Thomas flipped to the sports channel. His game had already started.
The game was a good one. Sadly, however, Texas lost. Thomas would have to hang his head on a good performance. But it was still early in the season. Texas still had a good shot at making the Tournament in March.
As the commentators on TV recapped the game Thomas could feel his eyes getting heavy. He made his way to his bedroom. He brushed his teeth and climbed into bed. A few moments later sleep overtook him.
He woke in the middle of the night. As he awoke he realized that something was not quite right. He saw that the lights were on. That was strange. He knew he had turned the lights off. He looked to the lamp on his nightstand.
That’s when he noticed the little girl standing by his bed. It was the same little girl he had seen earlier who had been drawing on the sidewalk. She was still wearing her yellow dress with the red flowers.
How had this child gotten into his room? he wondered. Thomas sat up in bed. He was about to ask the little girl what she was doing in his house when the little girl put her finger to her mouth. She was gesturing for him to be silent.
Then she raised her other hand. What she was holding gave Thomas a chill. The little girl was holding a scalpel. For a moment, Thomas’ mind spun to the news story he had seen earlier. The doctor who had been killed was a surgeon. Thomas realized in an instant that the red spots on the little girl’s yellow dress were not flowers. They were blood stains.
Thomas was about to leap out of his bed when suddenly the scalpel shot forward. The little girl drove it into his jugular artery with proficiency and speed. It was a small cut. However, it was a precise cut. It was a lethal cut. She severed the artery and withdrew the scalpel. Thomas’ hand shot up to try to stop the flow of blood that was pouring out of his neck. He was trying to stop the life that was flowing away from him. He fell back onto the bed.
From some faraway place he noted that the little girl was giggling. She slowly climbed on top of him. She sat on his stomach and stared down at him. Thomas was about to lunge forward to get her off. He needed to act quickly because he was losing his strength very fast. That's when he saw the girl produce another scalpel in her hand other. Thomas realized his life was over.
The little girl continued to smile. She seemed to be savoring the moment. Then, with the enthusiasm that only a child at play can have and the precision of a brilliant artist, she started to slash into him with the scalpels. She made several incisions into his neck and chest. She first started with punctures. Then she moved on to slashes. For Thomas there was pain. However, there was no greater pain than the knowledge that his life was over.
Thomas did not know what he looked like in these final moments, but he could see that the little girls yellow dress had more blood stains on it.
The little girl leaned over and gently lay the scalpels on the night stand beside the bed. She put her finger to her mouth again. “Shhhh,” she was saying. She smiled brightly and rested her chin in her hands. She watched Thomas die. She watched him bleed out like a child might watch their favorite cartoon. But this was no cartoon. She was instead watching a life that was passing.
The child’s smile was the last thing that Thomas ever saw.
When the life left the man’s eyes the little girl frowned a bit. Watching the man die had been so much more enjoyable then his actual death.
From behind the girl Belili stepped from the shadows.
“You have done well my child,” she said.
She approached the girl who was still sitting on the dead man’s chest. She ran her fingers through the girl’s hair. Together they stared at the dead man.
A few moments later the room filled with a thick grey fog. When it receded the little girl and the old woman were gone.
***
The Philosophical Principles of Death. The Scripture of Farinata Uaegli Abertio.
Gospel 000610
Throughout infinity there is no principle criteria through which to judge what is good and what is evil. There are varying degrees of things but it is ultimately a society that defines how something is measured.
Society defines where actions fall upon a spectrum and that spectrum can vary due to circumstance.
Murder is evil. However, in a time of chaos murder can become casual. It can become casual by necessity.
When a solider takes a life on the battlefield we do not call it murder. That same action taken in a time of peace is a crime.
One action is called duty. One action is called murder. One killer gets a parade. The other gets prison. The circumstances surrounding the act define if society will label the action as good or evil.
Therefore, we cannot define a value for true evil.
A society defines the spectrum of morality. A society…
Verse Eight: The Dark Prodigies
Daniel was a God. Only a God could accomplish the things that he had accomplished. Only a God could erase all that was.
