Ego te Provoco

My finger glided across the smooth surface of an old oak table, tracing five distinct, popular symbols that represented speech sounds of the English language. These five letters were place parallel with one another; in turn coming together to make something that communicated a specific meaning. I had been writing this word all over the house, across every single dusty surface in every single room throughout every single waking moment of every single day since last Tuesday. Or at least…I think it might have been last Tuesday. I never really paid much attention to the days of the week or the months of the year. It was all passing time to me. It would pass with or without me knowing what somebody who I had never known and never would know had decided to classify and divide it as.

I stand in the middle of what had once been considered the grand hall and admire my work. In this room alone I had written the word DEATH across at least fifty different objects. I absolutely loved the look of it. It was as though death himself was waiting around every single corner in every single possible place, staring you right in the face. Mocking you, teasing you licking and kissing your face in the most intimate of manners…The thought sends shivers down my spine and I tilt my head back to look up at the vaulted ceiling.

I click my tongue at it, finding the paintings upon it distasteful, so I turn on my heel and march backup the curving stairs on the left side of the room, before I dashed down the hall into my bedroom. I slam the door shut behind me and lean up against it, my breathing coming heavily. My eyes dart back and forth for a long moment, before I determine that my house is free of whatever had just frightened me that time around. I hate this house. It’s so dark and it’s so huge and it’s so…Terribly, terribly lonely.

Yes…That’s it…I’m alone.

I sit down on my bed and yank my shirt off over my head, when I felt as though the thing was suffocating me. Taking off my shirt reveals a very intricate tattoo of an octopus on my chest, Japanese symbols on my arm, and another tattoo on my lower abdomen, this one a large detailed chain that wraps all the way around my waist, and it is laced through with thorny vines. I look down at my stomach and trace the tattoo with my fingertips. It represents the fact that I’m chain to the place, this house that everybody hates so much. It isn’t my fault.

I curled up on my side on my relatively soft bed for a moment, before I became certain that I heard a car pulling up in front of the house. Lucky for me, my window looks down directly upon the street. I open the curtains just a crack, wince at the bright sunlight shining through – there is a reason for which all the windows are covered, after all – and I watch as a car parked in front of my humble abode. I watch with relative amusement as four boys who appear to still be in their teenage years pile out of the vehicle, as they push and shove each other. I have a feeling that they are daring one another to be brave and venture forth first.

I let a loud cackle escape through my cracked lips when one of the boy’s looks up at the window. I immediately pulled the curtains shut and couldn’t help but continue laughing the loud, maniac laughter that I had been practicing for years. Oh, if only I could go back to being teenager which had ended maybe six years ago now…The years when I actually had what were called friends and we went wherever just for the hell of it, and we went to haunted houses just to get a good laugh.

I lick my lips.

Oh, I would definitely be sure that these four had the time of their lives.

And I would certainly see to it that they all witnessed a true haunted house.

One by one.

On their own.

Face to face with a true demon.

I laugh again and stride out of the room, and back down the hall where again I slam the door behind me and lean up against the heavy wooden surface. This room had a sort of hidden balcony where I could watch the four brave, brave boys enter the house. From here I could decide who to take first, who I would choose, which one of them would get the full experience of my home.

But of course, they would all get a turn. But which one would be lucky enough to have their mind eaten apart as one by one, his friends began to disappear and all that was left of them was their tormented screams and a few distant memories as the fresh ones were washed away with a sea o blood? Oh yes, who would the lucky contender be? Who would be the one that he would devote so much attention to? The one that death would come to last? Or at least mental death.

But death nonetheless, of course. Yes, of course.

I peek out the window again and lick my lips.

“Yes…” I purr, a hint of lust in my voice as I slide one of my fingers down my lip and pull the soft flesh before I bite on it with my straight, white teeth. “You will suit by purposes wonderfully, now won’t you?” I say as I look down upon them. “You will scream the loudest, surely? And you will cry and writhe beneath my fingertips and at my touch? It will be one you crave though, in the end, of course.”

I eye the one I want with desperation, not knowing whether or not I will be able to contain myself throughout the other three before I can finally have the one I want…The one I want the most.

“Yes…That I promise you, darling. In the end I will have you begging for me. For something you have only ever dreamed about…”

I shut the curtain again quickly.

“Or maybe that was a nightmare.”