Trading Death For Murder

I was in my senior English class for high school and we were required to write a descriptive narrative. Well, I may of got carried away with the description, but it did earn me an A+

I instantly open my eyes and I notice everything is black. I smell something tainted like the aroma of rotten flesh in the air.  I don’t know where I am or why I am here. I just know that wherever here is, is not a good place. I try to lift my head, but something is stopping me. I feel like I’m strapped down to a cold metal table.  Suddenly, a bright light appears and quickly vanishes. I’m blinded by the flash and I can’t see anything. I hear a shrill screech that leaves a buzzing sound in my ears, and I feel a rugged object touch the back of my head and dig deep as it scrapes down my neck and along my back. I hear a large burst exploding behind me, and suddenly the whole room goes silent. I begin to hear a hair-crawling grinding noise beside my right ear. My arm starts to sting, and all of a sudden the pain dwindles away and I begin not to feel my entire arm. Slowly, I regain my vision. I can only gaze upward, right at the ceiling, but there is something unusual about it. The ceiling looks like it’s made out of a jagged concrete, but it is sprayed with a dark red in some areas. I hear a voice; it’s a low, stiff voice. It’s a man’s voice, and he is just laughing�"laughing in, what someone would think, the cruelest laugh. I hear the voice getting closer to me. Within seconds, a man’s face hovers over my head. It seems he is not staring at me, but rather through me. He has a white mask, symbolizing a doctor’s mask, over his nose and mouth. He has dark, black hair, but grey facial hair and he looks to be around 50 years old. He extends his wrinkled hand behind my head and I hear an abrupt snap. I feel a relaxed sensation on my neck, and I realize that I can now move my head around freely. I gently lift my head, burning an image so terrible into my eyes. On the other side of the dark lit room, there are several bodies hanging, three without heads, and others without limbs with a puddle of dried blood underneath them. I turn my head and look at the other wall, there’s a saw covered in blood, followed by blood sprayed on the walls. There is a wooden table beside the saw. On the table were severed limbs off of the bodies. Several hands, arms, legs, and feet are lying on the table. Next to the limbs is a transparent tank of water, faintly discolored by blood. Inside the tank is something that looks like a human's internal organs floating at the top. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice something. I tilt my head just slightly to get a better view. It’s an arm lying on a surgeon table beside me. I see it, the perfect outlining of the skull tattoo I have on my arm. Out of disbelief, I guide my head towards my shoulder. It’s not there, nothing is there. My heart begins to drop, not knowing what is happening to me or what is going to happen to me. The old guy snorts to get my attention as he sits down in an old metal chair beside me. He starts to tell me why he does what he does. He says that it all started when he was my age, mid-twenties. He had a wife who stole his heart. He loved her more than anything. They lived together in their tiny downstairs apartment on the edge of town. One day, he came home, roses in hand because it was their two year anniversary, and he found her dead. His voice came to a whimper. He says that she was just hung there in the middle of the small living room, strung up to the ceiling with a rope and a chain. Her face, cold and blue, was lying on her shoulder, lifeless. Her clothes were stained red from the blood dripping from her throat. He quickly lifted her off of the rope and chain and rested her on the black couch. He walked over to the table, and noticed a note. As he read the note, he began crying, and it soon became laughter. As he puts it “She left a note, humor as it was, written with her own blood. She wrote that she hated me, that she wanted to die. I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a knife. I walked over to her and looked at her motionless body, staring at the indention of the chain on her neck. I kneeled down and sliced the knife through her neck to get rid of the chain mark. The pain inside grew to pure joy. I don’t know why, but the sense of torture excited me. A few months later, I found myself walking down a road late one night. There was a lady, young and cheerful, walking about a block in front of me. I began to walk faster to catch up to her. Once I caught up to her, I asked her for directions to a part of the town. She said she could show me how to get there. We began to walk and I noticed she had the brightest smile on her face. I became furious at the fact that she was so happy. She told me that her boyfriend asked her to marry him that night. She, of course, said yes, and she was just on her way home from his house. She told me that we could cut through an alley to save some time. As we were walking down the dark alley, she asked me if I had anyone in my life. I reached for her and I slammed her head against the brick wall. I began to bash her face against the cold concrete of the alley, blood pouring from her head. I couldn’t help but laugh. I bent down towards her and took out a knife, I told her that she would feel the same way my wife felt. I began to cut her young fingers off, one at a time. When I was done, I stood up and left her there. I began my journey back home. On my way back home, thinking about what just happened, I realized that torture and human mutilation gives me that joyous humor�"the one that my wife must