Darkness

There are two sides of the coin that only you can tell which is which.

   Staring ahead at the clouds that drifted by as if chased away by the purple tint, I smirked upon the purity it impressed upon humanity.  Above they hovered - clean and untainted.

   Unlike me.

   '...you think everyone around you is nice? Think again boy!..'

   Life was not easy on me.

  And I could do the same as well, in short, we were not on good terms. He treated me cruelly and I returned the favor with the same vigor. How could I not? He started it, so I did the same.

   Now, I found myself standing in the middle of the busy street, the throng of people passed me by, their voices flown like riddles with unfathomable language - familiar, yet incomprehensible to my ears.

   Just like me.

   Should I go with the flow?

   However, I am a man strayed in a lone path oblivious from the norm of humanity - of Life. Going with them means, suicide - death.

   People means life.

   Shaking my head, I turned against the tide of Life. Seeking out the Truth whilst my hands were in my pocket.

   As always, the usual me.

   Tonight is the night.

  A grin spread on my lips like oil as the icy air bit against my cheeks, sweeping away the dark strands of mane that strayed on my gelid green eyes.

   An exhilarating sensation swelled in my chest that sent a familiar rush through every fiber of my being.

  

   'Now, how shall I start my little hunt?' And my spirit soared up to the blackening horizon.

   Tonight is my night.

***

  Morning came in a sudden burst of golden light that swept away the dreary gray clouds from the sky.

   Now, time to don the mask.

   As always, I'm the worse.

   I found myself standing in the midst of a busy intersection where cars honked and bonked at the bustled traffic, while people crossed with impassive faces and unintelligible voices.

This time, I went with the flow.

   And this is the other me.

  Not long, I reached my place. An obsequious grin was upon my lips as people greeted me at the sight of me.

   "Good morning, Sir! Have you heard the news?"

   As usual, friendly talks cannot be easily swept away. And with a sigh I turned a friendly smile towards the man.

   "What news, Henry?" I asked.

   The dark haired, plump man in his forties with a habit of prying into others' business and to the point of engaging to rumors halted me in my walk. I cannot be more lucky than to face Mr. Henry. Once more, I slipped myself into the shoes of a concerned citizen, putting up a curious mask as I faced him.

   I have never been truer.

   "There has been a murder!" he bellowed, throwing his right arm in the air. 

   "A business man was found dead, lying in his pool of blood inside his room last night! Nobody knew he had any enemies but last night, it was said that somebody had seen him talking with a dark haired stranger before his murder. Quite scary isn't it? Better be careful with strangers around you."

   Right hand upon my chin, I could only nod in agreement.

   "True, Mr. Henry," I said, before I turned to my silver wristwatch, the short hand struck towards eight.

   "Well now, I gotta go Mr. Henry. Really, all of us should be careful," I said, as I turned round on my heel.

   'Especially you, Mr. Henry.'

   I am Me.

  'Derick boy, you think everyone is nice around you? Think again boy! Let me teach you a lesson or two about Life!'

   I could still remember the pain all over my body - how that person, who stood as my father turned me black and blue. I could still feel the raw stabbing pain on my flanks as the silver point slashed its way down into my side, how the red flown out like a stream.

   Why? Why are you so cruel? What did I ever do? 

  

   ....

   ...

   ..

   .

   I should have died. I should have...

  I remembered how death felt cold against my limbs, how it turned me into emptiness, until - 

   Think again, Derick.

   A wide, sly grin spread upon my lips.

  Now, I have another purpose.

  Life.

  Life is a hair breadth's away from Death.

  Tonight, I have to teach people an important lesson about Death. 

'...you think everyone is nice around you?' 

  Yes.

  Not everyone is nice around you.

  Smiles, laughter, greetings - they are all the same. It's just a mask of pretension. And Life doesn't care. 

  It seems people can't grasp it.

  They will need someone to teach them that.

  So...

Mr. Henry, let me teach you that lesson, tonight...

-TheMalady

 

Author's Note

I just started revising my work. Any comments or suggestions would be gladly accommodated. :)

Reviews

[jesserose99]

deeply dark and mysterious, loved the way you crafted this story together bit by bit. like what you have to say here, and people do take life for granted. they are all caught up in pretention. i did find myself wanting to read on here, the twisted past of the abusive father, all very interesting. really enjoyed this.

[TheMalady]

Thank you very much jesserose99! I did some revisions here as suggested by the other readers and I'm glad that the message clearly reached you. Thank you so much for taking your time reading this. Have a wonderful day! :)

[BThomvanWart]

I think this is definitely an improvement! There were points before that seemed to be a tad off, but I believe the clarification to be better and more crisp. As I've said before, if this would ever become a full-length piece, I would be overjoyed to read the whole thing. The short story is filled with depth and creation that I find so intriguing! I think the abuse/near-death experience really expanded the characters reasoning for wanting to kill - to show others that death is never that far away, but always lurking around a corner. And adding to why Mr. Henry was next to be killed, I think it made the reasoning less shoddy and more spot on. Very nice clean up, Malady!

