Monster.

The dust began to clear, but not nearly fast enough. The dust cleared painfully slowly, like time was on pause or someone had pressed the slow motion button during a movie, elongating the pain of a person trapped inside a horror movie.
It was like it was waiting, just teasing me, giving me some sort of hope for escape. But there was no way I could stand. It was impossible for me right now.
So there it stood, as tall as possible and confidant, a dark shadow in the dust, on the horizon, waiting for the weak to become weaker. To torture it's prey in every single way possible.
My heart was in my mouth, waiting for it to pounce. This monster so well camouflaged that no one could've seen it coming. No one could've known. My heart was racing so fast that my chest began to feel constricted, my ribs were crushing it as it tried to break free from my chest causing me immense pain, so much so I felt as if I couldn't breathe, as if I were trapped in a million more ways than one. Everything was trapped.
Sweat dripped from my face, though I felt freezing cold, it dripped from me in buckets, saturating what was left of my tattered, destroyed clothes. The sweat was red. I was already covered in so much blood that I couldn't tell if I was sweating blood or if the blood of my previous companions, people who were once my friends, was mingling with my sweat, creating a rusty, salty acid; burning my skin with the memories of their smiling faces, memories of their tortured faces, memories of their dead faces.
This beast could hear me struggling to breathe, it could see perfectly through the dust and see me clutching my chest against the pain, it could hear the painful sounds of my labored heart beating faster than a cheetah runs, it could see the drops of sweat and blood falling from my brow as I sat, waiting for it to make it's next sick move.
It knew, and it was enjoying it.
I knew I had but moments to live and flashbacks flew through my head so fast I barely caught them had they not all burned themselves: One. By one. By one. Into my head. Painfully, horribly and messily, leaving bloody scars in my brain.
The memories begin with meeting of my friends, my close knit group of friends, closer than any brother and sister. Closer than any family.
A group of misfits, each on their own, all walking about a city in the middle of night, each being rounded up by a group of tough guys, each preparing themselves to get their butts kicked. Bad. They were all eventually all back up, back to back, to each other. They all noticed each other and the battle began. And they learned to win. With the taste of victory fresh on their tongues, a new sense of blood lust in their veins, a new fire in their hearts, they joined together and created a bond thicker than blood between ourselves. We created a Satanist clan.
We started off simple, small. Just sacrificing rodents and partying hard all night every night and sleeping through the days, stealing enough to get what we want and living off of unemployment benefits. Everything we wanted we got, not matter how. And soon our shallow way of living wasn't enough for some of us, the religion began to control us, the joining of someone in our clan, the following ritual, was so exciting we couldn't wait to do it again. We felt a blood lust and it was not enough. Soon our sacrifices involved bigger things. We spoke backwards and and lied through our teeth. And if we sacrificed enough to Satan, he gladly would give us what we wanted.
Soon we grew greedy, and wanted more, so much more! Some people said we had twisted the Satanist religion to suit us, they may have been right but we denied it. We bought a house in the country side and held small parties there, but by the end of the night we would be the only ones able to tear ourselves away. That's where things went wrong.
It was a small group of people we brought, but still bigger than any other time. This was our thirty fourth time. Each one brought a tingling to our veins and a pleasure so great that no person could satisfy needs this great.
Twelve people came. We brought twelve people along. Twelve. Even in this horrible situation, this crazy demon coming for me, the memory of purely this number sent a shudder of pleasure down my spine. Twelve. We could only imagine how the Devil would repay us.
A group this large, I couldn't help but look at each of them lustfully as they all walked in our small secluded house, all expecting some form of party. The first two to enter were friends, three teenage girls, a brunette, a blonde and a red head all young, beautiful and clearly popular and at their prime. They were laughing, expecting the fun and cute boys one would expect at a party. But they were wrong. Then a group of four guys all in their early twenties walked in, eyeing up the young girls with lustful eyes, murmuring about the fun they were going to have at the party tonight, how wasted and high they were going to get and placing dibs on the three teenage girls, who were dressed only slightly provocatively but looked older than their age. While beautiful girls were a plus, these guys would be my favorite. They were the ones that I hated the most, the ones that made my life out of control. I hated them at first glance and I knew that would never change. This would be a good night.
