HOME | DD

Description
The front room was covered in slashes of blood. As I stepped over the threshold of the house I knew that I had come to the right place. I drew my gun slowly, holding it pointed down, ready to shoot the first threat I knew I would come across. I noticed that most of the blood was so dry I could see it visibly shedding in flakes to the floor, but a small portion was still wet. I took a closer look, seeing the lines that started to form shapes deep in the velvet red blood. It reminded me of clouds, how you let your imagination see the shapes that aren’t there.
This was not my imagination, it was there, the blood was shaped and designed so perfectly to show the portraits, perfect portraits, of every person who had disappeared in the last month save one. Each detail, perfectly etched into the wall. Each victim was beautiful, more beautiful than they had looked in the photos of their profiles.
As I looked at each portrait examining every detail that the blood could capture, I noticed every one of them was in a state of absolute horror. I tightened my grip onto the gun, which shook violently with my hands. The floor wobbled dangerously under my feet. I ignored the urge to run, ignored the urge to get as far away from this place as possible. I walked forward out of the front room, and into the hallway leading to the living room.
The hallway wasn’t quite as bloody, and I could only assume the killings had been performed in the room I just left. And whichever method of killing was used… had to be extremely bloody to cover a room with so much blood. I walked on trying to keep my head clear. No fear could be allowed to enter my mind. I walked down the hall turning left heading for the living room.
He was there just standing there in the dim room uncaring, the missing victim, the one without a portrait, the first one to go missing.
He reached out his arm and held his hand out to me in a like he had a gun too. And for some reason I was scared of this empty gesture. My spine reacted faster than I possibly could. I shot twice directly into his chest.
The bullets struck dead on. He looked down casually at the wounds with no emotion visible. Blood was pouring in buckets from the wounds on his cheat, and he just bled and bled. I gasped as he looked back up at me with cold empty eyes.
“Hello.” His voice was smooth, like a knife cutting the air, but it was completely hallow. And he just kept on bleeding, the flow of the blood coming to a slow, and then stopped altogether.
My mind was completely blank.
“Shocked? Yes me too.”
I had two choices here, faint or act like he was just a suspect. Just someone to arrest.
“Freeze…” I shuddered “Hands in the air. And don’t you move an inch!” I said in an unconvincing, wavering voice. He looked at me blankly.
“Officer, you have shot me twice with no effect. I haven’t moved since you walked through the front door. What makes you think you can give me any orders?”
“What the hell…” My mind was going to explode.
“Sit down. You are going to faint.” I thought about it for a second.
“You are going to kill me aren’t you?” I said in a weak voice feeling woozy, my mind becoming too blank for me to feel panicked.
“If I could kill you, you would be dead. Go ahead and faint, you are safe apparently.” This confusing statement sent my mind over the edge. And I felt myself start to fall into the cold dark of unconsciousness.

I woke slowly, troubled by the dark dream I had been having. Relived to be home, I felt myself laying on my right side. I opened my eyes, there was an odd dim light coming through the unfamiliar windows. Without turning I looked around with wide eyes, realizing I didn’t recognize the room I slept in. I rolled over onto my left side. I came face to face with the man from my nightmare, his face still blank, eyes empty and cold. His hair was smooth, it looked greasy and unwashed but it was cut and styled perfectly, his eyes were a dark blue. His smell was the most disturbing thing about him; it was the smell of someone who had not washed themselves in weeks, mixed with the smell of rotting carrion. But apart from that He looked very human.
“You aren’t self centered.” He said, his expression never changing.
“What the fuck?” I mumbled in my morning daze, the horror of everything just beginning to crash down on me again.
“I’m confused too.” He said.
“Who are you?” I asked, wanting to yell it, but only managing a whisper.
“I’m a Kolple. My name doesn’t matter.” He said in an ever hallow monotone voice.
“Why the fuck do you keep talking like that?” I couldn’t seem to think properly and my confusion was irritating me.
“How else can I talk?”
“I asked who you are.” I reminded him.
“I told you I’m a Kolple, you don’t want to know what my name is, you want to know what I am.”
“What?” I was going to faint again if he kept this up, I wanted answers. This wasn’t going well at all. Wasn’t I supposed to enter this house and apprehend the bad guy and bring him to justice? I wasn’t supposed to faint and wake up with him talking to me in riddles. This wasn’t how things were supposed to play out.
“Life does throw its little twists.” He said in the same monotone.
“OK… so you are saying that you are a Kolple?”
“Yes.”
“And what is that? Explain.”
“That would be hard… and in your current state you would probably just faint again.” He was probably right, but if I didn’t get some answers I was probably going to be out anyways.
“Just tell me please… it will make me feel better.”
“All the more reason to not tell you.” He blinked.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want you to feel better.” He said with his monotone honesty.
“Just tell me. Maybe it will make me feel worse.” I said almost sarcastically.
“Well…” He seemed to think that over. His face never changed from the blankness that existed there. “I sold my soul. I didn’t know I would become this when I sold it. The demon I sold it to called me a Kolple. And that is what I am now.” OK this didn’t make me feel any better.
“I don’t get it… you sold your soul?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“I wanted to be an artist, a perfect artist. Someone whose work would be admired.”
“So that is why the paintings… is that why you kill artists?”
“Yes.”
“But why kill them? Why do you want to kill them? Why not kill me?” I said, getting more confused by the minute.
“Oh I want to kill you too. I said I’m soulless.”
“So you are going to kill be because of what? You don’t have any compassion?”
“No… I have compassion now… as much as I hate it.” He said with his monotone.
“Why? Why now?”
“Because you do…”
“I don’t understand…”
“A Kolple has no personality of its own. No sense of morals. It simply absorbs all these things from those around it. You have compassion therefore I have it.” I took a deep breath. “Don’t worry, you aren’t going crazy. But you might if this conversation goes on any longer.” He didn’t look worried about my sanity.
“Then I should go.” I got up trying to leave. He grabbed my chest and slammed me back down on the bed. His strength was like iron much stronger than he looked.
“You aren’t going anywhere.”
