Reborn.

I walked upstairs from the basement workshop, and heard my wife humming in the living room. I came up behind her and I couldn't help but feel delighted as I felt her shoulders tremble and her body shiver with disgust and fear as I hugged her from behind. Truly the best form of pleasure was torturing someone for life, I can't explain to you the pleasure I get from my very existence being hell for someone else.

With excitement I kissed her on the cheek, and whispered into her ear, "You make me the happiest man alive."

She gave a weak habitual smile, her unseeing blind eyes that I had burned out years ago, stared in my direction blankly, "I'm glad to be your happiness" she said.

"Hmm" I simply hummed and hugged her tighter.

Melody was compliant to me, she was convinced she needed to be for her survival because I had conditioned her to think she did. Additionally, our house was the only cottage for miles, and even if she tried to run she wouldn't get very far and she knew it.

When I was younger I used to give her little opportunities. I would leave a door open, I would 'forget' to cuff her or leave my keys in an obvious place, just so I could see her run away, and then have the thrill of chasing after her all over again.

I was too old to do that now, I had turned 90 this year, and Melody was old too. My brittle bones wouldn't allow me to run after her, and she never even tried to escape these days. There wasn't even a reason to use restraints of any kind. The last time she had tried to escape was, gosh, maybe four decades ago.

"Did you have fun?" she asked in that sweet timid voice of hers. Just hearing her speak made me smile, long ago she used to be so loud and outspoken. She would curse me with every breath, but now oh how the mighty have fallen.

It made me think of that story again, Overcoming Obstacles. Writers always write stories about their characters overcoming things, always so uselessly optimistic that it's almost funny. Of course stories like that can only be found in fiction because people in real life know that evil is more prevalent than good.

The good person is a victim in real life. Easy prey. The Police system isn't some amazing institution but a tool used for the elite that doesn't function well for the common man. People are stepping stones for those with higher power, and no matter how much people protest or try to fight for their basic human rights it is always the powerful ones that go to bed laughing. That's reality.

People like me simply take advantage of this dog eat dog world, and enjoy simple carnal pleasures.

"We'll have Blood sausage and Blood soup today" I smiled, "thanks to our latest Guest, I think you'll like the flavour this time, this one was a writer."

"I-i-is that so." Melody gave a fake laugh.

I grabbed her face and jerked it towards mine, my nails digging into her chin, "Why are you giving me such low energy, aren't you excited for dinner, you should think it's an honour that I'm even feeding you today, honey."

She shivered, "No I am excited, really excited, I CAN'T WAIT"

"Pffft" I laughed, seeing her get all riled up and be on edge, it really made my blood boil. After some more teasing I prepared dinner and a few hours later we ate.

Now my blood sausage and blood soup didn't just consist of blood. I kept true to the recipe. There were plentiful herbs and filler in the sausage mixed with that writers blood, and the soup had a nice vegetable and tomato base. A very rich taste, I had out done myself.

Melody ate slowly, her thin lips moving cautiously. Even after all these years she had never gotten used to it, it was probably her last sign of resistance. No matter what I did I could never win her heart or make her truly subservient to me. She didn't obey me, she obeyed her fear of me, which was kind of disappointing. Perhaps my only failure.

If I have a next life I want to see if I can make someone truly obey me. But then again, do I really want that, wouldn't that be boring. Part of the reason I had kept Melody alive this long was because she kept on fighting.

They say the key to a healthy relationship is open communication, and her loud and courageous nature had been fun. Perhaps in my next life I can meet someone just a bit more challenging than Melody, that's what I want. Someone that will really keep me on my toes.

I realised that I had been thinking a lot about my death recently, probably because I knew it was coming. I could feel it creeping up on me.

We went to bed that night, it made me happy hugging Melody. Hearing her rapid heartbeat as I held her never got old. She was like a frightened rabbit.

I felt energised for some reason, yet tired at the same time. My hands were also trembling more than usual, it made me realise, tonight was the night. My body was going to give out and I would die of old age, truly a successful life for a serial killer like myself.

Never caught, never even suspected, yet I had decades of blood on my hands.

"It's been fun Melody, truly. I don't know what you'll do after this, but it better not be something boring."

I felt her heart beat go faster and I glanced down to see a twisted expression of excitement on her face. It seemed she had been waiting for this moment. Well, I honestly didn't blame her, if I was in her position I would have waited with bated breath, counting down the days.

"Goodbye Daniel" she said, it sounded more like "good riddance".

I smiled slightly and hugged her in my arms, "Goodnight sweetheart, hopefully see you in hell."

With that I closed my eyes and began my final sleep.

Or what was supposed to be my final sleep, but the next second I was crying out uncontrollably and there was a bright light in my face and a bunch of giant strangers huddled around me.

One of the strangers, dressed in a Surgeon's overalls, held me while another used some scissors to cut off my umbilical cord. I looked below to see where the umbilical cord had been connected and I saw a bloody mess on the operating table. The woman was obviously dead.

Before I could get a better look at her I was taken to an incubator and hooked up to several fluids and an oxygen mask.

Just then a man burst through the door. I faintly heard a Doctor saying in Korean, "I'm sorry Mr. Kang, she didn't make it, but the child survived."

A man came up to my incubator he was quite handsome and young, he had clear bright brown-blackish eyes, smooth skin, a high nose bridge and silky black hair, possibly in his mid-20s. He was wearing a suit that was ruffled and unkempt. He was panting and sweating like he had just ran a marathon.

He glanced in the direction of the operating table and then at me. His eyes filled with tears and he began to cry but quickly as he stared at me more, his eyes filled with growing hatred and anger. He gritted his teeth and turned away from me and went to the side of the dead woman on the operating table. He grabbed her cold hand and yelled "Soo-Ah! Soo-Ah no you can't do this to me!"

"I'm sorry Sir", said one of the Doctors "Let us clean her up a bit and take her to the mortuary, I'm sorry but you can't be here right now."

"My brother owns this goddamn hospital and you're saying I can't be here!" His shout was loud and angry.

I didn't get to hear the rest of the fight between the Doctor and Mr. Kang because one of the midwives had rolled my incubator out of the operating theatre and into a ward filled with other small babies in incubators.

She put a label around my small foot labelled Kang and smiled at me sweetly before leaving.

All I could do was stare in shock. It took me a good minute to realise I had been reincarnated. How bizarre, what about hell then? Where was the torture, fire and brimstone, I'd been looking forward to it. Or had I gone through it all and simply didn't remember, and why were the memories of my past life still intact?

Since I had generated so much bad karma in my last life I had always thought that if reincarnation existed, then I'd come back to life as some bug, yet here I was, a living breathing human.

Goes to show life really isn't fair, even the afterlife. Even evil people get second chances, how awful.

I felt a slight disappointment, but excitement also raged through. Yet another opportunity to have a lot more fun.

Daniel Slade an unknown serial killer has come back to the world for a new round.