Greed consists in doing what one desires

My first kill was my nanny.

Killing her didn't bear an ulterior motive, I neither liked or disliked her. I was simply curious as to how it felt like when the air escaped someone's lungs as I had previously tried with rats. When my parents entered the room with my hands tied around her neck, they stared at me with widened eyes—as if I had done something wrong, but I didn't.

Because instead of punishing me, they simply reassured me that they'll solve it, yet I should never speak of that day. My mother held me close and pulled me out of the house, while my father called a few of his contacts and that was the last time I saw my nanny.

Few days later, I was forced to take private lessons on how to blend into society. Although they tried diligently to form me into a human, it never worked. A small—but important part of my brain was missing, causing me to be stumped by human behavior. I didn't understand why I should feign interest for someone I didn't care for nor didn't I understand why I should not prioritize my own desires—after all, why shouldn't I want the best for me? I started to avoid children altogether and instead focused my time on my own interests. Consequently, even before the incident I was deemed an outcast by most children, because people feared those who behaved differently. After a while of observing my parent's meetings, I understood why it was important to pretend to care. You care to get your desires fulfilled! I knew I couldn't hide behind the sanctuary of my home, eventually I had to go out and grasp whatever I wanted without my parent's help. I changed to spite them, I trained to trick them into achieving my own desires and it worked. Once I switched schools and acted 'normal' after tirelessly observing social interactions—I became well liked, I got others to do my dirty work, while I lived in bliss. I became human.

I grew older and lived a relatively uneventful youth, yet the memory of death was stuck in my mind during all those years. My nanny had followed my life for a decade and suddenly she was gone. It was such a strange concept, everyone you knew, every person surrounding you could've killed you, because everyone is capable of doing so. Death followed me like a rotten stench of seduction and every day I had the urge to kill and not because it was special. Killing wasn't special, even a dog could kill you, but I liked the freedom it brought.

Killing proved to be useful to achieve my goals, you could simply eliminate the opponent. There was no true reason to defy the urge to kill, so why did we? Because of a book? Because it was written down onto some paper? Because someone else told it was wrong?

No. We refrain from killing in fear of the consequences, if there were no laws to uphold that rule, then deaths would be as common as dust. The truth is the majority do not feel empathy, but simply refrain themselves simply because of the consequences—their greed is insufficient and too shallow. Still there are many who will try to convince you it's because we aren't animals, we must not need to act like them, then again only the human mind would even try to educate a lion on equality, so it might not be that credible.

Many others will explain to you, that it is simply wrong, but when you ask them why, they could not provide a further explanation other than 'Because you would not want it to happen to you either'. If that were the case, then they would have to apply it in their daily life as well and treat every person with kindness. Hypocrites.

One reason to kill is enough and right now I really wanted to kill my team manager.

"Mr. Chamber… I—I can't move my arms any longer!" My colleague Mr. Johnson complained as he sprawled his arms across the paper stacked table. "If I don't make it out alive, tell my family that I love them!" I pat his shoulders sympathetically.

"I fear we both won't make it out alive." We looked at our team manager who ran around like a headless chicken and agreed in silence. It was always like this, the manager would mess up and all of us would be forced to drop our work and fix his mess.

After hours of tireless work, we finally managed to escape that torment. My team and I bid each other our farewells in front of the company building and went our respective ways. The moon stood high above the sky observing everything beneath.

It had already gotten late, the lamps surrounding the company building were barely lit, the small river behind the building was completely drenched in darkness and gave off an eery feeling as if I had been watched. The building was built fairly secluded from the busy city area, hence why it was unusually dark around these parts. It was one of the reasons why I hated working overtime, it was too inconvenient to walk in the dark.

"Mr. Chamber!" A small fiery silhouette ran up to me. "It's strange to see you work so late! I heard something happened in your team?" Although I had no residue left to converse with Ms. Lee, I still maintained a kind expression.