“But… you just said… compassion? And that I was going to go…” I wanted to scream.
“That you would go insane if this went on any longer. Yes.”
“Then why are you making me stay.” I said in a defeated voice.
“I want you to go insane. Maybe your morals would change then.” His voice an empty monotone.
“Why?” I breathed the word out.
“Because I hate you.” He blinked again. It took me a minute to process what he was saying.
“Then why not kill me?” I whispered.
“Because you wouldn’t kill you, I already told you this. I have your compassion.”
“What..?”
“You wouldn’t kill you, if you felt my hate against something, anything, you wouldn’t kill it. You may arrest it, or kill it if it had the potential to cause you or others harm. But you wouldn’t just kill it out of pure hate. You have no potential to harm me, and that is the only way you could justify killing you. So the only thing I can do now is what you would do to you, if you felt my hate.” I breathed heavily, realizing I couldn’t breathe normally anymore. I fought against the blackness that was seeking to take over my mind.
“Oh… here we go again.” He said voice still cold, emotionless.
“No… I have questions.” I struggled against the wave of nausea. “What are you going to do to me?”
“Think, what would you do to a person you hated. Someone you put under arrest perhaps? Only there are no police to come take him away, and no consequences, you could do whatever you wanted to that person. That is what I am going to do to you. Because I am you, and I hate you.” He certainly didn’t look like he hated me. His face hadn’t changed at all the whole time I was staring at him. The only time it moved was when his lips mouthed the empty words, or his eyes blinked.
“The people you killed… the artists… were they were killers?”
“They weren’t all killers. Some of them didn’t kill the people they hated because consequences. But put them in a room with me, and I feel what they would really do.”
“What… what happen to their bodies?”
“I ate them.”
Somehow I fought the new wave of nausea that threatened to take control from me.
“You… ate them?”
“Yes. Raw. Bones and all.”
“If you killed me would you eat me too?”
“Yes.” As I pictured in my mind my fingers in his mouth, the sick crunch as he bite down, I felt like I was going to throw up. Like my brain wanted to vomit this new information. Never think about it again.
“Are you going to starve me to death?”
“Would you starve your captive to death?”
“No…”
“There you go.”
“So what will happen to me…”
“Oh you will be here forever, at least until I can think of a way to kill you. I am interested for when my next victim arrives… to see if I can kill you with whoever’s personality it is. Hopefully it is another killer. I just bought another painting; he should be bringing it up here real soon.”
“So I was right… that is how you bring your victims here… you buy their paintings?”
“Yes.”
“Why artists?”
“They’re egotistical. Willing to believe anyone is interested in them and their precious art…”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with you being an artist before?”
He didn’t answer. He just stared at me. His eyes looking like empty wells of light.
I realized slowly that I felt sick. I almost threw up, but there was nothing to throw up.
“Damn it…” He said. Still no emotion in his voice to convey what he was so upset about.
“What?” I said curious.
“You would give your prisoner at the very least bread and water… I was hoping I could force feed you what I eat. You would hate that, you might even starve yourself.”
“Why do you want to kill me…” I said.
“I’ve told you, I hate you.”
“But why?”
“Why not?”
“How did you become this?”
“I’ve told you, I sold my soul.”
“I know, but why? I don’t get it.”
“All I wanted to be was an artist. It was the only thing important to me, and now I am this.” He looked at his hands, pain flashing over his face. Finally some real emotion crept into his voice, sadness, real true sadness.
“Stop feeling bad for me, please?” He said in that same sad voice.
“Why?”
“Because you are making me feel what you feel, you are sorry for me. I hate it.”
“Oh…” I didn’t realize that I could actually feel pity for this monster.
“God I wish I could kill you.”
“Why did you paint your victims?”
“After they die I’m left with their personalities for hours. I paint them how they saw themselves. That is why I like it that you aren’t self centered; I don’t have to paint a stupid mural for you too. But also because you like it that you aren’t self centered, you are prideful.”
“I am not.”
“Even now you can’t admit anything bad about yourself and your big sense of justice. It is because you are prideful.”
“Why talk to me about that? Is this what I would do? Annoy my captive to death?”
“No. You would tell your captive their sins.” I stared, blank faced.
“God I hate you.” He said with that same blank voice. “Of all the people that have walked through that door, I hate you the most. I just want you to know that.”
“I have another question.” I said ignoring him.
“Yes?”
“How do you kill?”
“Easily.”
“But… how do you actually do it?”
“Here I will show you.” At first I was scared I had said the wrong thing, that I just gave him an opening to kill me, but then I thought if I would do that and realized I wouldn’t. He seemed to figure that out at the same time, he looked disappointed. He held out his own finger and as soon as he looked at it, it started to change. Kind of like the change you might see in boiling water before it actually boils. And then the blood came shooting out in all directions, like a miniature explosion. The blood didn’t get further than a few inches, but it was enough. He kept it going for only a few seconds and then stopped as he held out his blood soaked finger for me to examine.
“There is no wound…” I whispered.
“I leave no wound. It isn’t painful at all for the victim to bleed, just very terrifying. But the after effects… see these people are still alive for a few minutes while their body is completely bloodless. Their heart tries to beat, but it can’t, no blood anymore. Their lungs fill over and over, with no relief. And their brain feels like it is on fire. Very fun to watch…” I couldn’t breath. He was smiling ever so slightly. The malice steamed out of his smile in the form of white teeth. His hate for me was finally clear, he looked at me in utter loathing. All the things he said caught up to me, ‘he ate their bodies’ I thought to myself. The thoughts poured faster than the blood could have, and I felt the nausea coming back, I had to swallow my sanity deep into my mind… I finally passed out again.

I woke up flat on my back. I could feel his carrion breath blowing on my skin, I didn’t want to open my eyes but his breath smelled putrid and I knew he was just above me. I opened my eyes as little as I could, not wanting him to know I was awake, but couldn’t help widening them in terror. His face was hovering just a foot over mine, and his eyes were wide open, staring straight down concentrating very hard.