I also wanted to add that having the details, I believe, made the "two sides of a coin" concept a little more crisp and tangible within the story itself!

[TheMalady]

Thanks a lot! Gosh. I was inspired to write this because of a previous I've made on a different site. Now I know what I will start to work on if I write another suspense story. I will try to plan another story, maybe a chapter story based on this one. Thanks for the review and encouragement, BThomvanWart! I really appreciate it! Thanks a lot! :) You really helped me out in this one! :)

[BThomvanWart]

Of course! You're more than welcome! I'll definitely open myself to reading that as well! :)

[TheMalady]

No-no. Don't. They are too explicit and honestly, my previous works are creeping me out. haha. I want to write decent works. :)

[BThomvanWart]

Haha, sometimes I feel the same way about my own work! But, I take what appears creepy about it and then just try to...rework it. I have this odd obsession with the old beginning of Science called Alchemy, so when I happen to find work of my own that's strange and bizarre, I like to almost toss it in the fire and remove the impurities and then reconstruct it. If that makes a bit of sense! Haha. But, yeah. Use your old work as jumping off points! That's my best advice. :)

[TheMalady]

You're right. but mine is quite disgusting. Really. I did not even know what possessed me to write those absurd scenes. Gosh. Whenever, I read those works, I feel like vomiting. I am guilty so I want to start a fresh beginning. Really and honestly, I realized I had a dirty mind when I read my old works again. T_T

[BThomvanWart]

Haha, It's okay! Start new, recycle the old! It's all in the writer's process, right?

[TheMalady]

Yup. You're right. I am also planning of changing all of my characters and eliminate some shady and not so decent scenes in the story. Hopefully, I could find some time and I could explain to the old readers what I just did.

[BThomvanWart]

Well, I wish you the best of all the luck in the world! :)

[TheMalady]

Thanks again! You're a big help! :D

[Mary Helda]

I usually do not read stories or books with 1st person narratives but there is a way your story kept flowing annd i wanted to knw wat would happen next...though there is no motive..the reason to why he enjoyed killing..maybe you wanted to live the readers in suspense

[TheMalady]

Thanks a lot for reading this! I am going to elaborate further with the motive. I also find the first person thingy awkward because it's like you are that person in the story. Thanks anyway! Your opinion is always welcome! :)

[Mary Helda]

You are welcome:-)

[-inactive now-]

This story's pretty cool.
The narration is really eloquent.
What I got from it is that your character is a killer who hides in plain sight, pretending to be normal to fit in with the rest of the world that he despises?
For critiques: Billow- should be Bellow.
BThomvanWart said more or less the same thing as I'm thinking, it just lacks a clear motive..
Aside from that, you are on to something good with this one.
:)

[TheMalady]

Thanks for the review! I will start on editing this right away. This is just a short story so I did not really elaborate on the story.

Also, the motive of the murder is that the character just kills because he really doesn't like people. He doesn't like to really engage himself with others. This is just experimental that I want to try if I could do better. Thanks a lot for the review! :)

[-inactive now-]

you're welcome

[BThomvanWart]

While there is a really interesting concept behind your work, I think it is missing a couple of things. First, what's the motive? Murder rarely gets written where it has no motive, at least, from my reading. Of course, you can always have an apathetic murderer, but unfortunately if that's the case, you would need to express perhaps a reason the character believes a certain person should live or die. Second, While you have a transition from good to bad or from night to day, I think the transition itself needs to be tweaked to accommodate character. Third, I believe the voice of your piece may be all over the place, in terms of organization of events. I love watching movies where there's a pause depicted as a between the frames kind of character development where you hear what the character thinks and how they feel. I applied that sense of depiction to your piece to offer a little more clarity, but perhaps this wasn't your intended focus or style of writing? As for the piece as whole, I do enjoy the character and I would read this would it ever become a full length book. You have a good flow with the words, so it's not choppy as some writing can be and I congratulate you on making a short story that contains a lot of depth.

[TheMalady]

Thanks a lot for the review! I didn't elaborate further with the motive since this is just a very short story, but I will try to keep this in mind. I will edit this story right away. I will also try to improve the transition to make the story interesting. Thanks for the review! This really is interesting! :)

[BThomvanWart]

Well, if you do edit it, lemme know. I'd be glad to read it again! :)

[TheMalady]

Thanks again! I'll add some additional info's to make the short story interesting! :) Thanks again for stopping by! :)