I haven’t had the opportunity to post for the last month. There hasn’t been much to catch up on and getting online was not my most pressing concern. I guess I can just give a quick recap in case anyone is still listening.
I think it all started in March. “I” was murdered after a mundane day that did not feel like my last day alive. Technically it wasn’t. I didn’t find out that I was killed until about a month later. Or, at least, it was a month to me, I guess to everyone else it was 3 months. I had been waking up as a new person every day, and to be honest, I wasn’t as concerned as I should have been. Anyway, after about 30 bodies, I found out that “I” had died, and I soon found out that it was likely that every “me” was dying the night of the day that I was them. I hate how confusing this is to explain; I could probably do a better job. I guess the gist of it is that I wake up as a new person on their last day of life where they die in their sleep. On top of that, I found out that the same piece of human garbage has been killing me. Even worse, he found out last month about all of this. So, I’ve basically been this guy’s toy for the last month, and I no longer die in my sleep. I feel it every day. And believe me, it sucks so much.
That pretty much brings us up to speed. After our first “conversation”, he would just play with me, letting me wake up, I’d attempt to do something different, and he would kill me. He seems to like knives, or at least sharp weapons. Maybe just painful methods, I guess. Sometimes he would taunt me, and I’d wake up within a block of a police station. He would make those some of the most excruciating, as if to say, “don’t even try to get out of this”. I had been guessing he had a reason of switching up his M.O., probably to break me. He confirmed it when he started talking to me again.
I had gotten pretty sedentary in the days leading up to it. I was at a point where there wasn’t anything new to try, and some pain was better than a lot more pain, so I just started letting it happen. I guess that’s either what he wanted, or he got bored, but that’s when he changed his M.O. again. I woke up seated up, tied to a chair. Elderly once again, I guess that coward really didn’t want to risk anything. The first thing I saw was his eyes widely and curiously peering into mine. He was wearing full PPE, a full body suit, and a full-face mask, that one that has a window to the face and a filtered particulate respirator over the mouth. I immediately started panicking, kicking, and screaming that he was a piece of shit, thinking that he was going to bludgeon me as a good morning surprise. His eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas morning, or at least a sociopathic kid who got a new small animal to torture on Christmas morning.
“Hey wait, wait,” he said, annoying gleeful, “I just want to talk right now, just talk, okay?” I still tried jerking away from him, expecting a hammer or hatchet to come at my face. “Calm down! I’m sorry okay, I’m sorry!” he exclaimed, grabbing my knee and giving it a gentle squeeze. I stopped squirming, dumbfounded at what he had just said. “I’ve been kind of a jerk, I know, I was just having my fun, you know?” Any ounce of dignity I had in me screamed to spit in his face, but I swallowed the urge and finally spoke.
“What do you want from me?”
“Right now, or in general?” he chuckled. “Well right now, I really do want to say sorry, but it had to be done.”
“Sorry for… killing me? Over and over again?” I asked, exasperated.
“Well, no. I meant for these last few times. I just needed you to calm down and not try and ruin this.”
Ruin this? I went back on my decision and spat in his face, only getting a small glob on the outside of his mask. He wiped it away, seemingly smiling, and proceeded to duct tape my mouth shut. “See?” he said, “I knew you would see it that way, I can’t blame you.” He swallowed, and his face relaxed as a more serious demeanor took over. “For me, this has not been the fun you probably think I’ve been having. I’m not sadistic. I needed to make you see that I can be though. I cannot have you ruin this.” He paused scanning my face. “Before I saw you and what you were, I only took lives as they were sleeping. Peaceful, how everyone wants to die. Sure, I would mess with their bodies, but that doesn’t hurt them. The only part I like about this, is that now, I feel known.” Once again, he took a longer look at me, making me feel disgusted. “This last month has felt like nothing I have ever known. I have someone to see me. The real me. I must admit, that feels so good.” His eyes smiled at me.
I felt disgusted at the quasi-romanticism he was describing. Oh, so intimate to have this asshole torture me every single day. He must have seen the anger in my eyes as he went on. “I suppose you wouldn’t be too happy to know me. I have time to make you see me in a better light though. I thought I would start with a gift. Go on as before, not panicking and running away. Live these days and go to sleep at night. Then I will be there to painlessly take you to another body.” He lightly grabbed my knee again. “We’ll keep like that for a trial period and regroup after a while. It’s okay, you don’t need to feel guilt over taking this deal. These people’s lives I’m ending are not something that you should feel the need to protect. Think exactly about who you have been.” I shook my knee, heavily breathing through my nose. At that moment I would have rather had him kill me again just so I could stop listening.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t seen a pattern,” he sighed disappointedly, “Okay, so you’ve been elderly grandparents, forgotten by their family.” He reached over and poked my chest as he said that. “You’ve been promiscuous mothers, searching for attention from anything but their husbands and children. What about the money driven fathers, letting their careers dictate their lives? Or those ambitious daughters that want to leave it all behind to ‘make something of themselves’.” He rolled his eyes and looked into mine once more. “And you’ve been lazy sons, wasting their lives as their families try to move forward without their burden.” He smiled. “That’s you huh? You said you were a man? I don’t see ambition or the tiredness of old age in your eyes.” I could feel the rage bubble into my face.
“It doesn’t matter much, who you were, to me. I just want you to know, none of those people were really missed. That’s what I like to see the most. The fake tears from their oh so special loved ones, hiding that relief that they really feel.” His face faded from seriousness back into a delighted grin. “I just think that it’s important that people realize that some parts of their little family are dead weight.” He reached over and touched my cheek. “Think about it though, we can go on how things were. Just live out these days as you had been, and it will be painless. Talk later?” His other hand reached up, pinching a razor that he quickly dragged across my throat. My head tilted to the side and the world blurred out.
I woke up as a middle-aged man living alone. I looked at my nightstand and saw an unopened can of Pabst. I reached out and felt it was still cold. On the other side of it, I felt a post-it note. I span it around and saw written, “A Gift For You”. Dejected, I got up and took a shower. I drank my “gift” afterwards and found more in the fridge. After spending the better part of the morning eating and drinking while watching T.V., I searched the house, half expecting to be killed as I entered every room. Finally, I found a computer room. The computer was logged into, and the desktop had only two icons on the desktop. One was the internet browser, and the other was a notepad document marked “Rules”. The notepad document pretty much said that any future attempts to contact the police would be met with increasingly violent results, which he described in graphic detail. As I’m typing this, I’m expecting for the door to burst open and another day to begin with a new body. I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to post it, but I’m also not sure if it matters whether or not I do. I’m sorry to say that afterwards, I’m going to go about my day drinking and playing old Flash games. I’ll go to sleep and wake up again as someone else. Just make sure you guys reach out to any estranged or distant family members. I’ll try to figure something out eventually, but for now, I’m going to take a break. Thanks for listening.