Puppet Master

Wake up, Brian. It is time for you to let your anger take control. Let yourself go completely crazy.

It was when I passed out that I had first heard the voice. It sounded so angry. And then it spoke to me again. It wants me to let myself be angry. I won’t do it. No. I can’t do it.

I felt a sharp pain on my cheek and heard a voice scream, “Wake up!” I opened my eyes, just to find myself tied up to a chair in a police interrogation room. “Hello princess,” said the voice again. It was the cop that hired me. Next to him stood Nathaniel, Sam, and the two other cops that were with him when we had first met.

“No one told me I was going to a party,” I smiled at them.

“How many?” said the cop? I just looked at him confused. He just rolled his eyes and said, “How many have you killed?”

Kill them, said the strange voice in my head. Kill all of them.

Not yet, I thought. I have to know why they care so much.

That does not matter. If you do not kill them now, you will be stuck in here forever!

I will make my own decisions, voice. You cannot tell me what to do. “Why does it matter?” I said to cop number one. Instead of an answer, he just slapped me again. “Slapping me isn’t going to give you your answers, dumbass.”

“Then how about we cut the answers out of you?” he gave me a crooked smile. “I have your precious switch blades with me.” And that’s when I noticed my jacket was gone. It’s kind of hard to tell when you’re missing something when you’re in a slightly tense situation. “Now tell us how many you killed.”

Alright voice, I thought to myself, let’s have some fun with these guys.

“No.”

The cop pulled out one of my switch blades and lunged at me.

“Wait Dan, don’t do it!” yelled Nathaniel, but it was too late. He made a small slash on my left cheek.

I could immediately feel the pain; the sharp tingle on my cheek that caused my mind to flash with anger. It was all I needed. I opened my mind to everything around me. Letting it fill the room with invisible energy. “I’m going to kill all of you.”I focused my attention on the rope and they snapped off. “That’s better,” I said then sent the chair flying at Nathaniel. “Now, I’m not a very happy guy at the moment. And everyone knows that an upset teen is bad. Really, really bad. But now you’ve made a Telekin mad,” I spoke more, trying to size them up while I willed my jacket to come back to me.

“Bring it on, kid,” spat the cop I now know as Dan. With a snap of my fingers, my jacket flew from the other side of the table and wrapped itself around me.

“Oh, I will bring it. And you will die.” I willed the pockets to pop open and lifted my hands, turning the power in my mind into small threads. The threads quickly attached to the switch blades and opened them automatically as they began to lift out of my jacket and swarm around me. The blades glistened in the light of the room. Everyone just stared.

With a light flick of my hand, the blades aimed themselves in all directions and shot away. It was fairly easy for everyone to dodge the knives. The two cops that aren’t Dan ducked under a table, Sam bent the air around him to move the knives away from him, Nathaniel just stood and clenched his fists a little and the blades bounced off. Dan though did something I hadn’t expected. He crouched down towards the ground and became a blur, dodging every blade. It was he who was the speed.

Without slowing his pace, he blurred towards me, a glint of medal shining at his side. I smiled wickedly and lifted my hand up, stopping the blade in his hand. He jerked back and fell to the ground with so much force that his shoulder made a loud “Pop”. He went rigid with pain. It was perfect. “That’s all you could muster? I thought you were going to be fun!” I flicked my index finger and the blade still in his hand plunged towards his throat. There was a small thump as the blade went through the skin and blocked his jugular. He writhed and gurgled in fear, then suddenly stopped moving. I watched him as he died boringly, and then turned to Nathaniel. “You didn’t tell me you were a Terrakin,” he just shrugged and gave a crooked smile as the other two cops jumped up from behind the table with their guns out. I quickly threw my hands out towards them and flung my energy at them in key points; just like with Mr. Sarentino.

It was just in time.

“Wh-what the hell?” said the first cop. They jerked slightly in place as they tried to move their body, but to no avail. I had them in my clutches. I watched them, amused. Simple mortal people with no power can be very entertaining when they are trapped. The way their eye’s fill with this craziness and fear, like they would kill to get out. And they will.

I swung their arms that held the guns and aimed for each other’s head and fired. The noise of the guns was excruciatingly louder than the last one I had heard. Though, it could be that that one was far smaller than a normal gun used by the cops. Blood splattered against the floor and parts of the walls like paint. I smiled even more when Nathaniel’s smile quickly replaced itself with a frown. I began to giggle at the sight. “What is this? A joke?” I begin to laugh harder. “This has to be a joke. Did I really just kill three people like it was nothing? I thought you would be better than this. I mean you knocked me out and kidnapped me here.” It was getting hard for me to breath, laughing so hard. I let go of the dead cops and flung the guns toward my hands, catching them and spinning them like a gunslinger. “I- can’t believe- you caught me just- for me- to kill you,” I pointed the gun in my left hand at Sam and fired two shots. He quickly moved out of the way, and my breath came back to me. “Just as I thought. Did you think I forgot about you, Sam?”

