I guess I can share this story. Nobody is going to find me anyway.
(TW: SA, only implied)
The last dregs of adrenaline were just starting to wear off. My heart was slowing down from its elevated staccato as I inhaled. I placed the pill bottle back onto a dusty mahogany shelf, already overwhelmed with packets and pill bottles. I exhaled the rush of accomplishing my task correctly. So many years of labour, to get to this stage.
I eyed the microphone dials as I lit a Marlboro Gold between my yellow teeth. I was vying for that nicotine rush and momentarily shut my eyes in bliss. I wanted to take my time with this, to revel in knowing that I finally have it. What I want. My object, the source of such titillation and aberrant thoughts is at last in my possession.
I sat in this tiny room littered with broken beer bottles, who wink at me as the fluorescent lights flicker. A single display case contained the only objects that aren’t decaying in some way. My well-polished wrenches, saws and knives seem out of place with the rotting containers of half-eaten Chinese takeaway curry. Ropes caked with blood furled around my feet. Empty eyes torn from previous victims’ sockets silently showcased their final screams. I felt like a king. Or more like a God. I had it, finally. With bated breath I turned up the microphone in the bedroom.
Words cannot express the sheer intensity of ecstasy that enveloped me in that moment. A thrill of delight struck me as I leaned back in the cracked plastic chair. Soft, delicate breaths of air entered my ears, sweeter than the most pleasant melody. So precious, so attractive and so, so fragile. An ephemeral bloom, just aching to be taken by me. I took out a crumpled photo of her, drinking in the look in her amber eyes. I could tell she needs me. I am her saviour and she was born to be mine.
I was sharply torn out of my enthralled reverie. Her slight inhalations have changed! She was just on the cusp of wakefulness, about to become the only plaything in my world. Her eyes slowly flicked open and she drowsily shifted herself up. She fell back down on her back, evidently still feeling the effects of her spiked drink. How was there such poise, such delicateness in each of her movements? Even the swift action of flicking a black strand of hair out of her eyes was so mesmerizingly exquisite. Her eyes happened to fall right on where my camera is, so we were almost staring into each other’s faces. I breathed in her soul. She, of course, couldn’t see the small hidden cameras or the microphones, and massaged her pale, high temples. Her pallor brought on by the drugs didn’t taint her beauty, in fact it amplified it. She couldn’t tell that anything was out of the norm, for all she knews at that point was that she drank too much and miraculously ended up home. She looked around, checked her clock, satisfied that she hadn’t overslept for her ten o’clock shift at the burger joint just five minutes away. I didn’t even need the notes on all details of her life that I could ascertain. Though every mundane or significant aspect of her life I had scrupulously mapped out, it is all locked in my memory for eternity.
Again she tried to get up, this time strength steadily returning to her weakened frame. The creamy nightgown clings invitingly to her waist. I enjoyed pulling it over her immobile body. I stroked the image of her on my screens, lovingly caressing her head. Yes, lovingly. I did this out of love. I am her saviour, after all. Her barefooted steps produced a divine, muted sound; akin to falling snow. She opened her wardrobe, in which everything is in perfect order. Feminine silk blouses and plain cotton shirts hung neatly above carefully-folded scarves and jeans. She had no reason to suspect that this is not her bedroom. She picked out a pink shirt that I gathered to be a favourite of hers, as she dons it in many of my photos. It is my favourite too. Her soft visage exemplified a paragon of innocence in this attire. I softly crooned words of praise at her for this, and I knew that subconsciously she knows that she is pleasing me. She might not be aware of it yet, but the submissive movement of her arm as she takes a sip of water from ‘her’ nightstand displayed a willingness to serve. Soon, though. Soon she would know what I did for her and I would fully revel in her ethereal grace.
Every minute detail I lovingly replicated, even reconstructing the crack she had on her ceiling wall and the small tear on her ‘Red Panda’ themed calendar. It took quite a bit of labour to replicate her exact penmanship for her scribbled-in reminder that she has a dentist appointment for the twenty-fifth of April. She made her way over to her ensuite and I switched the cameras on in there to continue my observations. My mood suddenly shifted to alarm as I saw her expression turn to one of confusion. She looked puzzled at her reflection. What did I miss? From all those nights that I watched her I could not doubt that this is the exact clothes she owned. I wanted her to enjoy this for longer, to observe her in her natural state before she discovered the truth. She wasn’t looking in the mirror. She waa looking at the mirror. I grabbed the photos of her house that took me so long to obtain, so much effort to learn the exact schedule of her parents so that I could break in without disturbance. I even had to blackmail a cleaner into giving me a copy of keys to the house. I hurriedly flipped through them, and found the ones detailing her bathroom. Another crack! How did I remember every single imperfection in all the rooms, but neglected this singular one! The mirror she was examining was absent of any nicks or cracks. She briefly ran her palm over the surface, and seemed to mouth something to herself; incomprehensible from the angle of my cameras.
She reached for her hairbrush, and allowed herself to dismiss this happening as nothing of any real significance. I gasped in utter enchantment at what happened next. Her movement, so delicate, yet firm to untangle her hair was just profound. Her mannerisms in thar moment were so poised and seductive that I was sorely disappointed when the show was over. She moved on to brushing her teeth, arms still trembling somewhat from the rough night she didn’t know she had. She sighed while contemplating her face, today not bothering to cover up her freckles. I am glad. Her summery cheeks and nose are just divine, to me nothing short of tantalising. Maybe I’ll teach her this.
She then made her way down the carpeted stairway, not even pausing to appreciate my skill in reconstructing her childhood paintings which her sentimental parents refused to take down. That’s fine, she would have a lot of time to explore my brilliant accuracy in due course.
I could hear her breath start to quicken as she enters the kitchen. She suddenly sensed that something is out of place, and I lean forward, my breath fogging up the screen. She tentatively continued on, noticing her parents sitting at the kitchen table, the air strangely void of the usual morning chatter. I brewed the tea with two heaped spoons of sugar that her mother drinks and the black coffee for her father. I turned on their usual breakfast talk show. She was just a couple of steps away from their backs, their faces facing the television. I could tell, she was really scared to look at their faces. With trepidation, she called out to them. Once. Twice. Once more, more emphatically this time. She walked over to face them and could not even scream. She had become immobile with shock as she looked into their glassy, immoving eyes. Their mouths were open and the cotton I stuffed their bodies with was protruding. She rushes for the home phone, which was obviously dead. As dedicated as I am to producing an exact replica of her home, I’m not foolish enough to allow any possible way for her to communicate with the outside world.
Desperate, she rans to the house door, which cannot open. I decided that it was time to introduce myself.