Crucible: The Accomplice

We ended up getting Japanese in the food court. I hadn’t had it in so long because it was so expensive, and he wanted to take advantage of that.

I was just happy from everything.

We chatted mindlessly over the food as we stuffed our mouths. Then he decided to get serious.

“So, why do you do this?” He asked. I almost choked on my food right then.

“What do you mean why? Do I need a reason?” I said, calming myself.

He shrugged, “Well usually, people do. Like, I have my reasons for wanting to learn.”

I gave him a skeptical look. “Like what?” I asked, going back to shoveling food into my mouth.

He stayed quiet for a few second, then put his fork down and folded his tattooed hands in front of himself. “Well, it kind of goes back to why I got into the music industry” He began. I nodded, urging him to go on.

“When we began, I did this for the fans. I wrote what I thought would please them, and sounded how I thought they’d want to hear me sound. The rest of my mates understood that too” He said quietly, “And then, after one of our first guitarists left, I wanted to change.”

“Writing for the fans constantly didn’t..satisfy me. So I began writing for myself, and myself only,” He took a deep breath in and let it out before continuing, “Then the fans were enraged.”

I felt myself making a discontent clicking noise with my tongue before I could even stop it. He looked at me, then smiled.

“Shitty, yeah? So, in an effort to keep our fans, we went back to the old style. The fans calmed down, but I’ve been..unsettled,” I noticed his hands clenching around each other on the table, “Since the day we started our most recent album, I’ve needed an outlet. Something I could do to express myself without turning all my fans away. I found myself being more rough with them and I was constantly enraged. That was when incidents of me pissing on the girl and spitting on people went on..”

I jerked my head up to see his smiling face, “Pissing on a girl?”

He laughed a little, “I’ll explain some other time.” I just nodded.

“Then, I saw on the news. The Glasgow Cutter has killed again. It just sparked my interest at first, so I googled it. That’s when I found the answer to my problems” He leaned onto one hand, smiling at me, “I read about your signature, the Chelsea Grin as I call it. It reminded me of a song I wrote on that album, a song I wrote for myself.”

I gave him an odd look. He knew what it was beforehand? No one ever really understood that.

“I knew I wasn’t smart enough to track you down myself and get you to teach me, so I just followed your every kill. Made a map of your movements and all. You really have no set pattern, no consistent victims or trail. I found it fascinating” He was smiling more to himself now, “It was on my pure luck that I found you. And at one of my own concerts, killing one of my own fans, nonetheless.”

“You’re not at all mad about me massacring one of your fans?” I asked curiously. I hadn’t even thought of it until he said it, I killed someone who actually liked his music.

He shook his head, chuckling. “Not at all. I’ve wanted to do it so long, and couldn’t. I had no idea how to go about it at all.”

I smiled and grabbed his hand, “Well, you’ve helped me, so I’ll help you. But you can’t help me find people, I do that myself. Just stick around me as much as you can, and you’ll get your wish.”

He nodded happily. I never thought I’d be a teacher, it was a little surreal.

“So, what about your reason?” He brought up about. I smiled.

“That’s a story for another time, come on. Lets go” I told him, standing up to throw things away.

He sighed, but followed anyway. “It’s almost time for sound check, we should hurry” He told me. I didn’t know what “sound check” was, but we hurried anyway.

As we quickly walked through the building, he grabbed some of my bags, telling me it wasn’t right for me to carry them all. I just let him do what he wanted.

Walking back on the parking lot, I noticed there were already a long line of people waiting.

And one of those people were going to be Oliver’s first victim tonight. Who knows, maybe we’ll even find two so I can show him first hand.