I reached up instinctively trying to push him off me, but he was far too heavy to push, his arms were on either side of my head holding himself up, which I was very grateful for because if he fell he would most likely crush me. And then I realized that is probably what he is trying to do.
“What are you doing?” I asked in a small, terrified voice.
“Trying to lie down.” He said, with his normal lack of emotion. My fears were confirmed.
“How is that going?” I asked quietly.
“Not as well as I hoped.”
“Well that is a shame…”
“Not for you.” He stood in one motion, not even bending his legs.
I lay down on the mattress thinking about how this was going to be… being trapped here… there must be someway out.
“Are you going to let me out of this room?” I asked, knowing the answer already. Knowing what I would do, but asking anyways.
“No.”
“Why not?” I could barely whisper. But I knew what was coming.
“If you were me you would confine you to a bed until you couldn’t bare it anymore.”
I thought about that for a minute.
“So… that is what you think I would do if… if I had someone I really hate imprisoned?”
“No, I know that is what you would do, because that is all I can do. I can’t kill you, I can’t even cause you physical pain. But mental apparently you got no problem with.”
“So you are going to keep me here?”
“Yes.”
“How long are we going to be in this room?”
“Till the next artist gets here…”
“And what happens then?”
“I try to use their personality to kill you. See if that isn’t against the rules.”
“And if that doesn’t work?”
“I have some other plans… still thinking…” He said still staring at me blank faced from the end of the bed.
“Well I guess I am going back to sleep.” I closed my eyes. I was trying, trying to fall into deep sleep. He moved, I heard his foot falls going to the other side of the bed. I heard him rustle with something that sounded like a box. I kept my eyes closed, I didn’t want to know what was about to happen.  He tapped wood to wood with a soft sound.
And then music began to play, a deeply passionate violin. I was so shocked my eyes snapped open and I had to look up at him. His face still lacking every emotion stared directly at me, yet he played with such passion. But slowly the music became haunting yet beautiful. It was like the reverse of every violin song I had heard about love. This one was full of his hate. It had hard fast strings followed by low falling notes that almost were a desire for the song to end. But the hard notes picked back up. I listened in awe. It was both horrible and beautiful at the same time. The music seemed to go on forever in the same pattern… and forever…
“When does the song end?” I tried to yell over the stings.
“It doesn’t. I’m just keeping you awake.” I realized what was going on…
“But you will have to let me sleep sometime?”
“What makes you say that?” He said, barely talking over the violin.
“The fact that you can’t kill me, and sleep depravation can kill someone.” He stopped playing, examining me carefully.
“Don’t worry, It takes at least a week to kill someone from sleep depravation. I plan on keeping you up as long as I can. I will have to let you sleep, sometime. But sleep depravation also is one of the key things that makes people go insane.” He gave another one of those smiles of malice. I shuddered under his hateful grin.
He began playing again. I turned over to lie back down. Every time I tried to close my eyes longer than just a few seconds the music got worse, louder, more intense, and more hateful. I lay there for hours on end, closing my eyes just so he would change up the music. Eventually I fell asleep for what must have been a few seconds until he stopped the music and waited for the change in the sound environment to wake me up, and then played on a new song.
The music was beautiful and irritating. I looked at him again. “Where did you learn to play so well?” I asked, frustrated.
“I’ve told you I sold my soul to become a perfect artist didn’t I?” He stated in a, what would be a matter of fact voice if his voice ever deviated from his monotone.
“But I thought… I thought that you meant the paintings..?”
“Well yes those too. I’m afraid I didn’t specify which art I would perfect, therefore I know everything that is considered to be an art form in this world.”
“Which is pretty much everything?” I asked in a stale voice.
“Yes.” He played on.

Nighttime fell and the sun rose again and he hadn’t put down the violin once. He would speak in that same emotionless voice about a number of things, but mainly about killing me, or killing other people. He talked about eating their horribly shriveled bodies giving me every detail he knew I didn’t want to hear.
And then suddenly the music stopped. He stood still as if listening to something very far away.  He smiled again, and again I shivered at the horror of it. When he spoke, it was in a voice I almost didn’t recognize because it had so much enthusiasm, it was high pitched increasingly so, and ending on a very high pitch which he held for some time.
“Someone is coming” He smiled again. God no, God no please no. “I wonder what would be the worst for you… being dead or watching me kill him and then… the feast.”
I couldn’t decide either, not much of a surprise there.
“Maybe it will be horrible enough you would let me do a mercy kill.” He said his voice back to emotionless thing I had grown used to hearing from him. He grabbed my arm and dragged me down stairs. When we got into the living room I saw what I hadn’t seen in the night of my arrival, the room was absolutely covered in blood.  There was not an inch not covered in the red sticky mess. The front room was like child’s play next to this room. He threw me in a corner, the blood staining my clothes and then he stood exactly where he had stood when I first walked in this very same room.
I heard the steps before I heard the scream. He walked right into the living room, seeing the Kolple in the exact same pose as I had.
“Hello.” He said to the frightened man. “Oh yes, you will do much better than the other.” He looked over at me and the frightened man followed his gaze until his eyes rested on me. I didn’t think about it before, but I must have been a mess. Tear stained eyes, blood stained cloths, and not sleeping for over forty-eight hours. I couldn’t tell how bad I smelled because there was no smelling worse than the Kolple.
“What is this?!” The man yelled in a rough voice. He was tall, with short red hair. He carried what I could only guess to be a painting wrapped in brown paper.
“This is an experiment.” The Kolple turned back to the man raising his hand out to me again like he had done when I first saw him, making that same gesture like he was going to shoot me. I got ready for anything… even death if it came to that.
Nothing happened.
The Kolple kept his blank face. “Well that is a disappointment. But I wonder if this…” He looked at me, gesturing towards me and at the man at the same time; I barely had time to notice. The man was screaming louder than I had ever heard anyone ever scream before. I turned just in time to see the last of the blood gushing out in waves from his left hand. The painting had crashed to the floor and was covered in blood. He was screaming endlessly, his hand was even worse than I could imagine in my mind, or what the Kolple described it as. It was like a hand raisin, and it was still attached to the rest of his body. The only things giving it shape were the bones and the shrunken muscle. Even the bones seemed to have lost some mass.
