Me, myself, and I
Martial arts made killing too easy. I looked down at the mangled corpse in front of me, it certainly was an undeniable fact. It had not required more than a punch for me to tear a hole through this poor chap's stomach; poor chap, I say, though he would be guilty of sexual assault on a minor if I had not decided to make him unrecognizable.
The minor herself was heaving for air a few meters away, vomit painting the road before her. She looked at me like I was some monster; as if it was not the man beneath me that was the true monster. Though to be fair, it must have been quite the sight to see a child her age ram its arm through a man a few heads taller than it. But, that is the reality of martial arts. To civilians like them, they were superpowers, and that was the truth. It did not, however, change that killing was so damn satisfying.
I had not stopped at a simple arm through the man's lower stomach, no, I had done much more than that. A bloody hole did not thrill me, hell, the man had not even died straight away, whimpering and crying as he bled out on the street, demanding empathy. As if I would give a lick of remorse for the lowest of lowest scum on the earth.
Pictures of the homicide surfaced in my mind along with the lingering smell of blood. God, it was exciting, and the smell! Oh, the sweet smell of blood properly got me going. I smiled at my artwork; it truly was beautiful. Some time ago, when I had struck the first time, and after having watched him bleed for a minute or two, I had gauged his eyeballs out whilst he was still alive. They now lay beside his crushed head, bathing in a puddle of mashed brain and blood. Oh, how his screams had pleasured my ears.
Soon after, like a stonemason detailing their statue, I had with great focus carved out his airways, all the way down to the lungs, where I tore his chest open and pulled them out. He died at that point, his strained breathing cutting short in a last burp of blood. I felt done with my work there and then, but in a last act of intoxicating cruelty, I squished his heart until it popped. All while smiling like a kid on Christmas.
I laughed. To an outsider, it must have sounded manic, but to me, it was a laugh of relief. Too much tension had been building up due to that damned school with all its tests and whatever. In comparison to sparring, this was much more fun and exhilarating.
My laughing stopped as I looked at my wristwatch. I was going to be late, again. I sighed. Oh, how I would give everything to kill those fucking teachers. Too bad they were strong, I would be sat headfirst into the ground before even leaking a hint of my killing intent. One day, though, one day my hand will tear a hole through their stomachs too. That was a promise.
I turned to smile at the girl, but at some unknown point, she had disappeared. I shrugged, turning away from the corpse to find the nearest toilet. After all, I could not show up to school with blood dripping from my hands. That was sure to give me a scolding, if not a trip to the headmaster. Thankfully, laws against martial artists were yet to be fully implemented so I was practically safe from any legal consequences. But the headmaster was scary strong, and so I better not get involved with him any time soon.
Strolling into school, I looked at the morons running around the outer grounds. None of them had felt the thrill of killing, that I could tell. They were too innocent, too naïve to know how great of a feeling it was. In some ways, it was better than alcohol. Nothing felt as good as the feeling of the blood from your victims slowly running down your arms and dripping off your fingers. I already longed for my next kill, yet, it had to wait.
I stopped outside my classroom. Today's lecture was on the rankings of martial artists, the most boring subject of them all. I raised my hand, ready to knock. Feeling the usual nervousness creeping forward, I took a deep breath before hesitantly knocking. Seconds passed slowly, but soon enough the door swung inwards and my teacher gestured for me to quickly take a seat.
She spoke something to me when I passed her, but I could not hear her; everything felt muffled as if somebody had put earmuffs on me. The edges of my sight started to darken as I felt each gaze of my classmates follow me. I did not even feel the urge to kill anyone, everything felt damp and suppressed. Thankfully, the only empty seat was in the back, but the feeling of dread still put a blanket over my senses.
A bead of sweat trailed down the side of my face. Looking down, I noticed my hands trembling. It was worse than usual. I felt the gaze of my teacher. Her mouth moved, words spoken to me, yet nothing entered my ears. My sight began to grow blurry, heart pounding.
In a weak attempt to calm down I started rehearsing the grades of martial artists, thinking that if that shit could bore me to sleep, I would probably wake up feeling normal.
As soon as a child turned 10, they were tested for their martial spirit. If they had one, they would be placed in a separate school and taught the ways of the martial world instead of the civilian. At this point, the martial artist would be called a null-rate martial artist, having not yet awakened any of the connecting meridians.
When one managed to awaken four of the 24 meridians, they would progress as a first-rate martial artist. They would be called a second-rate martial artist when one awakened four more. It continued until a sixth-rate martial artist, who had all 24 meridians awakened. The next step for a martial artist would be to connect the meridians to its martial spirit by using their qi to carve out passageways forcefully. If one accomplished this, they would be classified as a martial apprentice.
At the stage of a martial apprentice, one was allowed to begin learning proper fighting techniques, having only been allowed to practice breathing methods up until the stage of a sixth-rate due to the unruly state of one's qi.
As I try to recall the stages after a martial apprentice, I suddenly feel myself lose control of reality, my consciousness fading, slipping out of my mental grip. I find my vision swimming in a lake. It is cold, dark and quiet. The lake is shallow, the water barely covering my torso. I sit up, my eyes resting on the shore in front of me. There, on a rock sits a man so in tune with the shadows around him that I can barely discern his figure. It is almost as if he wanted to be invincible in the darkness, he could, yet decided to show himself to me.
I feel the coldness of the water running down my shoulders. Not a dream, then. Hearing the water splash, the man looks up. I lock eyes with him, my gaze trapped in the endless abyss that peeks out beneath his hood. He seems made of shadows, as he rises from the rock and slowly drifts over the shore and onto the water. The cloak does not end, either playing tricks on my mind or connecting into the darkness cast over the lake by the thick treeline across the shore. I feel urged to believe the latter, as his menacing presence looms over my head.
He looks at me, his intense, endless gaze almost trapping my eyes again. Even at this distance, I can not make out anything but that gaze. His looks and figure remain a mystery underneath the shadows dancing inside the cloak. A gloved hand suddenly shoots out from the man, so blisteringly fast that I can do nothing before my chin is clasped in his palm.
The hood tilts slightly to my right, as he forces me to meet his gaze. I involuntarily do as he wills, my eyes gazing into the abyss, only to notice the faintest of lights deep inside. Growing in strength, I discern that the light is crimson, eerily close to the blood that trickled down my hands not too long ago.
It frightens me. The light is triggering something in me, a primeval fear of the unknown. I want to break the gaze, but the hand around my chin is of such unimaginable strength that I can do nothing but let the crimson light overtake my vision and blur the lines between this reality and nothingness.
I start to hyperventilate, or at least I think I do. The light is so overbearingly intense, yet invoking a sense of saudade that makes me calm and tranquilized, until I realize why I feel at ease: the light describes a thirst for slaughter; an insatiable desire to satisfy one's personal needs. I begin to feel the smell of blood, followed by the faintest of pains. Pressure is building around my chin as the man slowly starts to tighten his grip.
For the second time in a short while, I feel my consciousness fading, but not before the man closes his hand completely, crushing my chin and jaw into a million pieces. I barely feel any pain, though, as if my brain is too fixed on the light to notice anything but its desire for blood. Darkness prevails over the crimson light as I find myself lying like a child on my classroom floor. I lay there, the lingering words of the man repeating over and over in my head.
They were spoken in a language I do not know, yet their meaning transcends that barrier, and now, that meaning is the only thing my brain seems to be able to compute.
"You will make a good successor."