The Hunt

I murdered eight people over the course of two weeks. I destined them all to Hell, and I did so with an enigmatic grin on my face and blood drenching my clothes. I was a maddened mess because of him and I was turning into Satan himself, but I loved him so much that it kept my stone heart beating.

With every kill a match was lit up inside my body, burning brightly like a fire that was destined to destroy me and excite the masochist in me all at once. The height of the flame was now licking at my fingertips; begging to explode with blood and love and kisses. Tingles roamed my body, tingles that could only be extinguished by his poisonous tongue and lips. I was a soulless corpse and my world was seen through blackened eyes, but my heart was in his hands and he did with it as he pleased.

His hands were like puppeteers, stringing along the threads of my heart and making them dance according to his desires. I was so overcome with love for him and his sadism that I overlooked the fact that the strings were thickening, and the chances of ripping myself away from this monster were becoming more and more scarce.

But if I had a choice, would I do it? If I was in a sane frame of mind and my heart was still my own, would I turn away from him?

I didn’t know. I didn’t know who I was, much less who I used to be. Sanity seemed as far away as Heaven for me, and I was embracing the madness as though it had been there all along. I was a whispering, bloody mess of a bruised heart and a severed soul, but he somehow managed to piece them together to make me into a beautiful piece of art.

In this frame of mind, the answer was no. I would never turn away, even if the reward was a place in Heaven. I was destined for Hell because I was a maddened jumble of cruelty and sin, but that didn’t mean that I wanted to be there. In my perfect dream of the future it was he and I in Heaven with the blood of God’s angels surrounding us but our love burning brighter than the rising Sun.

His lips were on my neck, his elongated teeth nibbling at my flesh. Heat was prickling at my body, curling up and dancing around me as I felt the familiar rush of adrenaline and fear course through my heart. I was a writhing mess, my body shaking as though it was about to explode; as though there was too much blood to bear. My eyes had darkened to a deep shade of brown and they were swirling as though hypnotized by his scent and the blood that was dribbling down my hands.

Her body was in front of me, lying in a distorted mess of massacred limbs and flesh and with a halo of blood lying around her thick brown locks. It was her final reach for Heaven, but the star carved into the side of her neck and the bloody clutter of her heart confined her to the deepest pits of Hell. She was to become a part of His army, an army that would strive for a world of the living dead and people who had surrendered their hearts to a demon like I had.

When the sky was black with the kiss of night he would whisper his secrets to me, and his vision of a world without love and drowned by blood. Except for ours, of course. That much he promised.

He viewed night as a triumph over light; as a conquest over the Heaven’s rays. He would whisper to me maddened thoughts of the Moon’s quest to murder the Sun, and keep darkness hanging over the Earth for the length of eternity. I listened and nodded mutely, because a world with eternal darkness meant a world with him and for that I was on my knees with my hands clasped.

“Knife, my darling,” he purred, taking a step away from me and looking at me through hooded, sultry eyes. He liked to lick it clean after the kill, and then he would kiss me and the blood would be on our tongues and dripping down my throat like a sting of ecstasy.

Breathing heavily, I placed the bloodied knife in his hands, my fingers lingering for his touch. He chuckled loudly, pulling the knife away from me and bringing it to his lips. His pink tongue darted over the weapon, curling around the pointed edge and licking it clean. His ruby lips were stained with the blood, but he left it sitting there as he stepped towards me and pressed them against my cheek.

He pulled away, admiring the heart-shaped print that painted my skin with sparkling eyes. His tongue flicked out to wipe his lips clean, and a satisfied purr left his lips as he stepped away. “She tastes good,” he murmured, a dark grin lifting up his lips as he watched my body twist with envy. I was overcome with the urge to disassemble her body even further, and to lick her blood up so that he would never have another taste. But I remained still, because his hands had not moved on my strings and I was numb until he desired me to feel.

He appeared behind me, his chin buried into my neck as his nose moved against my skin. He breathed in deeply, grinning against my skin as I shivered at the touch. “Are you jealous, my gem?” he breathed, his mouth lifting up into an amused sneer as his arms wrapped around my trembling body. “You shouldn’t be,” he whispered, the words curling around my ears and dancing around my body like a flame.

The knife was buried deep into my stomach, a splutter leaving my lips as blood began to dribble onto the floor. His smile was still pressed against my skin as I cried with pain, ragged gasps of air leaving my lips as I struggled to breathe.

My body fell to the floor and he buried the knife deeper, ripping into my flesh like it was made of paper. Thoughts were swirling through my brain, half excited by the blood and half maddened by despair. Bubbles of blood dribbled down my chin as pain drowned my body, and my head hit the floor as I felt blackness threatening to swallow me.

My eyes fluttered shut despite the fact that my mind screamed to keep his beauty in my sight. I could feel the grips of death calling for me, grasping at the final threads of my soul and ripping them downwards. “Do you love me, Charlotte?” he whispered, pulling the knife from my body and placing the frigid metal against my neck.

I spluttered to speak, my body curling into itself as I fought to stay alive. But somehow, even with his knife pressed to my neck and my death lying in his hands I couldn’t lie to him. “Yes,” I coughed, shaking with shock and pain.

He laughed. His laughter was manic but utterly beautiful to me, and it sounded out all around me like an alarm. He was laughing so hard that I wanted to laugh too, but I was so weak that my eyes were closing and I could no longer feel the blood leaving my body.

He pressed a kiss against my neck; the kiss of death itself. Then he dug the knife in and I felt myself falling under, my effort to remain in this life and with him dwindling until I could no longer hold on. And so my eyes closed for the final time and blackness overcame me, the six-sided star carved into my neck destining me for Hell.