I'm Obsessed With Serial Killers

They tore their flesh off in pieces, throwing them so that they soar through the air and stick to the foreboding brick wall that stood before them on the side of the street. Their faces were numerous, one on the neck, stretching out of the scaly flesh, coupled by a face on the head; one screamed with pain as the other laughed with joy, and still more flesh stuck, as high as they could manage to throw it from their bleeding, mutilated bodies. The blood rained down, dismembered bodies from those who had gone too far and lost it all being showered by it as they littered the side of the road in their shame. These inhuman people, they didn’t notice me, didn’t acknowledge me as the fear pulsed through my heart into my chest and limbs. I trembled silently and bit my lip to keep walking in horror, the piles of broken, detached limbs with bones sticking out and innards littering the empty spaces never ending. Sometimes the ground would crunch as I stepped, but I didn’t dare look down. The sidewalk before me looked clean, kept up nicely because all of the dead body parts were swept into the gutters along with the water mixed with blood that failed to clean anything in this place.
I didn’t even know what this place was, where I was, just that it bothered me. Every sound, every sight of two-faced monsters and corpses set me on edge, and not with the usual hunger. I was vulnerable and afraid in the face of the macabre, something I’ve never experienced before in my life. Disgust, horror, self-mutilation with no apparent purpose other than a sick game.
Then it happened, something flashed and I checked my phone. I still had a phone. It still worked. What was happening?
It didn’t matter, nothing mattered, the fear previously instilled by the shredded flesh and stench of rotting intestines was offset by a pain much greater as I read the small black letters on the screen. I was rejected – Lily had found someone new. She rejected me. I wasn’t good enough. My breathing sped up and my heart pounded until I couldn’t breathe at all anymore and everything went black.
My eyes opened, I was in my bed, muscled tensed, still hyperventilating. I almost cried, almost choked, fighting back the black hole trying to rip the heart out of my very chest as I tried to comprehend all I had just witnessed. Was it a dream? I didn’t remember falling asleep. What did it mean? What does anything mean? What is reality, where am I even? Am I dreaming that I was having a nightmare? My mind wouldn’t shut up and everything that had ever haunted me refused to leave me alone.
I bit my lip, checking my networking accounts. No updates from Liliana. I was still her best friend as far as I knew. She was still the one living force on this earth keeping me here and ensuring me that even in reality I am not alone. So why do I still feel so empty and hopeless and disgusted?

In a daze, I got dressed and headed to work. I didn’t hear anything more than the resonating sound of Radiohead’s Kid A in my head as I distanced myself, mulling over my racing mind as everyone else went about their average day. I talked to one client; he was three weeks clean now, I congratulated him and gave him a hug and we went out to lunch as a celebration. After lunch I talked to Bryce a little bit.
“Nyxon, you’re worrying me. Really, if something’s after you, don’t ignore it. I’m afraid the demons might be getting to you. You have to let someone know. Save yourself!”
I shook my head. “Bryce, I’m not in the mood for your nonsense right now. Go away.”
And that was that and nothing else happened in reality, whatever reality is.
My mind chased the tangent. What is reality, exactly? It’s nothing more than a framework that keeps us rooted in our webs of social relationships and out of our own heads, out of our fantasies and our secrets; but aren’t our secrets also a part of reality? I’ve killed people and that is real. I was killed and that is not real. What makes it not real, though? I felt it, I watched it as my body bled out on a table from the stabs of hundreds of shiny needles. It left no mark, but how is it not real if I felt it? I was losing touch with myself, leaving the reality of my web of contacts and regressing into an internal state of mind, forming my own reality of questions and confusion, using my thoughts as an excuse to abstain from average life. I needed nothing more than some background music and darkness where my thoughts can run wild, flourishing on their own fear and hunger.
My stomach growled and I saw red. I was losing it. I couldn’t wait so long before satisfying my compulsions which were the only things I knew were real anymore. The feeling of taking the life of another person, soaking yourself in their blood as they lose all grasp on consciousness then leave forever, that is reality. Ritualistically dismembering the parts, disposing of all but the biceps, keeping my kill as food, that is my reality. I sought comfort from nothing else anymore, not contact, not company, not even intelligent conversation. Just bloodlust. I was losing it, I couldn’t wait to plan out another perfect kill, I needed to clear my head, and fast. I wonder what Bryce tastes like… I wonder what all of these narcotic junkies must taste like, being so strung out on drugs for so long. I probably should avoid them, I wouldn’t want to accidentally ingest heroin from it; that would be rather unfortunate.
I didn’t have to eat them because I killed them. It might be straying from the ritual but every other piece could stay the same. I could be selective about which kills I actually kept as food; there’s no rule against that. It’s not as if Dahmer ate everyone he killed… I could keep my sanity, couldn’t I?
I want to kill everyone – No, I need to. It’s the last way to keep my sanity in tact.