The Kolple looked disappointed again, but turned back to the man who lay screaming clutching his raisin hand. The Kolple looked at him for a long time.
“Kill this one, and you never have to go through your own torture ever again.” He said, indicating me.
The man turned and looked at me, his eyes concerned. A great test in might played in his eyes as he stared at me, and started to move toward me, his crippled arm wiggling like rubber.
I reached instinctively for my gun, almost surprised it was still there. I took aim at the man, he was unarmed.  He raised his arms like he had surrendered, the crippled arm writhing in small circles like a bobble head on his elbow, but he didn’t stop moving closer to me. Suddenly he jumped toward me his one arm reaching to grab the gun from my hand. He couldn’t get a grip on the gun but he tackled me to the ground.
We rolled viciously around on the blood stained floor. I rammed my elbow into his face, he snarled and tried to grab the gun from my hand with his good hand, his hand caught it finally. I kicked at his legs as I tried to pull away from him, he held onto the gun tightly. I rammed my foot down on his kneecap, he snarled again in pain this time, but his grip had slipped off the gun. As I stood up he grabbed my belt and wouldn’t let go, trying to pull me back to the floor. I held my ground, keeping my footing, my gun in my still in my hands, I aimed down at him. His expression was one of horror, and he tried harder to pull me off my feet. I felt the hate boil within me.
I felt the hate, I felt it clearly though my veins. I wanted to pull the trigger, my whole being wanted to end this man. I turned to look at the Kolple, he was just watching me in a blank but expectant face, I looked back down at the man, this person in front of me, in pain and scared for his life. I made my hate back away, I forgave him in my mind, the forgiveness washing over me. I lowered my gun slowly.
“Get out of here.” I whispered. I lowered my gun and helped him to his feet. “Run.”
His arm flopped uselessly as he ran back to the hallway where he had come from.
“My god.” The Kolple said. The man froze just in front of the hallway. “You are completely useless, can’t even kill someone to save your own life. Why did I waste any time on you? Hmm.” He gestured to the man again. I couldn’t help but watch.
The man was there for a second, and then suddenly all I could see was red, just red waves of blood spraying everywhere. It soaked me and the Kolple and the rest of the room. The explosion lasted longer than I would have thought possible as the blood emptied from the man’s body. And then there was just the raisin body weaving on the floor, the clothes having been ripped apart by the force of the blood. It was trying desperately to escape somehow, but just not being able to do anything but wiggle in horrifying movement.
I dropped the gun, feeling sick. This time I did vomit, but all I vomited was the man’s blood which had somehow found its way down my throat. I vomited until all that was left were the dry heaves. And then I vomited some more.
“Well that was fun.” The Kolple said without any real sound of pleasure but that smile was still on his face as he watched the man struggle for a few minutes, and then cease to be. All the time I focused trying to gain a hold on myself.
‘Did that man deserve this?’ Was all I could think. Did that man deserve to die… no. Not like that, not at all. I threw up again, but nothing came out.
I didn’t notice the Kolple had gone upstairs until he was back, with his violin. He started playing the music again. That vile music that I hated so much.
I thought of the man again. Me aiming my gun down at him, while his eyes screamed for my death.
“Why did you kill that man?” I whispered quietly as he played on. The Kolple did not even look my direction.
“He would have killed him too, probably slower.”
“And why didn’t I arrest him. You know I hated him, I know you know. Why didn’t I make him stay here like you are doing to me. Why didn’t I kill him?”
He thought about it for a second. “I don’t know.”
“I think I know.” I said.
“Do you now?” His tone was uninterested. He just continued to play on. Deep in my mind, I realized what I had to do.
In my mind, I forgave the Kolple.
The music stopped.
“What… what just happened?” The Kolple sounded enraged.
I started to remember people who had wronged me, and I forgave them too.
“What are you doing?! What are you thinking about!?” The Kolple started screaming, furious. And then I decided to tell him what I was thinking.
“I forgive you…. I forgive everyone who has ever caused me harm.”
“Why? Do you think that will make your death easier to handle?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because I realize now that it is the right thing to do… it always was.”
“What is going on!” The Kolple screamed.
“I forgive you.” I felt a wave of relief pass through me. His face exploded in rage, he came at me with full force like he was going to hit me, his face more emotional then I had ever seen it, but he didn’t do anything, although his fist was raised like he was about to punch me.
“You are forgiven in my eyes.” I reached toward him, breathing in the dreadful smell as I hugged him as hard as I could. “I’m sorry, for what has happened to you.” I whispered in his ear. He jumped back from me screaming.
He screamed, and almost danced across the living room in frenzy. He stepped on the raisin body and it broke in two, and he kept smashing it until it was nothing but dust on the floor.
“I forgive you!” I shouted.
“NO! You hate me admit it! Look what I am doing!” He spat on the dusted body.
“I forgive you.”
“Shut up!” The Kolple yelled. But something had changed. Tears had formed in his eyes, and the Kolple was crying, weeping. Endless tears seemed to flow. “Get out of here… run…” He barely whispered in the most human voice I had ever heard from him. I grabbed my gun from off the floor jamming it back into its holster, and I flew to the front door and ran outside. I swear I heard the violin again, playing a song of pure pain. It floated up to the top levels and into the room I had been in before, I heard the music coming from the windows on the top floor. Then I saw the windows covered in blood, the music stopped. If I was him, if I had done the things he had done, I would hate myself.

I ran. I ran until the sun had fallen again and I had reached the city. I ran until I didn’t feel like running anymore. And I walked, calm and patient without a worry or a care in the world. I looked down to see my gun still strapped to my belt and I wondered why I had grabbed it from the house. I pulled it out and fiddled with it in my hands for a minute, but it felt wrong in my hands now. I put it down to lie on the ground, the wave of relief returning. I wouldn’t need it anymore. Maybe someone else could find a better use for it.

