This is my entry to "The Dark Side" contest on the MCBC. But the forum is locked right now, and I was just so proud of this piece that I decided to put it up here first. Slightly--okay more--dark than my other pieces, save for A Shoulder to Cry On, but I think you'll appreciate it. Also, sorry for spelling errors or grammatical errors of any kind. I was typing this really fast, so I could get it up before I went to bed.

--The General

---

Rain slithered down the window like sanity slithered from my existence. No longer did life have meaning or reality have any say in the matter. Memories dissolved to nothing, and opinions no longer guarded the mind from the fact that created a tap allowing the sanity to leak through in the first place. Nothing mattered. I didn't matter. Feelings were just an excuse for not having the courage to do what was required.

I use the word existence because there doesn't seem to be an appropriate description for a living corpse. I had sold my soul to the highest bidder for infinite, immortal power. Power that should have made me feel invincible and fulfilled, but instead left me feeling, if possible, emptier and more vulnerable.

Pulling my knees into my chest even closer, my gaze continued to stay transfixed to the raindrops and their numerous patterns as if they were the most important things in the world. Kind of like what you do at the hairdresser's when you want to avoid awkward conversation. You just stare as the water dripping from your cranium maneuvers itself down the many valleys and crevices of the cape. But rain hadn't fallen on Carmel for an eternity. At least, not since I had taken over. What fell down instead was acid.

With one swift movement, I pulled the window coverings away, reveling in the tormenting sight before me. The sky was a deep blood red with smatterings of black from which the downpour of acid had begun. It was pure havoc below my fortress. Fire bolts careened towards earth destroying not only earthly possessions, but people, families, and buildings of old and new. Hysterical mothers cried out in angst as they searched abandoned alleyways for their missing children. Other adults and children alike ran in terror as my loyal servants hunted them down according to my command. Distant gun fire and explosions interrupted what would otherwise be a silent atmosphere. However, silence was a thing of the past. It truly was, as the expression went, hell on earth.

And I was immune. I was unstoppable.

This wasn't the same person I had once been. In fact, I'd been upgraded. No longer was I the one being asphyxiated by love and persuaded by feelings. No, sir. I had grabbed life by the horns, flipped it upside down and watched in satisfaction as the hate, the fear, and the terror poured down as the sand in an hourglass does in the same position. Save for the rose tattoo on the right shoulder labeled "MOM," there wasn't an ounce of humanity left in my already rotting corpse.

You have to show appreciation to mom. She's the one who brought me into this world, drilling into my skull that when I grew up, I could be whatever I wanted to be. Somehow, I didn't quite think that being the tyrant of both this dimension, and the other six was a career she had in mind. But I knew she loved me. She said so right before I snapped her neck and made Dad eat the remains.

Now, Dad on the other hand, he wasn't too pleased with me, ever, and he expressed distaste to my stable career path. I had never liked him too much. But not to worry, First chance I got, I gave him five knives, explaining that by the end of five minutes, he had better stick one in a different location on little brother, or I would kill him.

Stupid sap couldn't do it. He died begging me to spare his life. I ignored his pleas, and with a flick of the wrist, I had turned his body inside out, killing him instantly. Killed the brother too. He just looked so pathetic, cowering in the corner, sobbing. So with the flick of the other wrist, I hurled the knives at him, each stabbing him right in the heart. The little runt looked at me in such surprise before the final knife plunged. As if trying to voice, "What's gotten into you?"

The answer, of course, was power . . . and pain. Lots of unbearable pain. Looking out upon the chaos occurring right under my nose, I looked away almost instantly. Not because it scared me, but because my head had begun to throb like crazy, and I was actually feeling their pain; the pain of the tortured, the abused, the mocked, and the handicapped. And I let out a scream mirroring the pain of my brethren, collapsing to my knees, and clutching at my head.

In no way was I breaking down. Actually, cruel as it sounded, this was all part of the deal. You see, when I sold my soul for ultimate power, there was one condition, and that was that every once in awhile, I would feel the pain of those I had tortured and slain. And each time, it would get exponentially worse, adding into play the thousands more I exonerated. Satan thankfully gave me an antidote and that was that whenever I felt the sensation, I was to slice my body, offering a blood sacrifice to the Dark Lord. And each time I had to slice myself, more blood left my body, therefore, being soulless, ridding my being of existence little by little. I was too far gone to have realized how badly I had gotten off in the end.

