what happened next, but Master deemed it necessary to talk.
The officer who was in front of me—now by reading a badge he put down on the table I could see his name was McKay—took out a file folder and did a quick run-through of the basics. “Now, you’re an honor student, good track jumper—what would someone like you be doing with these charges?” McKay asked. His voice was like sandpaper, coarse from most likely years of smoking. It was like it began to violently rub against my ears just because it could.
I saw the sheet earlier. Theft, murder, aggravated assault—all I didn’t do. All it did. But McKay wouldn’t believe me, hell, he shouldn’t believe me. I hardly believed it myself. The only way he would is if he used it, and then he’d be dragged down with me. Down into this same spiral of defeat. Almost like that reversal of fortune that I learned about in English Class, in Oedipus Rex. He had it all, and then disaster struck and ultimately he had nothing left.
“So, in your own words, why’d you do it? Stress at school? You finally snapped?” McKay asked as he pressed the ‘Record’ button of a tape recorder and put it in the center of the bare, metal table that was the only furniture besides the chairs of the room.
“I didn’t do it! It was that…that…thing!” I shouted at the officer half frustrated and half afraid of what else it would do. Images flashed back through my mind. Oh, why in God’s name did I pick it up? Why?
“This thing?” he asked, producing an ebon MP3 player, with a silver apple on the back. The one difference about this apple from Macintosh’s was that a black line ran through it, almost like a worm in the apple. It was a bit unnoticeable, but it was there as sure as Sunday. “How would a cheap iPod knock off have caused all of that chaos? Some unpopular music on it?” McKay asked sarcastically.
He was so ignorant and oblivious; he was absolutely stubborn to the cold, hard fact—that of the black shuffle.
“Now, what do you have on here?” the officer asked as he unwrapped the headphones from around the MP3, and then pressed a button. Life silently crept out of the thing as the screen flashed on. His finger moved around, pressing buttons and such. “Not a music fan?” McKay sarcastically asked as he showed me the screen of the evil apparatus. Nothing. There was no music on it. Just before he brought me in here, there was music on it from everything—the entire gamut. Everything from 50 Cent to Slayer had been on it, everything. And now it was gone, all gone, like McKay was playing some cruel joke on me. Like it was playing a cruel joke on me.
“It’s doing this! How can you not tell?” I asked, once again afraid, terrified even. A cold sweat escaped my skin and began sliding down my brow. Had it gotten its icy grip on McKay too? God help me if it did.
“Listen, boy, this is just a regular old music player your generation had grown accustomed to, and now you’re trying—trying insanely I might add—to pin the blame on it,” McKay stated in the serious, gruff cop voice movies had grown to love.
“Please, just get rid of it. Encase it in cement and throw it to the bottom of the ocean. Just don’t use it,” I said, pleading with the middle-aged cop. The thing was nothing but trouble, no matter how much it was dolled up.
“Y’know what? I’ll give you some time to think about this. Think about what happens if you don’t cooperate,” the gruff man said as he got up and left the room for a moment. I didn’t move. In fact, I was horrified even more so now. I was alone with it.
The door slowly closed, as if it itself was trying to protect me from the evil contained in that ‘harmless’ device. The cop was behind the one-way glass. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he and a buddy were discussing what they were going to do to me. Two cops had brought me in, after all.
Utter quiet soon overtook the small room, like a tidal wave overtaking a small boat. The change was effective; it was doing it. The room started spinning, and then, I heard a simple song. “Master of Puppets” began to play, with Metallica rubbing it in. The thing was off, though! How was it doing this? How?!
The room started spinning; I heard laughter emanate from all around, overpowering James Hetfield’s vocals. All that I could focus on was the vile machine. I jumped out from my seat and attacked the MP3 player. Blood-lust was the dominating aggression in my eyes, mind, and heart. I did no thinking, it did. Why was it so bent on torturing me like it did?
I grabbed the MP3 player quickly, as if I were trying to snatch up a snake before it could retaliate. I began to slam it against the metal table with such force that my fingers that had been also in the line of fire began to bleed. I grunted and screamed and cried, all in one strange emotion. It seemed to be the grotesque love child of hate and fear, and this new emotion consumed me in my pursuit to rid the world of this work of Hell itself. My nails began to bleed more and more, as well as some of them beginning to fall off. Adrenaline gave me more strength than I bargained for, and I might have kept going on for hours if McKay and another bulky cop hadn’t come in and stopped me.
I writhed and wriggled as the two held me down on my back, unable to smash the machine against the table. I looked over at the fruits of my efforts—the futile efforts I should say. Aside from some splatters of my own blood, the Hell-spawn was virtually unaffected by the smashing that would resemble the comic view of a caveman smashing something. I let loose a frustrated scream-cry, summoning back up that strange emotion of unimaginable fear and hate.