Description
The front room was covered in slashes of blood. As I stepped over the threshold of the house I knew that I had come to the right place. I drew my gun slowly, holding it pointed down, ready to shoot the first threat I knew I would come across. I noticed that most of the blood was so dry I could see it visibly shedding in flakes to the floor, but a small portion was still wet. I took a closer look, seeing the lines that started to form shapes deep in the velvet red blood. It reminded me of clouds, how you let your imagination see the shapes that aren’t there.
This was not my imagination, it was there, the blood was shaped and designed so perfectly to show the portraits, perfect portraits, of every person who had disappeared in the last month save one. Each detail, perfectly etched into the wall. Each victim was beautiful, more beautiful than they had looked in the photos of their profiles.
As I looked at each portrait examining every detail that the blood could capture, I noticed every one of them was in a state of absolute horror. I tightened my grip onto the gun, which shook violently with my hands. The floor wobbled dangerously under my feet. I ignored the urge to run, ignored the urge to get as far away from this place as possible. I walked forward out of the front room, and into the hallway leading to the living room.
The hallway wasn’t quite as bloody, and I could only assume the killings had been performed in the room I just left. And whichever method of killing was used… had to be extremely bloody to cover a room with so much blood. I walked on trying to keep my head clear. No fear could be allowed to enter my mind. I walked down the hall turning left heading for the living room.
He was there just standing there in the dim room uncaring, the missing victim, the one without a portrait, the first one to go missing.
He reached out his arm and held his hand out to me in a like he had a gun too. And for some reason I was scared of this empty gesture. My spine reacted faster than I possibly could. I shot twice directly into his chest.
The bullets struck dead on. He looked down casually at the wounds with no emotion visible. Blood was pouring in buckets from the wounds on his cheat, and he just bled and bled. I gasped as he looked back up at me with cold empty eyes.
“Hello.” His voice was smooth, like a knife cutting the air, but it was completely hallow. And he just kept on bleeding, the flow of the blood coming to a slow, and then stopped altogether.
My mind was completely blank.
“Shocked? Yes me too.”
I had two choices here, faint or act like he was just a suspect. Just someone to arrest.
“Freeze…” I shuddered “Hands in the air. And don’t you move an inch!” I said in an unconvincing, wavering voice. He looked at me blankly.
“Officer, you have shot me twice with no effect. I haven’t moved since you walked through the front door. What makes you think you can give me any orders?”
“What the hell…” My mind was going to explode.
“Sit down. You are going to faint.” I thought about it for a second.
“You are going to kill me aren’t you?” I said in a weak voice feeling woozy, my mind becoming too blank for me to feel panicked.
“If I could kill you, you would be dead. Go ahead and faint, you are safe apparently.” This confusing statement sent my mind over the edge. And I felt myself start to fall into the cold dark of unconsciousness.

I woke slowly, troubled by the dark dream I had been having. Relived to be home, I felt myself laying on my right side. I opened my eyes, there was an odd dim light coming through the unfamiliar windows. Without turning I looked around with wide eyes, realizing I didn’t recognize the room I slept in. I rolled over onto my left side. I came face to face with the man from my nightmare, his face still blank, eyes empty and cold. His hair was smooth, it looked greasy and unwashed but it was cut and styled perfectly, his eyes were a dark blue. His smell was the most disturbing thing about him; it was the smell of someone who had not washed themselves in weeks, mixed with the smell of rotting carrion. But apart from that He looked very human.
“You aren’t self centered.” He said, his expression never changing.
“What the fuck?” I mumbled in my morning daze, the horror of everything just beginning to crash down on me again.
“I’m confused too.” He said.
“Who are you?” I asked, wanting to yell it, but only managing a whisper.
“I’m a Kolple. My name doesn’t matter.” He said in an ever hallow monotone voice.
“Why the fuck do you keep talking like that?” I couldn’t seem to think properly and my confusion was irritating me.
“How else can I talk?”
“I asked who you are.” I reminded him.
“I told you I’m a Kolple, you don’t want to know what my name is, you want to know what I am.”
“What?” I was going to faint again if he kept this up, I wanted answers. This wasn’t going well at all. Wasn’t I supposed to enter this house and apprehend the bad guy and bring him to justice? I wasn’t supposed to faint and wake up with him talking to me in riddles. This wasn’t how things were supposed to play out.
“Life does throw its little twists.” He said in the same monotone.
“OK… so you are saying that you are a Kolple?”
“Yes.”
“And what is that? Explain.”
“That would be hard… and in your current state you would probably just faint again.” He was probably right, but if I didn’t get some answers I was probably going to be out anyways.
“Just tell me please… it will make me feel better.”
“All the more reason to not tell you.” He blinked.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want you to feel better.” He said with his monotone honesty.
“Just tell me. Maybe it will make me feel worse.” I said almost sarcastically.
“Well…” He seemed to think that over. His face never changed from the blankness that existed there. “I sold my soul. I didn’t know I would become this when I sold it. The demon I sold it to called me a Kolple. And that is what I am now.” OK this didn’t make me feel any better.
“I don’t get it… you sold your soul?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“I wanted to be an artist, a perfect artist. Someone whose work would be admired.”
“So that is why the paintings… is that why you kill artists?”
“Yes.”
“But why kill them? Why do you want to kill them? Why not kill me?” I said, getting more confused by the minute.
“Oh I want to kill you too. I said I’m soulless.”
“So you are going to kill be because of what? You don’t have any compassion?”
“No… I have compassion now… as much as I hate it.” He said with his monotone.
“Why? Why now?”
“Because you do…”
“I don’t understand…”
“A Kolple has no personality of its own. No sense of morals. It simply absorbs all these things from those around it. You have compassion therefore I have it.” I took a deep breath. “Don’t worry, you aren’t going crazy. But you might if this conversation goes on any longer.” He didn’t look worried about my sanity.
“Then I should go.” I got up trying to leave. He grabbed my chest and slammed me back down on the bed. His strength was like iron much stronger than he looked.
“You aren’t going anywhere.”