Weakly, I grabbed the dagger from its sheath beneath my open robe and rolled my sleeve up, looking at the mass grave of scars upon my forearm. Wasting no more time, I touched the dagger to my flesh and pulled back, not only releasing blood, but also releasing a guttural moan of relief from my orifice.

Pain was one of life's mysterious aphrodisiacs. One that I had come to enjoy immensely.

Like I had mentioned before, I wasn't the same guy you all had come to know. Along with my upgrade came accessories in the form of tats and piercings. AS I stumbled to my feet weakly, I stared down at my chest, seeing, as I had before, the other personal slashes I had made for each person who had been a hindrance in my life. Each mark stood for the fact that that particular person had been obliterated from their existence. In a sense, I was doing the world a favor. They should have been thanking me! Not condemning me. In fact, I had been so nice, that each person represented by the marks on my chest had been housed in my personal dungeon before I killed them. And I ask: where's the damn gratitude in return?

As I had known for some time, there were two people remaining that I was going to murder, and today was the scheduled execution. Though I smiled as I began to make my way into the depths of my fortress, there was no humor in the gesture. It was pure masochistic joy at the prospect of the events to come.

Grabbing a torch off the clammy, stone wall, and making my way through the dank corridor, I began to recall who all the marks were for on my chest. There was one for Father Dominic . . . one for Brad, one for David, and one for Jake . . . there was one for Helen and one for Andy . . . one for my mom, one for my dad, one for my brother, and one for my grandmother . . . one for Gina . . . one for Kelly, one for Debbie . . . and finally, one for Hector "Jesse" de Silva.

Oh, how I reveled in his death. How I watched him cry out in anguish. How I watched as he refused to beg for life until it had become too much, even for Deputy de Silva. And I got off watching every minute of it.

The barred door made a reverberating clang as it slammed into the solid, stone wall. Candlelight flickered from the two candelabras in the small 8'x 10" chamber. AS I entered the room, I watched as the fairer creature of the two left to die, stared up at me with wide, untrusting eyes. The glorious mane of chestnut hair that was once her crowning glory was no long glorious at all. It had lost all luster, and was greasy and messy. Her slim, attractive figure was thinner, and unhealthy looking. Her lusty, masochistic prison attire, what was once tight and form fitting, leaving nothing to the imagination, was now baggy and grungy. Her eyes had somehow lost the lust for life they had once had. They were both dull and tired looking. That could have been from the endless torture rounds she had endured, or from Jesse dying, but I didn't know, nor care. The only other thing I noticed was that her mouth had been gagged, and her limbs bound. Maybe she was finally ready to stop lying so fluently.

I placed the silver dinner tray on the decrepit, wooden table in front of the prisoner, and took a seat. With a flick of my wrist, she became unbound, and the piece of tape covering her mouth was violently ripped off, allowing the gag to fall out. As she massaged her throat and breathed in heavily, I busied myself with pouring wine into two chalices.

"Would you like something to drink?" I asked, holding out one of the chalices towards her. I noticed that, at first, she was more concerned with her newfound ability to breathe, than my offering of food and drink, which she hadn't had for almost two weeks now.

When she had finally heard, or at least acknowledged, my enquiry, her head slowly revolved towards my person, and ever so slowly, her gaze locked on mine. Though the light was not as bright as it could have been, I took notice to the fact that her face looked, while angry, sad, and gaunt. Her left eye was stuck shut with crusted blood, and the surrounding skin was bruised beyond repair. Her once luscious lips were chapped and cut and the cuts about her face were infinite. When she finally did speak, her voice was deep, and gruff.

"I'd rather spit in your face, but seeing as I haven't got any, I would love a drink."

My calm demeanor instantly dissolved into one of fury. I rose, and with as much force as I could muster, I lifted my hand and swatted it at her face. The sound of my hand on her flesh echoed throughout the near empty dungeon. At the sound of her obvious pain, came the sound of my deep, rooted satisfaction. In the candlelight, the damage was seen. Her eye began to bleed all over again, and her lip as well. I straightened up, shook myself, and reclaimed the chalice for myself.