“What the hell is with you, kid?” Bulky asked as he held me down. My eyes seemed to move lightning fast, left to right, sane to insane. I wasn’t dancing gracefully on the razor’s edge of mental health. Somewhere in my rampage, the music had stopped. It had faded out with the noise and commotion I had created in my own mind.
Somewhere their all-powerful gripped failed and the arm held down by McKay was free. I violently flailed it around, hitting McKay square in the jaw. My hand had unconsciously turned into a fist before I struck. My right leg flailed and hit Bulky in the rib, some place the years of obesity didn’t protect him as well. As they both recoiled, I grabbed the vile machine and began to run for the door, closely followed by McKay.
The vile thing seemed to vibrate as if it didn’t want to leave. As soon as it stopped, the entire world seemed to go mute. The yells and screams from Bulky and McKay were just pointless attempts at communicating to me. I reached for the door, and then collapsed upon the cold floor of the room. It felt as if my heart stopped, and still there was no noise. All I could think of before my black out was that it was that thing’s doing. It was an instinctive feeling, and gut feelings had never driven down a wrong road before. Hell, even when I found it I could feel it was nothing but evil. Hindsight is 20/20.
I awoke disoriented. Well, not really awoke, just back to consciousness. I looked around, not seeing McKay or Bulky; that is, until my gaze drifted lower to my hand. The demon machine was still in my icy cold grip, and now it was adorned with a carmine liquid. Its features didn’t ring a bell at first, but then I came to a bitter realization. It was blood.
I looked at the other hand, and there was a metal chair leg, splattered with the maniacal nectar. On the damp, steel floor were two bodies, both of detectives, both of which I recognized instantly. It was McKay and Bulky, just lying there with a small splatter of blood on the floor next to the behemoth mass of Bulky. I used the chair leg and pushed Bulky, and received no response from his body. No reaction, no reflex, no retaliation. I did the same to McKay, and he was no different than Bulky. Dead. They were both dead, lying face down on the poor floor of some suburban town’s interrogation chamber. And it was my fault—no, it was its fault. It drove me to do it; it was guiding me like a master pulls the strings of the lifeless puppets that he had created. It, like the puppet master, had complete control, and I could do nothing to stop it. My hand dropped the chair leg in utter horror at what it had just done. The clang came out muted to my corrupted ears. What had happened?
I knew the thing was evil, I just knew it, but somehow I couldn’t put it down. I couldn’t just leave it there in that chamber—I just couldn’t. It beckoned to me; it consumed me. It was a drug, one that neither gave a high, nor any medical side effects, but was more addicting than any of them all the same. It was now rooted deeply in my mind, a weed that was slowly sapping my life away from me.
As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t put it down. I felt that if I just left it there, I would be leaving part of myself as well, and I couldn’t—no, I wouldn’t—do it. It was then a grim realization overcame me: I would never escape it. Thoughts began pouring into my mind, about how much it was helping me. Somehow it was in my head, reading my mind, replacing my thoughts. And somewhere, something snapped.
I walked out of the interrogation chamber and into the room they used to observe me through the one-way. Grabbing a pen and paper, I began to write. I put down the MP3, and even though it was so close, and I knew it was only for a moment, it still ate away at my inside. The pen began to mark up the paper; my hand was shaky as if I were going through withdraw from a drug. It read:
I killed them: McKay and Bulky. I don’t know how, when, or why, but I just know. It was the thing that drove me to do it. I’m leaving. Don’t follow me; don’t try to ‘convince’ me otherwise if you were to find me. I need to get away; I need to just be alone. Just be alone with it. It is what controls me, consumes me, and takes care of me. It knows what is best for me, and I know that I must follow what it tells me to do. It tells me to go now; I’m not sure if it wants me to be telling you this, but I am. It tells me that I have no name, that we are one in the same. Redundancies are needed: don’t follow us or find us. We want to be alone.
Sincerely,
Us
We snatched up the MP3 like it was a vital necessity of life. It was needed for us. The sleek black metal, the smooth touch to the skin, it provided us with comfort. We walked out of the Police Station, whistling some forgotten tune. A broad smile came across our face; we were finally free from the two detectives. That old smoker and his bloated sidekick—we did them a favor. McKay was most likely going to die of lung cancer, and Bulky was probably just going to keel over from obesity. We weren’t evil; we were just helping the world along by keeping some population control going.
We walked out to the road, holding up our thumb as to make a hitchhiking sign. A beat-up old pick up truck came out from the biting darkness of the night with the headlights slicing through the ebon curtain that had fallen over the land. It stopped for us, with a middle-aged man in the driver’s seat.
“Where ya headed?” he asked us. We just smiled and responded, “Anywhere.” We wish we could tell you what happened next, but Master deemed it necessary to talk.