ANOTHER

Two days. Gone. Just like the snap of one's fingers. Gone. The man looked to his left and right, his face bruised and his ribs aching as he gently slid a key into the lock of his apartment, opened the door, stepped in and swiftly shut it behind him. He took the gasmask from around his head and carelessly tossed it against the wall, watching it thud to the ground with a satisfied smirk on his torn lips. Then, he turned away and walked past the rotting floorboards and blood-stained walls. No one had noticed the smell, either that or they were too scared of the man who lived there that they never complained. The man walked directly over to the boarded-up window and sat down in the mouldy and disgusting armchair. Something squished beneath his boot. The man leant forwards and stared down, finding something like white and red jelly staining the wood.

He groaned and leant back. An eyeball. He had trodden on an eyeball. It was going to be painful cleaning that mess from his boot. He sighed and relaxed in the armchair; his eyes drifting closed momentarily before snapping open as a thought came to him. Slowly, he rose from the armchair and turned to where the faint murmur was rising from. The bathroom. His footsteps were loud yet slow and deliberate. He wanted whatever was making the noise that the time was up. That death was waiting on the doorstep. Slowly, the man reached toward the doorknob, his fingers wrapping around the smooth, cold copper before twisting and letting the door creak open of its own accord. Slowly, he stepped into the small bathroom, which barely had enough room for the toilet and bathtub inside. In the bathtub, however, lay a boy. He looked about nine or ten, his wrists and ankles tied together, and his mouth taped shut.

The man chuckled and let the door swing shut behind him, carefully approaching the boy and slowly crouching down beside his terrified eyes. Well, eye. One of his eyes was missing, now a deep and empty chasm in the boy's head. His other eye was now mush on the floorboards outside. The one the man had trodden upon. "Your family haven't paid the ransom. They think it is simply a fraud, that I do not have you in my custody, that I am playing on their grief. You remember what I said I'd do to you if they refused?" the man spoke softly, his voice raspy yet somehow angelic. The boy tried shrinking back, but in the confined space he could barely move. The man chuckled again, stood, and headed to the corner of the room. By the toilet, there was a simple black briefcase. The man picked it from the ground, considered it's weight, then walked back over.

He simply set the case down, then flipped it open, revealing the terrifying objects inside. Knives as long as the case itself, scalpels, screwdrivers, smaller knives. All of them looked deadly, and all had been brought here for a singular purpose. "I've shown you the room, have I not?" the man whispered, his voice still soft, but a firm deadliness hidden just beneath it's surface. The boy nodded, his one eye leaking tear after tear as he shook in terror. Slowly, the man reached forward and ripped the piece of tape from the boy's mouth. The boy winced in pain, and the man chuckled. "I'm sorry that I can't have you killed painlessly, but really, I'm not sorry at all. What I am about to do to you, it is art," the man whispered, and the boy's face only grew more terrified. The man reached into the case and withdrew something black and rubbery. A bite block.

"Now, open wide," the man breathed, snapping his left hand forward and pinching the boy's cheeks together, forcing his mouth open. The boy tried to shut his mouth, but the man's grip was too strong as he forced the bite block into the corner of the boy's mouth, where there was no hope of jarring it free. The boy began wailing as loud as he could, although with his mouth pinned open, it was barely a whimper. The man tutted, his eyes cold as he reached into the case and this time withdrew a long scalpel. "I realised you would manage to find a way of screaming and alerting people to your pain during this…procedure. So, I'm going to make sure you can't scream," the man explained, sounding almost excited, as though he were an enthusiastic science teacher showing his class how to dissect a frog.

The boy tried moving his head away, yet the man go their first, quickly forcing the boy to face him. "Careful now, don't want to hurt yourself," the man chuckled as he gently dragged the scalpel inside the boy's mouth. The boy struggled and hissed in pain, but all the man did was laugh as he reached the back of the boy's throat. The beginning of his tongue. The boy gagged, but if the man cared at all, he failed to show it. The boy sobbed, and the man began. He sliced almost delicately into the fleshy skin, watching as the boy squirmed and struggled with humour lighting up his eyes. Sounds came from the boy, but the man shrugged them off as he flicked his wrist, sawing into the flesh and muscle carefully. Blood burst from the widening wound, flooding the boy's throat and ripped apart mouth. But the man didn't care. He just kept slicing.