Daniel knew he was not like others his whole life. In school, he saw things differently than his class mates. When Daniel was nine years old he came across one of his brother’s college text books. It was a book about understanding human behavior.
The book was full of pictures. These pictures fascinated Daniel. When Daniel’s brother went back to college to finish the semester Daniel hid the book so he could keep it.
He read the book cover to cover several times. The pictures of the book related to human perception and how different minds comprehend the same image differently. The book also discussed how people perceived themselves. It gave tell-tale signs that people sometimes give to indicate what they are thinking. At a young age Daniel realized that once you understood these things people became easy to manipulate.
After that Daniel moved through his life using the insights he had gained from the book and built upon them. He learned to manipulate others. He did this with classmates and friends. It was all a game to him. Over time he realized at some point that he liked to see others suffer. Daniel felt there was no greater power then seeing others kneel. He found it fascinating how if you pushed the right button you could completely break a person.
Eventually the interest in manipulating people drove Daniel into learning about politics. Not only did it allow one to manipulate people on a large scale but it was also the key to true power. In politics was the power to control and destroy people.
In high school Daniel participated in school elections. He ran for student government positions in college. He didn’t always win but he learned much along the way. At the age of thirty-four he became a congressman. Three years later he was in the Senate. He was the youngest Senator ever elected. He was seen as a smart man with a bright future.
His name became known throughout the country and at the age of forty-two Daniel made his play for the ultimate seat of power. Daniel ran for President.
He won. In retrospect Daniel was surprised at how easy it had all been to achieve. But what was the point of power if you could not wield it with great force? Daniel still liked to see people suffer through his actions. Now with unlimited power he could induce great suffering on the masses.
In truth he could not do this on his own. Luckily for Daniel he was aided in this. He found pitifully willing individuals who would help him in making others suffer. They would help him for the smallest favor or morsel from his table of strength.
Circumstances also aided Daniel. A wave of religious fanaticism was sweeping the nations. There were many acts of terrorism and violence. He used these things to play unto the fears of his countries citizens. They willingly acquiesced to his demands.
With these powers Daniel created camps to house those his supporters found the most undesirable. Even Daniel was amazed that no one tried to stop the actions he was taking. No one that mattered at least.
In Daniel’s mind he was a king and everyone else was beneath him. They were only there to lick his boots when he felt the need to have them do so. Others were less then him and
unimportant. They did not think like him. He understood their minds better than they did and he knew in their hearts was darkness. It was this darkness that allowed them to be so easily manipulated. It was this darkness that he focused on. He focused on their fears and prejudices. Using these things he gained control of them. Sometimes a person can sell you their soul without even realizing it and they sold their souls so cheaply.
First, these people who he manipulated became his followers. Then they became his disciples. Not long after that they became his soldiers. Daniel started one war and then another.
Any who spoke out about the things Daniel was doing was labeled a threat to the moral of the country and put into one of Daniel’s camps.
Daniel always kept a close eye on his camps. They gave him great joy. He liked putting innocent people in his camps the most. Only a God can punish the innocent and call it justice.
Through his manipulation he had himself declared President Vitae. Vitae was the Latin word meaning “for life.”
Now Daniel was an old man. He knew he had not much life ahead of him. Today he was completing the final step in his grand vision. He was going to burn the world away. Only those that loved him the most would remain.
Daniel was locked inside a specially constructed bunker that was designed just for him and a select few of his most loyal followers. He thought of them as his blessed few.
However, for his greatest moment, Daniel was alone. He wanted to be alone as he completed his destiny. He was sitting in a conference room in his bunker. A very special suitcase was open on the table before him.
A decade ago Daniel had made changes to his country’s nuclear arsenal in preparation for this very moment. Daniel automated it all. Now as he sat looking at his suitcase he knew he could push a button and the world would disappear. Billions would burn.
Even Daniel could not help but feel awe at the greatness of this moment. He entered his nuclear codes into the keypad inside the computer that was in his suitcase. His codes authenticated and a lid covering a button popped open.