“But… you just said… compassion? And that I was going to go…” I wanted to scream.
“That you would go insane if this went on any longer. Yes.”
“Then why are you making me stay.” I said in a defeated voice.
“I want you to go insane. Maybe your morals would change then.” His voice an empty monotone.
“Why?” I breathed the word out.
“Because I hate you.” He blinked again. It took me a minute to process what he was saying.
“Then why not kill me?” I whispered.
“Because you wouldn’t kill you, I already told you this. I have your compassion.”
“What..?”
“You wouldn’t kill you, if you felt my hate against something, anything, you wouldn’t kill it. You may arrest it, or kill it if it had the potential to cause you or others harm. But you wouldn’t just kill it out of pure hate. You have no potential to harm me, and that is the only way you could justify killing you. So the only thing I can do now is what you would do to you, if you felt my hate.” I breathed heavily, realizing I couldn’t breathe normally anymore. I fought against the blackness that was seeking to take over my mind.
“Oh… here we go again.” He said voice still cold, emotionless.
“No… I have questions.” I struggled against the wave of nausea. “What are you going to do to me?”
“Think, what would you do to a person you hated. Someone you put under arrest perhaps? Only there are no police to come take him away, and no consequences, you could do whatever you wanted to that person. That is what I am going to do to you. Because I am you, and I hate you.” He certainly didn’t look like he hated me. His face hadn’t changed at all the whole time I was staring at him. The only time it moved was when his lips mouthed the empty words, or his eyes blinked.
“The people you killed… the artists… were they were killers?”
“They weren’t all killers. Some of them didn’t kill the people they hated because consequences. But put them in a room with me, and I feel what they would really do.”
“What… what happen to their bodies?”
“I ate them.”
Somehow I fought the new wave of nausea that threatened to take control from me.
“You… ate them?”
“Yes. Raw. Bones and all.”
“If you killed me would you eat me too?”
“Yes.” As I pictured in my mind my fingers in his mouth, the sick crunch as he bite down, I felt like I was going to throw up. Like my brain wanted to vomit this new information. Never think about it again.
“Are you going to starve me to death?”
“Would you starve your captive to death?”
“No…”
“There you go.”
“So what will happen to me…”
“Oh you will be here forever, at least until I can think of a way to kill you. I am interested for when my next victim arrives… to see if I can kill you with whoever’s personality it is. Hopefully it is another killer. I just bought another painting; he should be bringing it up here real soon.”
“So I was right… that is how you bring your victims here… you buy their paintings?”
“Yes.”
“Why artists?”
“They’re egotistical. Willing to believe anyone is interested in them and their precious art…”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with you being an artist before?”
He didn’t answer. He just stared at me. His eyes looking like empty wells of light.
I realized slowly that I felt sick. I almost threw up, but there was nothing to throw up.
“Damn it…” He said. Still no emotion in his voice to convey what he was so upset about.
“What?” I said curious.
“You would give your prisoner at the very least bread and water… I was hoping I could force feed you what I eat. You would hate that, you might even starve yourself.”
“Why do you want to kill me…” I said.
“I’ve told you, I hate you.”
“But why?”
“Why not?”
“How did you become this?”
“I’ve told you, I sold my soul.”
“I know, but why? I don’t get it.”
“All I wanted to be was an artist. It was the only thing important to me, and now I am this.” He looked at his hands, pain flashing over his face. Finally some real emotion crept into his voice, sadness, real true sadness.
“Stop feeling bad for me, please?” He said in that same sad voice.
“Why?”
“Because you are making me feel what you feel, you are sorry for me. I hate it.”
“Oh…” I didn’t realize that I could actually feel pity for this monster.
“God I wish I could kill you.”
“Why did you paint your victims?”
“After they die I’m left with their personalities for hours. I paint them how they saw themselves. That is why I like it that you aren’t self centered; I don’t have to paint a stupid mural for you too. But also because you like it that you aren’t self centered, you are prideful.”
“I am not.”
“Even now you can’t admit anything bad about yourself and your big sense of justice. It is because you are prideful.”
“Why talk to me about that? Is this what I would do? Annoy my captive to death?”
“No. You would tell your captive their sins.” I stared, blank faced.
“God I hate you.” He said with that same blank voice. “Of all the people that have walked through that door, I hate you the most. I just want you to know that.”
“I have another question.” I said ignoring him.
“Yes?”
“How do you kill?”
“Easily.”
“But… how do you actually do it?”
“Here I will show you.” At first I was scared I had said the wrong thing, that I just gave him an opening to kill me, but then I thought if I would do that and realized I wouldn’t. He seemed to figure that out at the same time, he looked disappointed. He held out his own finger and as soon as he looked at it, it started to change. Kind of like the change you might see in boiling water before it actually boils. And then the blood came shooting out in all directions, like a miniature explosion. The blood didn’t get further than a few inches, but it was enough. He kept it going for only a few seconds and then stopped as he held out his blood soaked finger for me to examine.
“There is no wound…” I whispered.
“I leave no wound. It isn’t painful at all for the victim to bleed, just very terrifying. But the after effects… see these people are still alive for a few minutes while their body is completely bloodless. Their heart tries to beat, but it can’t, no blood anymore. Their lungs fill over and over, with no relief. And their brain feels like it is on fire. Very fun to watch…” I couldn’t breath. He was smiling ever so slightly. The malice steamed out of his smile in the form of white teeth. His hate for me was finally clear, he looked at me in utter loathing. All the things he said caught up to me, ‘he ate their bodies’ I thought to myself. The thoughts poured faster than the blood could have, and I felt the nausea coming back, I had to swallow my sanity deep into my mind… I finally passed out again.

I woke up flat on my back. I could feel his carrion breath blowing on my skin, I didn’t want to open my eyes but his breath smelled putrid and I knew he was just above me. I opened my eyes as little as I could, not wanting him to know I was awake, but couldn’t help widening them in terror. His face was hovering just a foot over mine, and his eyes were wide open, staring straight down concentrating very hard.