“Look, man. I’m just doing this for the money,” He said back. I shot at him twice more with both guns. Sam moved quickly away, using the air around him to push himself faster. He ran and dodged moving further and further left. I don’t understand though, I thought to myself, why isn’t he using his power to attack?

There was a flash of movement next to me, and everything clicked when Nathaniel sent a crushing blow towards my ribs. I had just enough time to let my power surround me in a weak shield that weakened the punch, but still sent me flying to the other side of the room. I moved quickly in the air while I still flew towards the wall behind me, using my power as a cushion against the wall. Slowly my flight began to stop, and I slid down the wall. The pain in my ribs made my breath catch in my throat and it took me a second to regain control it again when suddenly a blast of wind pinned me to the wall.

I looked up at both of them once I finally had my breath back and gave them the most psychotic smile I could. “Now that was fun!” I wheezed. “You guys must have been practicing. How long have you been planning my capture?”

“A few months,” Nathaniel replied while cracking his knuckles.

“And why are you trying to kill me again?”

Nathaniel walked towards same and began his magnificent monologue, “We wanted you to stop killing people.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Oh,” I said as my fingers twitched. “Well I’m sorry. I’ll stop killing people,” I said as few knives began to rise behind them, “when it’s not fun anymore!”

Nathaniel clenched his fists just in time for the knives to bounce off, but Sam wasn’t so lucky. Unsuspecting the attack, a knife struck his right should and another embedded itself in his shin. He grunted in pain ad he fell onto his knees, and the wind that held me trapped quickly dispersed. With the telekinesis I used to cushion the wall, I bounced off and bounded straight for Sam. I crossed my arms when I was halfway to him, and the retractable blades in my sleeves popped out. Before I got closer though, Nathaniel stepped in front of him and turned his body to stone like he had to block the blades.

“Have you already forgotten Nathaniel?” I screamed at him, while still running. “Did you forget the first time we met?” as I said the last word I lifted my leg onto his chest and with all my telekinetic power, added extra force to my leg and kicked him with the bottom of my shoe, sending us both flying to opposite sides of the room. I twisted my body as I soared once again to the same wall and kicked off of it using my power to add as much force as possible and flew towards Sam. This time Nathaniel wasn’t around to stop me. As I listened to a giant crash coming from in front of me, I flew straight over Sam and swung my swords.

I couldn’t see where his head went when I landed on the floor a few feet behind him, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to fight back anymore. “And so there was one,” I chuckled as I got up off the floor. “Are you going to make this easy or is your head going to have to come off too?” I wait for his reply when I noticed the giant hole in the wall that he went through. “Oh,” was all I could say as I walked towards it. When I reached the hole I could see Nathaniel, lying dazedly in the rubble of the wall. I looked away from him to see where we were in the first place to find us in an empty office building. “You took me to an office building? Well alright.” With the wave of my hand, a knife flew into my grasp. “I’m sorry it has to end like this. I would love to have more fun with you, but something tells me you would get boring quickly and I’m getting hungry,” My stomach grumbled in agreement and I smiled at him. “Good bye, Nathaniel,” I said as I slit his throat.

I didn’t watch him die. Instead I walked back into the room I was first in and looked at the mess I made. I took a deep breath and smiled as my breath left my lungs. “That was quite a workout,” I rubbed my chest where Nathaniel had punched me and flinched as I felt the bruise that was growing.

I lifted both of my hands and waved them around. The blood suddenly flew off of my retractable blades and fell to the ground as the blades quickly hid themselves in my sleeves once again. With another wave, the knives and switchblades quickly flew back into my pockets and the buttons clicked shut. As gave a quick, polite nod to the dead bodies and walked out.

It turned out that the office building wasn’t completely empty. As I went down through an elevator, people began flooding in and out as it moved down. After a few minutes and way too many annoying stops, I was able to leave. I walked out of the office building, smiling nicely at the pretty receptionist at the front desk and turned toward the closest place that had food.

McDonald’s.

“Hello, Mr. Jones,” said a voice behind me. I turned around to fine a man in his fifties staring at me. He politely smiled and said, may I pay for your food? I know you must be hungry.”

“What do you want?” I said tired.

“Just a talk,” was all he said as he pulled me along to the fast food hell hold. “And maybe an offer you won’t be able to decline.”