have felt. Tearing apart limbs and dismembering bodies just gives me the absolute pleasure, something that she couldn’t give me.” With that, his voice fades off. He quickly stands up and walks over to the other side of the room. I hear him whisper, “I hope you get some pleasure out of this yourself. I’d hate to see you suffer while I get all the pleasure. Well actually, I’d rather get all the pleasure for myself.” He turns around with a saw in hand and I hear the same laughter as before�"the laughter of  murder, the laughter of death. I wake up, dazed and puzzled. I don’t know what happened�"all I know is I am here, I am alive. I look up, the guy has disappeared. I hear a faint voice coming from the other room. It must be him getting ready to put an end to me. Suddenly, I hear a gunshot and the bang of an explosion shatters throughout the room. A cloud of dust begins to fill the room. I hear someone getting closer. A person covered in a bodysuit of armor appears. He comes closer and takes off the straps holding me down. He tells me to get up, so I stumble upwards. He gives me a hand and tells me to run. I begin to run, not knowing where I am going. I cannot see anything, the room is dark. I come to a door and I try opening it. It is jammed, so I kick it and it loosens. I push it open and I find myself outside. It is dark and wet. I look around, there is nothing in sight. There are no vehicles or houses or buildings in the surrounding area. I begin walking down the street trying to decide what to do. A black car slowly pulls up behind me. It stops. A person opens the back door and yells at me to get in. I have no other choice but to get in the car. I enter the car and the driver begins to drive. I am in the back of the car with another man. He gives me a folder and tells me to examine the contents inside. I slowly open the folder, looking at the paper labeled CLASSIFED. I begin to read the first paper, the title listed at the top: Living Operational Human Machines. I look up at the guy’s greyed face. He begins to speak, “You were captured by the government. You are a part of a program the government began. The government hires killers; the killers mutilate the bodies, and give the limbs and organs to the program. The limbs and organs are used in experiments and research for machines. These machines operate at the help of human limbs and organs. We are the anti-LOHM, an underground organization against the government program. Whatever the man told you were all lies. You are safe. We will protect you.” I ask where we are going and he tells me the safe house. As we drive, I continue to read the papers. The papers explain the program.  The program was created four years ago. The government wanted to experiment with human machines. I didn't really understand what the guy meant about human machines. I turn to the next page. It has multiple pictures on it. When he said 'human machines,' he literally meant it. One picture showed a human intestine used for piping in some type of liquid transferring machine. The next picture showed a human heart, pumping away and somehow powering a machine. The last picture showed a human brain inside a machine sending electrical signals to the parts of the machine. I don't know what to think. I must be in a messed up dream. After what seems like an hour, we arrive at a building. It is in a suburb of a large city, hidden out of sight by the run down, moss-infested apartments around it. We step out of the vehicle only to be neutralized by the wind-chilled, musky air. We walk on the cracked sidewalk leading up to the building. The giant wooden doors open with two burly men with guns in hand on either side. I step into the aged building, following the men. Inside, I look around and it becomes clear that it is a ran-down apartment building. In the center of the room was still the cluttered service desk with papers scattered and its ringing bell topped with a layer of dust. I turn my head and see that on the other side of the large room are metal tables and cushioned chairs lined up as if it were a lobby area. The men tell me we are going to go see the man who was in charge, and they tell me to follow them down one of the wallpapered hallways to the left. We gradually walk down the hallway, and turn right onto another hallway. After walking down the rest of the hallway, we come to a door that is still labeled as ROOM 186. One of the guys opens the door and I walk in. I notice there is a short, middle-aged man, standing by the side wall, staring out the window. He tells me that he wants to show me something that is out of the window. I walk over to the window and he hands me a pair of old-fashioned binoculars that he had in his hand. I put the binoculars up to my eyes and squint through them to look out of the window. Unexpectedly, I hear the door slam shut and someone pushes me down. The men begin to grab me and constrain me into a chair, facing the opposite side of the room. I begin yelling, but the men do not react. They handcuff me to the chair and tie my legs. The man who was looking out the window walks in front of me and stares down at my face and starts laughing. He tells me that they were lucky they found me. He explains that the real Anti-LOHM tried to break me out, but they managed to find me walking down the street before the Anti-LOHM were able to rescue me. He says that it is over�"that there is nothing else I can do. As sweat drips off of my forehead, I hear the door creak open and shut behind me. Then I hear it�"the same laughter as before�"the laughter of murder, the laughter of death.

Author's Note

Please leave a comment and tell me what you think of the story! Thanks!