I reached up instinctively trying to push him off me, but he was far too heavy to push, his arms were on either side of my head holding himself up, which I was very grateful for because if he fell he would most likely crush me. And then I realized that is probably what he is trying to do.
“What are you doing?” I asked in a small, terrified voice.
“Trying to lie down.” He said, with his normal lack of emotion. My fears were confirmed.
“How is that going?” I asked quietly.
“Not as well as I hoped.”
“Well that is a shame…”
“Not for you.” He stood in one motion, not even bending his legs.
I lay down on the mattress thinking about how this was going to be… being trapped here… there must be someway out.
“Are you going to let me out of this room?” I asked, knowing the answer already. Knowing what I would do, but asking anyways.
“No.”
“Why not?” I could barely whisper. But I knew what was coming.
“If you were me you would confine you to a bed until you couldn’t bare it anymore.”
I thought about that for a minute.
“So… that is what you think I would do if… if I had someone I really hate imprisoned?”
“No, I know that is what you would do, because that is all I can do. I can’t kill you, I can’t even cause you physical pain. But mental apparently you got no problem with.”
“So you are going to keep me here?”
“Yes.”
“How long are we going to be in this room?”
“Till the next artist gets here…”
“And what happens then?”
“I try to use their personality to kill you. See if that isn’t against the rules.”
“And if that doesn’t work?”
“I have some other plans… still thinking…” He said still staring at me blank faced from the end of the bed.
“Well I guess I am going back to sleep.” I closed my eyes. I was trying, trying to fall into deep sleep. He moved, I heard his foot falls going to the other side of the bed. I heard him rustle with something that sounded like a box. I kept my eyes closed, I didn’t want to know what was about to happen.  He tapped wood to wood with a soft sound.
And then music began to play, a deeply passionate violin. I was so shocked my eyes snapped open and I had to look up at him. His face still lacking every emotion stared directly at me, yet he played with such passion. But slowly the music became haunting yet beautiful. It was like the reverse of every violin song I had heard about love. This one was full of his hate. It had hard fast strings followed by low falling notes that almost were a desire for the song to end. But the hard notes picked back up. I listened in awe. It was both horrible and beautiful at the same time. The music seemed to go on forever in the same pattern… and forever…
“When does the song end?” I tried to yell over the stings.
“It doesn’t. I’m just keeping you awake.” I realized what was going on…
“But you will have to let me sleep sometime?”
“What makes you say that?” He said, barely talking over the violin.
“The fact that you can’t kill me, and sleep depravation can kill someone.” He stopped playing, examining me carefully.
“Don’t worry, It takes at least a week to kill someone from sleep depravation. I plan on keeping you up as long as I can. I will have to let you sleep, sometime. But sleep depravation also is one of the key things that makes people go insane.” He gave another one of those smiles of malice. I shuddered under his hateful grin.
He began playing again. I turned over to lie back down. Every time I tried to close my eyes longer than just a few seconds the music got worse, louder, more intense, and more hateful. I lay there for hours on end, closing my eyes just so he would change up the music. Eventually I fell asleep for what must have been a few seconds until he stopped the music and waited for the change in the sound environment to wake me up, and then played on a new song.
The music was beautiful and irritating. I looked at him again. “Where did you learn to play so well?” I asked, frustrated.
“I’ve told you I sold my soul to become a perfect artist didn’t I?” He stated in a, what would be a matter of fact voice if his voice ever deviated from his monotone.
“But I thought… I thought that you meant the paintings..?”
“Well yes those too. I’m afraid I didn’t specify which art I would perfect, therefore I know everything that is considered to be an art form in this world.”
“Which is pretty much everything?” I asked in a stale voice.
“Yes.” He played on.

Nighttime fell and the sun rose again and he hadn’t put down the violin once. He would speak in that same emotionless voice about a number of things, but mainly about killing me, or killing other people. He talked about eating their horribly shriveled bodies giving me every detail he knew I didn’t want to hear.
And then suddenly the music stopped. He stood still as if listening to something very far away.  He smiled again, and again I shivered at the horror of it. When he spoke, it was in a voice I almost didn’t recognize because it had so much enthusiasm, it was high pitched increasingly so, and ending on a very high pitch which he held for some time.
“Someone is coming” He smiled again. God no, God no please no. “I wonder what would be the worst for you… being dead or watching me kill him and then… the feast.”
I couldn’t decide either, not much of a surprise there.
“Maybe it will be horrible enough you would let me do a mercy kill.” He said his voice back to emotionless thing I had grown used to hearing from him. He grabbed my arm and dragged me down stairs. When we got into the living room I saw what I hadn’t seen in the night of my arrival, the room was absolutely covered in blood.  There was not an inch not covered in the red sticky mess. The front room was like child’s play next to this room. He threw me in a corner, the blood staining my clothes and then he stood exactly where he had stood when I first walked in this very same room.
I heard the steps before I heard the scream. He walked right into the living room, seeing the Kolple in the exact same pose as I had.
“Hello.” He said to the frightened man. “Oh yes, you will do much better than the other.” He looked over at me and the frightened man followed his gaze until his eyes rested on me. I didn’t think about it before, but I must have been a mess. Tear stained eyes, blood stained cloths, and not sleeping for over forty-eight hours. I couldn’t tell how bad I smelled because there was no smelling worse than the Kolple.
“What is this?!” The man yelled in a rough voice. He was tall, with short red hair. He carried what I could only guess to be a painting wrapped in brown paper.
“This is an experiment.” The Kolple turned back to the man raising his hand out to me again like he had done when I first saw him, making that same gesture like he was going to shoot me. I got ready for anything… even death if it came to that.
Nothing happened.
The Kolple kept his blank face. “Well that is a disappointment. But I wonder if this…” He looked at me, gesturing towards me and at the man at the same time; I barely had time to notice. The man was screaming louder than I had ever heard anyone ever scream before. I turned just in time to see the last of the blood gushing out in waves from his left hand. The painting had crashed to the floor and was covered in blood. He was screaming endlessly, his hand was even worse than I could imagine in my mind, or what the Kolple described it as. It was like a hand raisin, and it was still attached to the rest of his body. The only things giving it shape were the bones and the shrunken muscle. Even the bones seemed to have lost some mass.