"Yes… The team manager messed up and we spent the entire evening cleaning up his mess. Besides that, have you already eaten? You seem rather pale." I looked at her in feigned concern, but my smile didn't quite reach my eyes.

"I must've forgotten, silly me." She slapped her head jokingly. How foolish, the truth was that her team manager refused to let her take a break and even threatened to fire her.

I wonder if…

"Ms. Lee, I was about to drive home and prepare dinner, would you care to join me?"

"Me? Oh, I would love to!" She clapped her hands excitedly as I led her towards my car.

"Wow, Mr. Chamber I didn't expect that you would drive a car like this! It's beautiful!"

"Thank you, it was a gift from my mother." Confusing filled me at the first part; why was it so unexpected for me to drive a car such as this? I started the car and slowly backed up from the empty parking spot as I drove past the forest towards my home.

"Gosh Mr. Chamber, this is delicious! You should open up a restaurant!" She spoke with a fully stuffed mouth while I hid my disdain behind another bite of mutton.

"Please, you flatter me too much."

"Seriously… Thank you so much, I can't remember the last time someone cared for me like this." She disheartenedly played around with the peas on the plate. I was filled with a sense of newly kindled curiosity, I wanted to understand and discover her—I wanted to dissect her and push her towards her limits turning her into my object of curiosity.

"Well, you've got a friend in me, and if you ever need someone to talk to, then please do not hesitate to reach out." I expectantly held out my wine glass.

"Then… To new friendships!" She clanked the glass gratefully.

Give someone who craves love a holding hand and they'll be loyal to you for eternity. Keep them on a leash with treats and they'll crave your attention.

For some reason Ms. Lee insisted on doing the dishes, even after tirelessly trying to convince her otherwise, it came to no avail.

"Ms. Lee, it is already quite late, may I take you home?" I calmly suggested, but for some reason she grew pale at those words.

"No!" She let out an unearthly scream. "I mean—I will walk!" Her gaze turned away from me and the tension suddenly grew tangible, she acted strange. What was she hiding?

"Do not be ridiculous, I live too far away from the city for anyone to walk." She didn't answer, but after a while of silence she reluctantly nodded. "Okay…"

The address to her home seemed familiar somehow, but I could not wrap my mind around as to why, until we reached her home.

Unbeknownst to me she lived in a relatively small and run down apartment complex with rats lingering in the darkness, while a foul stench penetrated my nostrils.

"You have all your belongings, correct?"

"Yes, Mr. Chamber. Thank you again for the meal! I'm wishing you a great weekend!" Her smile had returned as she saw that I did not act any different, who knew she was that conscious of how others perceived her, but seeing where she lives it was to no surprise. The area was known for its high population of fled immigrants and high crime rates, even making it to the news—robbery, assault and rape were daily occurrences in these parts.

The proof of society's failure are the robbery rates, the higher they are the bigger usually the wealth gap is between the rich and the poor, and not only that, but the educational differences as well. Immigrants are less likely to earn higher educational degrees, because children whose parents did not earn academic degrees are at a systematic disadvantage, leading them to pursue a path of crime and quitting school altogether.

Crime is simply a result of natural greed.

"Right to you, Ms. Lee." As I bid her farewell a silhouette in the dark moved swiftly back to the shadows. What a disgusting place.

There was no need for me to further remain in this wretched piece of the city. Once home I cleaned the dishes again and threw my clothing into the washing machine. I felt as if the stench lingered in the crevice of my clothing eating away at the expensive cloth. Thankfully tomorrow was the weekend, which meant I did not need to spend time with any unreasonable people—instead I could waste away at my home or so I thought.

The next day an unbearable shrill sound awoke me, it was the alarm of my car! I hastily grabbed a coat and put on my shoes to examine what happened outside. To my sheer surprise, someone had broken my car window with a damn brick! Who in the world would even come near this place and purposely destroy my property? As angry as it made me, I had to get over myself and get help in catching that bastard.

I had to call the police.