The people following were all wallflowers, people that - in another life - I might even feel pity for in this situation. There was a plain looking asian girl and her handsome asian boyfriend, holding hands and looking around nervously, not so sure if they should've accepted the invitation. There were two more people walking in but they shared no interest to me. Nothing stood out about them except for the one girl whose hands were starting to shake as she placed her hand to her chest with her eyes closed. No one noticed the monster sneak in. He was so small, who could've?
Seeing their faces as the horror of realizing that they were going to die was so beautiful that tears pricked at my eyes and the urge to laugh bubbled up in my chest but I held it back, leave the laughter for the actual killing.
My clan, my family, we liked to keep things dramatic, monologuing on occasion, but we found for a group this large there was no need to monologue. All we needed to do was smile and take out the candles and the knives.
My knife, raised above my head, about to plunge it down into one of the college guys I wanted to kill so badly, the girls crying and shaking, screaming, everyone pale and withdrawn, one girl, with her hand held to her chest, tears streaming down her face, her hand on her heart mumbling words to herself. It was distracting me.
"STOP." The word was booming, deep, incredibly loud and commanding. My friends and I froze in terror and our eyes fell on the monster.
The monster, slowly approaching me through the dust now, so slowly, everything in slow motion, slower than slow, almost as if time itself were at a stand still, frozen, all but me, mocking me. Mocking me, yes that was accurate. Mocking.
Images of blood flickered through my mind. Horrified. Worse than anything I'd ever felt. Screams, screams, and more more screams. These screams did not send a shudder of pleasure down my spine, but rather made me gag, a dry heaving, an empty dry heaving, for everything had already come up that could come up.
Memories, flashbacks, they were unending. How did it get to this? Running through the house, adrenaline and fear rushing through my veins, I didn't want to die, I wasn't ready to die. Death, the idea was beautiful, gothic, but when it came down to it I was nothing more than a coward, I ran and left my friends, my family to die. I ran through the house.
'Stay away, stay away, stay away' it was rhythmic, it was like the fast paced beating of my heart. Putting one leg in front of the other as fast as I could, faster, faster, faster it wasn't fast enough.
Shrieks from upstairs, I was on the stairs. A girl's shrieking. Not just any girl, I recognized the scream. Hailey! The blood of Justin, Kent and Hannah was smeared all over the walls, I failed to understand how that happened.
Hannah's arm rested, ripped off her body at the bottom of the stairs, blood still gushing out, arteries and veins clearly visible, torn flesh making my stomach churn, the yellow of her bone shining through seemed so wrong, the olive tone gone from the skin, it became an alabaster white, her bracelet still attached to her wrist, one of her fingers hanging off her hand grossly the bone still slightly attached. All the bones in the hand seemed grotesquely twisted and broken in ways almost indescribable, her hand was the wrong way round on her severed arm.
I was frozen to the stairs, listening to the sound of Hailey's screams. I couldn't help her, I told myself. That was a lie, I WOULDN'T help her. I didn't want to die. I had convinced both her and myself we were in love, yet I wouldn't go and try to save her.
Her screams went silent and I was frozen in place for a few seconds more to see the horror of her head rolling down the stairs towards me, blood splattering all over me, her jaw torn off, all the muscles and sinew of her face visible, ripped and jagged looking. One of her beautiful brown eyes was missing and blood streamed from both sockets as it fell looking up at me, her eyes a silent cry.
'Why? Why didn't you help me?' Her voice, though permanently silenced screamed loudly at me over and over again as I turned and ran once again, running, running, vomiting as I did so. Where was the monster?
I ran through the house, the doors were locked, the windows were locked and our sacrifices, gone. It let them go.
