One kills a man, one is an assassin; one kills millions; one is a conqueror, one kills everybody, one is a god.
Jean Rostand
Nothing seemed more important at that very moment, except to please his father and get away as soon as possible from the feeling of guilt. His father had told him that every first kill was the most important one and the most important one could lead him to great heights. All his guilt would vanish away and the awe of him would spread to those around.
Young Philip walked slowly under the rain, his feet stamping the ground as if leading him to his uttermost doom. The darkness around him seemed to have swallowed him up.
His heart sounded like the loud repeat of drums in his ears. His clothes dripped with water. The word kill seemed like a burden to him but the repeat of his father’s words in his ears kept him going.
“The awe of you will spread to everyone around,” Were his father’s words.
The young boy stood at the door of a house, a solidly built-in bungalow and he knocked slowly but repeatedly. He prayed that no one would answer. At The same time, he wished someone would let him in and take care of him. There were low voices inside and the door was pushed open. A man stood in shock, his expression coarse and suspicious at the same time. As he looked at the young boy from head to toe, “Any problem boy?” he asked, with a bold, harsh voice.
Anger rose on the inside of Philip, he expected the man to be kind to him and take him in but he didn’t do that. As a young boy, he had been taught by his father that people were wicked. Nobody was worthy of trusting and nobody was good enough to stay alive.
“Good evening Sir, please can I get some water?” That was a lame excuse but he stuck to it.
“Looks like you’re crazy, boy. Get lost.” The man said. His wife heard his voice and came to check on him or who he was talking to.
“Honey, who is that?” she asked as she pulled the door open., Her husband fell back to the floor, bleeding red and thick blood. It moved slowly away from the hole in his stomach. “Ah! Honey!” she cried trying to wake him up. With teary eyes, she saw someone approach her. It was the boy that her husband was speaking to and he was holding a knife, wet with blood.
“What do you want? Please tell me what you want?!” she cried, crawling backward away from him. Unfortunately, it was too late for her. The boy drove the knife deep into her throat and left her to drop on the floor. Drops of her blood were scattered on his face but he didn’t care. she was dead and that was the most important thing.
Philip heard a whimper behind him, it was the sound of a girl sobbing. He walked towards the sofa where she was, the sitting room was clean under his feet and he approached her with the bloodied knife. It was sharp at the edge and sweet to look at. By the look on his face, it told him that he was ready to kill anyone and everyone in the family.
“Please,” the girl pleaded heartily. She didn’t want to die with her parents. At the sound of her voice, he brought his knife down and looked at her with a soft but calm look, too kind, to be a killer. She was younger than him and his conscience, which wasn’t seared yet, told him to leave her alone.
He walked past the two dead bodies and left the house. He felt a sense of peace and satisfaction inside of him. The hunger to kill more was blasted in the flames inside of him and he realized that his father was correct when he said, “Kill one, enjoy more and do not choose mercy.”
************
“You can run but you can’t hide forever. The truth will catch up with you, Philip.” A male voice spoke into the young boy’s ears as he ran faster into the thick forest, more than his legs could carry him. He didn’t want to look at the blood on his hands because that would remind him of what he had just committed. He wasn’t ready to condemn himself for what he did, because his victim deserved the gruesome death.
With a frightened gasp, Philip woke up from his sleep and realized that he wasn’t in a dream anymore. He inhaled deeply and laid down back on the bed. His whole life had been filled with killing, fighting and betrayal at its peak. Those were the three things he was taught to do. Scared that he would fall asleep again, he got up from the bed and walked into the kitchen. Checking the clock, he found out that it was a quarter past midnight and he hadn’t even slept for up to ten minutes before the bad dreams started. He opened the tap and the rushing water filled the cup in his hands. After drinking the water, he sighed and felt relieved but the unfortunate thing was that he wasn’t going back to sleep again. For years, he had been living the nightmare of full nights and sleepless nights. It was only normal for him to stay awake till the next night.
Philip sat down on his sofa and relaxed his head on the top of it. The memories of the many people he had killed preyed on him and the fangs of those screams and pleas bit into his heart that on a normal day, he would begin to feel his heart burn. Taking medications didn’t help him in any way. It got to a point that his doctor had no other advice for him other than to rest well and sleep well. He looked at his ring, its face had a carving of a skeleton. Feeling the ring with his fingers, he knew the secrets that lay behind the carving of that skeleton. The one thing that connected him to his real self was the ring. The carved skeleton on the ring. He would have done away with it a long time ago, but selling the ring would mean that it could fall into the wrong hands which he knew had dangerous consequences. That was the life he lived, the life of consequences, killing and blood. In fact, he couldn’t live without seeing someone rolling on the floor.