The Kolple looked disappointed again, but turned back to the man who lay screaming clutching his raisin hand. The Kolple looked at him for a long time.
“Kill this one, and you never have to go through your own torture ever again.” He said, indicating me.
The man turned and looked at me, his eyes concerned. A great test in might played in his eyes as he stared at me, and started to move toward me, his crippled arm wiggling like rubber.
I reached instinctively for my gun, almost surprised it was still there. I took aim at the man, he was unarmed.  He raised his arms like he had surrendered, the crippled arm writhing in small circles like a bobble head on his elbow, but he didn’t stop moving closer to me. Suddenly he jumped toward me his one arm reaching to grab the gun from my hand. He couldn’t get a grip on the gun but he tackled me to the ground.
We rolled viciously around on the blood stained floor. I rammed my elbow into his face, he snarled and tried to grab the gun from my hand with his good hand, his hand caught it finally. I kicked at his legs as I tried to pull away from him, he held onto the gun tightly. I rammed my foot down on his kneecap, he snarled again in pain this time, but his grip had slipped off the gun. As I stood up he grabbed my belt and wouldn’t let go, trying to pull me back to the floor. I held my ground, keeping my footing, my gun in my still in my hands, I aimed down at him. His expression was one of horror, and he tried harder to pull me off my feet. I felt the hate boil within me.
I felt the hate, I felt it clearly though my veins. I wanted to pull the trigger, my whole being wanted to end this man. I turned to look at the Kolple, he was just watching me in a blank but expectant face, I looked back down at the man, this person in front of me, in pain and scared for his life. I made my hate back away, I forgave him in my mind, the forgiveness washing over me. I lowered my gun slowly.
“Get out of here.” I whispered. I lowered my gun and helped him to his feet. “Run.”
His arm flopped uselessly as he ran back to the hallway where he had come from.
“My god.” The Kolple said. The man froze just in front of the hallway. “You are completely useless, can’t even kill someone to save your own life. Why did I waste any time on you? Hmm.” He gestured to the man again. I couldn’t help but watch.
The man was there for a second, and then suddenly all I could see was red, just red waves of blood spraying everywhere. It soaked me and the Kolple and the rest of the room. The explosion lasted longer than I would have thought possible as the blood emptied from the man’s body. And then there was just the raisin body weaving on the floor, the clothes having been ripped apart by the force of the blood. It was trying desperately to escape somehow, but just not being able to do anything but wiggle in horrifying movement.
I dropped the gun, feeling sick. This time I did vomit, but all I vomited was the man’s blood which had somehow found its way down my throat. I vomited until all that was left were the dry heaves. And then I vomited some more.
“Well that was fun.” The Kolple said without any real sound of pleasure but that smile was still on his face as he watched the man struggle for a few minutes, and then cease to be. All the time I focused trying to gain a hold on myself.
‘Did that man deserve this?’ Was all I could think. Did that man deserve to die… no. Not like that, not at all. I threw up again, but nothing came out.
I didn’t notice the Kolple had gone upstairs until he was back, with his violin. He started playing the music again. That vile music that I hated so much.
I thought of the man again. Me aiming my gun down at him, while his eyes screamed for my death.
“Why did you kill that man?” I whispered quietly as he played on. The Kolple did not even look my direction.
“He would have killed him too, probably slower.”
“And why didn’t I arrest him. You know I hated him, I know you know. Why didn’t I make him stay here like you are doing to me. Why didn’t I kill him?”
He thought about it for a second. “I don’t know.”
“I think I know.” I said.
“Do you now?” His tone was uninterested. He just continued to play on. Deep in my mind, I realized what I had to do.
In my mind, I forgave the Kolple.
The music stopped.
“What… what just happened?” The Kolple sounded enraged.
I started to remember people who had wronged me, and I forgave them too.
“What are you doing?! What are you thinking about!?” The Kolple started screaming, furious. And then I decided to tell him what I was thinking.
“I forgive you…. I forgive everyone who has ever caused me harm.”
“Why? Do you think that will make your death easier to handle?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because I realize now that it is the right thing to do… it always was.”
“What is going on!” The Kolple screamed.
“I forgive you.” I felt a wave of relief pass through me. His face exploded in rage, he came at me with full force like he was going to hit me, his face more emotional then I had ever seen it, but he didn’t do anything, although his fist was raised like he was about to punch me.
“You are forgiven in my eyes.” I reached toward him, breathing in the dreadful smell as I hugged him as hard as I could. “I’m sorry, for what has happened to you.” I whispered in his ear. He jumped back from me screaming.
He screamed, and almost danced across the living room in frenzy. He stepped on the raisin body and it broke in two, and he kept smashing it until it was nothing but dust on the floor.
“I forgive you!” I shouted.
“NO! You hate me admit it! Look what I am doing!” He spat on the dusted body.
“I forgive you.”
“Shut up!” The Kolple yelled. But something had changed. Tears had formed in his eyes, and the Kolple was crying, weeping. Endless tears seemed to flow. “Get out of here… run…” He barely whispered in the most human voice I had ever heard from him. I grabbed my gun from off the floor jamming it back into its holster, and I flew to the front door and ran outside. I swear I heard the violin again, playing a song of pure pain. It floated up to the top levels and into the room I had been in before, I heard the music coming from the windows on the top floor. Then I saw the windows covered in blood, the music stopped. If I was him, if I had done the things he had done, I would hate myself.

I ran. I ran until the sun had fallen again and I had reached the city. I ran until I didn’t feel like running anymore. And I walked, calm and patient without a worry or a care in the world. I looked down to see my gun still strapped to my belt and I wondered why I had grabbed it from the house. I pulled it out and fiddled with it in my hands for a minute, but it felt wrong in my hands now. I put it down to lie on the ground, the wave of relief returning. I wouldn’t need it anymore. Maybe someone else could find a better use for it.