Justin and Kent, Hannah and Hailey's voice screaming in my head, 'why? why?'.
My mind comparing their smiling faces, drunk faces, angry faces, stoned faces, laughing faces with their dead remains.
I wanted to scream out, I wanted to fall to the floor and shake but adrenaline ran through my veins, 'survive, survive, survive'.
Where was the monster? Was it pursuing me? Was I next? There were still three other to die, Stefano, our skin head, Tank, our tank, and Leo, our brains. I was the one with the leadership qualities.
I remember the horror and dread rushing through my veins when I heard a deep garbled shriek of Tank.
"It's COMING!" The heavy sound of his feet crashing down on the wooden floor scared me, Tank was a threat. He could stab me in the back and leave me to be the next victim. I ran faster. 'Don't die, don't die, don't die' 'why? why? why?' 'shut up! shut up! SHUT UP!' the thoughts all conflicting with each other screaming in my head all keeping pace with my beating heart, my footsteps, growing faster and faster.
The basement door opened up startling both Tank and I, the large man squealed. His will was weak. I managed to keep my mouth shut, how would it know where I was if I was silent? Stefano was trying to drag Leo up the stairs tears running down his face.
"Leo, come on!" Stefano begged his best friend. He always was weak, always was soft. They all were, none of them were as hardened as I. I had thought Tank might've been but he was proving me wrong. I was the strongest, the bravest. The leader. The best will to survive.
"No, Stefano, this is what we always wanted, isn't it? He's repaying us! He's so proud of us he's bringing us to hell to be his demons! Stop resisting! We've been waiting our whole lives for this!" Leo's face lit up, he wasn't upset, he wasn't afraid, he was happy. He was a FOOL.
Tank heard a noise and his head snapped round. I looked to his face and watched the horror appear as the blood drained.
"It's coming!" He ran as fast as he could to a different part of the house, and I followed, Stefano tried once more to pull his best friend away.
"Leave me!" Leo snapped. "I'm going to embrace my prize." He sounded simply euphoric.
Stefano waited no more for his best friend, stumbling after us.
Then we heard Leo's screams and were drenched in his hot blood. Stefano wavered, sobbing and shaking uncontrollably. Weak.
'Keep running, keep running, you CAN survive' I told myself 'just out run the rest'. Something hard hit me in the back of the head. I glanced back at it momentarily. Leo's hand. My stomach wretched but I kept running, Stefano was not quite so strong.
"Oh God! Oh God!" He screamed and he fell as he vomited, his bile mixing with the blood smeared on the floors and walls of what once was our humble abode. He was unable to stand and grabbed at my ankle. He'd seen people be murdered before. He should've been able to suck it up, but no. "Please! Help me!" His shriek forever printed in my memory as I pushed him away and kept running. He was holding me back.
'Survive, survive, survive' 'it's coming, it's coming, it's coming' 'why? why? why?' and now another thought burned into my mind, screaming at me over and over again, 'please! help me!'.
"Shut up!" I finally shouted out loud at my thoughts, as Stefano's shrieks began. His screams were the worst, they burned and festered. I pushed him away. Tank and I were once again showered in hot, red liquid. His blood. We were by the stair case again, I stumbled slightly over Hannah's arm and vomited a little bit in my mouth when I saw Hailey's head. I would get over it. All I had to do was survive, survival of the fittest, right? Trying to convince myself that everything was okay, I was following my religion letting my family, my friends, my clan, just die like that. It was okay. I was okay. I just couldn't die the same horrifying, painful way. I wouldn't die by the hands of this monster.
Something hit Tank in the chest and landed in his hands.
Stefano's ear and part of his foot. All soaked in blood, looking almost like it was made as a halloween decoration. Tank's face paled once more, if he got any paler I might've thought he was a zombie.
"Holy shit," he whispered. Then he burst into tears, crying and shaking. A sad mass of shaking muscles and stupid emotions. He was just as weak as the rest, I could be strong, I could survive, I could be better than the rest.