"You really should learn to treat your authority with more respect," I chastised, my voice acid, my intonation dark. "For that, there will be no drink, nor food of any kind."

"Good," she rasped, mustering as much dignity on her bruised face as she possibly could. "I would rather starve than continue on living like this."

I stood up and laughed with little humor, chugging the wine down as if there were no tomorrow. She stared up at me angrily as I made a show of the process, delighting in her pain. "You don't want to spend all eternity with me, by my side? Granting my every desire?"

"Would I be locked down here if I said 'yes'?" she asked snappily. "And it's as I said before, 'I'd rather spit in your face.'"

I clenched my teeth together, ignoring the sudden throb of my head. This time, it wasn't from pain, it was from frustration. A fire lit in my eyes, and I glared menacingly at the striking, yet hideous creature before me.

"Wrong answer," I snarled, grabbing a tuft of her hair, and heaving her body at the opposite end of the chamber. How dare she spoke that way to me. I was the determiner of her fate. Did she not realize this?

As she hit the wall, the sound of crunching and splattering resonated, making me cringe not in the least bit. She rolled over so she was facing the ceiling, clutching her stomach, and moaning in pain. She was never like this in the beginning, but I had worn her down to basically nothing.

And she meant nothing to me.

"Flinging me around—" she coughed, blood spilling out of her mouth, and onto the floor. "—this room is not going to get me to love you." She shook her head and laughed humorlessly, "I could never love someone as appalling as you."

My face flinched, and I began breathing in heavier spurts, my blood boiling. Who was she to talk to me like that? To ME? Using my powers, I lifted her up, and sent her straight down to the ground again, smashing her once again. This time, she barely moved, but I continued anyway.

"Why—won't—you—love—me—Suze?" I yelled out in psychosis. Between each word, I brutally kicked her, enjoying the sound of retreat and terror. I got her four times in the stomach, and once, the final kick, to the face. "I did everything for you!"

Slowly, very slowly, she looked up at me, her entire face mutilated; blood spattered everywhere, and the reflection of the candlelight on the pure white of her skull from where it cracked open. Coughing up a large spew of blood, she said roughly, "Because—you are not him."

At that moment, I hated her more than I had hated anything in my entire life. I flung her body once more at the opposite end of the room, and watched as her lifeless body glided down the wall, leaving a crimson path behind. When she landed this time, there was no movement at all.

Releasing the dagger from its sheath, I touched it once more to my chest, and watched as the blood trailed behind it, leaving a permanent reminder of the easiest kill of my life. But it didn't end there. There was one more left to be annihilated. But this one was not worth my powers. Instead, I kept the dagger out, and traveled down the corridor a couple yards, and entered the chamber of my next victim.

The creature was slumped in the far corner of the chamber in the most pathetic stance he had ever been forced to achieve. With each footstep, the fear in his icy blue eyes grew more and more evident. The dried blood on his face, the same color as my hair, created twisted, yet seemingly beautiful works of artistic design. I had truly never seen anything so pathetic in my entire life. He was worthless scum.

When I finally towered over him, his chest heaved up and down in great altitudes. But I didn't care. I was here for blood. The tape ripped off of his mouth with relative ease, and it wasn't until the dagger was mere inches from his neck that he cried out:

"Michael, NO!"

But no one, save for me, heard his cry of agony because following immediately afterwards was the sound of gurgling, and the sight of blood gushing out of his neck. I had slashed his neck, creating the effect of a giant, crimson smile.

"You attract more flies with rotting remains than vinegar . . . Paul."

And as I touched the dagger to my chest, swiping it for the final time, I moved the dagger to a lower position. Eyes shut; I thrust the knife into my stomach, shuddering from the sudden, but scintillating touch of pain. Upon finally opening my eyes, I smiled, and the remains of my blood poured out of my mouth, gliding down my body, as water does on the cape. With a final shudder, my body lay lifeless on the cold, stone floor.

And once again, no one noticed or cared that I was gone.