Minutes passed with the only sound being the tearing of muscle and the boy's frantic sobbing and gurgling before the man reached in and removed a large, fleshy blob of skin, muscle and blood. The boy's tongue. The boy seemed to be trying not to drown in his blood, and the man tossed the scalpel aside. Now, it was time for the part the man was waiting for. "I showed you the room, remember? I showed you the trophies from the other five, didn't I? Well, there's a couple more positions I need to fill on the wall. And you are lucky number six." The boy sobbed and choked on his blood, but the man reached down and tore off the boy's shirt as though it were nothing. He was strong. Insanely strong. The man wiped blood from his fingers onto his coat, then withdrew a long knife.

"What I need from you," he whispered as he gently set the tip against the boy's chest, "Is your lung." The boy's agitated breathing and moaning of pain became louder as the man retaped the mouth shut, laughed, and then slowly dug the tip in. The boy arched his back in agony, and the man slowly drew it down, watching as he slashed down to the boy's stomach slowly, slicing through all the skin while making it shallow as possible. Blood poured from the large slash, and the boy writhed in agony, his pain unbearable. Once again, the man laughed, the sound mirthless and almost depressed as he moved the knife up, to where one of the lungs were visible. "I only need one, but this is how you die," the man murmured, and then he stabbed down. The knife stabbed through his right lung, and a wine escaped the boy's gagged mouth.

The boy tried freeing himself under the man's gaze, rubbing his wrists together to break out the ropes, but nothing happened. He remained bound, helpless and dying. The man did no more, now finding a joy in sitting back and watching the boy's final moments. The boy's moments slowed, his breathing becoming more agitated before slowing, and then stopping completely. A final, gurgled breath left him, and then the boy went still, his one eye staring hopelessly ahead. The man then used the knife to hack and slash at the skin before then slashing apart the muscle inside. Finally, after minutes of hacking, slashing and slicing, he reached in and pried the boy's left lung from his now destroyed chest. The man chuckled madly, his fingers clasped around the slowly deflating muscle, his torn lips twisting upward into a death-like grin. "Just one more," he whispered to the boy's corpse, and then he giggled manically, his eyes wide with a madness that should have been thought to be impossible.

Something moved, just in the corner of his eye, and the man turned. Was someone watching him? No one was there. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously, and it came again, just out the very corner of his eye. A whisp of silver. He spun on the spot, and once again, nothing. Everything was quiet, only his breathing filling the quiet bathroom. He saw it again, just a speck of silver in the corner of the room, and he whirled around. This time it stayed there. A silver figure stood just over the corpse of the boy, and the man's heart sank into what felt like his stomach. It was the boy, silver and transparent, but eyes locked onto him. The man stumbled back, and the boy seemed to follow, staying exactly the same distance away. The man felt his very flesh crawling, a feeling of unease sweeping over him

Music seemed to be echoing faintly from downstairs, but the man remembered no one was allowed to play music loudly around here. The boy giggled childishly, and more pale and ghostly figures entered the bathroom behind the man. He recognised them immediately. They were the other five. The other five who he had murdered. His eyes found two girls he was most familiar with, Ellie and Leila, but they just stared back emotionlessly. The man reached down and picked up the long bloody knife, waving it wildly through the air as though to fight them back with it. The spirits were unaffected by the movements, and they neared. As they drew closer, knives similar to what the man held materialised into their hands. Fear bubbled inside the man as he slashed and hacked at the air. The closest spirit, the boy he had just murdered, slashed his blade through the air.

The man hissed in pain and clutched his left arm, where a gash had ripped through his coat and slashed his skin, now bleeding heavily. Around him, the children giggled excitedly, and the man fell to his knees, sweat dripping from his forehead as he stared around at the children, terrified. Then, they disappeared, just as fast as they had appeared. The man was left alone with the mutilated body, and he wept in fear, his body shaking.