"Suck it up!" I shouted at him, hysterical, trying to stop myself from gagging. "We need to survive! You're big! Break through the window! We can survive!"
He continued to cry, to shake like a baby.
There was a bump. It was finished with Stefano.
"COME ON!" I screamed.
Tank ran at the window and I ran behind him and pushed him as we reached the window, it broke and I shoved him through so we landed on the dirt and sand of the ground outside. Both of us cut up by the glass, Stefano, the bastard had damaged my ankle. I couldn't run properly. Tank was hurt worse by the glass.
"HELP!" He screamed as I stood up and dusted myself off out of force of habit. "HELP! I CAN'T GET UP!"
I didn't look back as I began to run away. I listened to the cries in my head instead of the pleas of Tank begging me to come back and help him, to save him. I couldn't, hadn't he heard their screams? Seen their twisted bodies? Wasn't he also covered in their blood? I would not die like that. I refused.
'I don't want to die.' Was all I could think, it was silencing the voices of my dead friends crying in my head, wondering why I didn't save them.
Tanks shrieks began then, such a big man, screaming for his mother. They chilled me to the bone and I couldn't help but stop to vomit once more.
I just kept running and at some point I fell. Something exploded, I assumed it was the house and dust surrounded me. That was how I ended up here, where I am now, just waiting for the monster. For my death.
I hadn't noticed the monster slowly encroaching me until he was almost in front of me. He was probably four foot five and was wearing clothes that were too big and baggy for him. He looked like a nine year old boy, cute and easy to not notice but when you looked into his eyes, you saw his evil.
His smile grew larger.
I tried to back away but his walking was faster than I could move, the pain of my ankle and all the running I did and the glass cutting me, finally catching up with me. I was exhausted.
"Get away from me! Monster! MONSTER!" I shrieked at him, desperate and panicking. 'Why?' 'please! help!' 'help! I can't get up!' 'help us! help us!' They screamed in my head at me, all my friends that HE killed. All asking ME for help, help I didn't give them so I could survive. And I was going to die anyway.
He smile fell, giving me sad eyes only a child could. It wasn't a child, it was a monster!
"Why didn't you help your friends?" It asked me, it's voice seemingly innocent, it's head cocked to one side.
'why? why? why?' 'help! help! help!'. I pressed my hands to my temples, trying to push them out of my head, shaking, sweating, bleeding, crying. Images of them flickering in my head.
"Why did you hurt those people?" It asked.
The voices in my head screamed louder.
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! MONSTER!" I screamed, trying to push the images of every murder, I ever committed flashing through my mind, all my friends dying flashed through my head, trying to get them all out.
It's eyes were sad, it reached out and touched my arm gently. It's touch burned my arm like the strongest acid. There were no words for the pain it caused. I screamed and screamed my throat burning from my horrid shrieks and cries of terror, it felt raw like it was bleeding.
"Oh God!" I screamed, it put it's other hand on my and I felt even more pain, I wretched and convulsed and failed and thrashed, I couldn't control myself. My screams were uncontrollable, I started to choke and blood came out of my throat and I sprayed it all over the monster.
"Why?" He asked me, giving me the saddest eyes I'd ever seen.
'Why? why? why? why?' they all asked in my head, everyone, all our sacrifices, all my friends, everyone I ever did wrong. I felt the pain of every one.
"How do you like it?" It asked me. "This is their pain."
My screams grew louder and more intense as the pain increased.
The pain, festering, like being burned, scalded, stabbed, crushed, punched, ripped, pinched, scratched, broken, stretched, every type of pain imaginable all at once. It consumed me.
I cried out one last agonizing scream.
My last sight was the monster.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Satanist's blood was every where as all the pain grew too much, the shaking and convulsing over took them and they blew up in a mass of blood, body parts, bones and sinew. Their juices covered me in a shower of red liquid.
Who am I?
Some call me justice.
Others call me cruelty.
I am the Angel Of Death.
I am,

Monster.