Daniel took a deep breath. This was his moment, he told himself.
As his finger hovered over the button to end the world he thought that after the nuclear winter that was to come, perhaps he would create the world again to destroy it again.
Daniel pushed the button. Within seconds silo hatches all over the country started opening. A few seconds later missiles were in the air.
On the wall in front of Daniel was a large screen showing a map of the world. Suddenly Daniel felt a pang of sadness. For a few seconds he regretted that he had not allowed anyone to share this great moment with him. But he knew there was no one who could really understand his achievement. Even his most fervent follower might have had just a moment of doubt and he would not risk them interfering with the perfection of what he was doing. It was brilliant and beautiful this thing he had constructed. He was ending all of civilization.
On the screen in front of him white circles began to plume indicating target strikes. Daniel heard a voice behind him.
“It is magnificent.”
Daniel turned in his chair. He was taken by surprise. He was supposed to be alone. He posted guards outside his door while he completed his destiny. However, now the room behind him was filled with shadows and smoke. He saw a little girl staring at him. She pointed to the screen which was flashing with more missile strikes and she giggled.
“We admire you. We admire this beautiful thing you have done,” the voice said. At that moment, a figure stepped from the shadows. It was an old woman who wore thick glasses.
The old woman walked past him and stood before the screen that was displaying the impacts of the missiles. Each plume represented hundreds of thousands of men and women instantly dead.
“Beautiful,” the old woman said again. Then she turned to him. “We have waited years for this. We have watched you. We did not want to interfere too early. We did not want to take away this greatness. You have done…a good thing. So, we waited patiently to let you fulfill your legacy. Now you have…and now we are here for our harvest. You have something we want.”
“Get out!” Daniel screamed. He stood up to get his security. Suddenly he felt a sharp pain in his lower back. He turned to see what it was. The little girl was standing beside him. She was still smiling and in her other hand Daniel saw the large syringe she had just injected him with.
The old woman began speaking again. “You have a key and we shall take it from you. But know we do not do this out of spite. We do this out of admiration and to some degree we do this out of love. We love you for the death you create. You are…an artist.”
Daniel’s muscles had no strength. He fell to the floor. The old woman approached and she knelt behind him. Daniel felt pain. He knew the woman was cutting. She was cutting into his scalp. She was cutting into his mind.
It hurt a great deal. Whatever the little girl had injected in him had made him lose control of his muscles but not made him lose his sense of pain.
Daniel’s eyes caught the screen on the wall. He saw more indicators of missiles landing. Despite the pain…despite the horror as they removed a section of his brain, Daniel felt one last emotion as he watched the screen. He felt joy. He had completed his grand mission. He had burnt it all away.
He thought this. Then he thought no more. At least not in the current body that resided in the bunker.
***
Steven liked to watch. He liked to observe the world around him. There was much beauty in the world. There was beauty in each moment. Steven had a great eye for detail. He had a great mind for it. His mind recorded things in minute detail. He could see detail with great precision in his mind. He could almost see the relationships of details from a mathematical perspective. He tried to explain this to others but they never wanted to hear that.
Part of the reason they didn’t want to hear this was because Steven was an artist. He was a great one and people who followed his work did not like hearing words like precision and mathematical. They wanted words like inspired or aesthetic. The one word he could agree with them on was the word beauty. He understood the world to be a place of beauty and when he painted others saw the beauty he saw.
In the end however, it all had to do with his love of detail. He could see an image and just remember it. To Steven it was as if every second his mind took a photograph. Sometimes he would stare off into space and recall a previous moment. He would see the image of it perfectly. He would trace every line in his mind. He would sometimes take those lines and clip them or reverse them. In his mind, he could rearrange shapes from details in the past. This also gave him an idea of how things could unfold in the future.
Steven came from a good home. His parents supported his art in his younger days. However, they didn't understand his passion and love for observation.
Over time Steven realized he loved passive observation most. He liked to be a watcher outside of an event and to see how things unfolded.
When he was seventeen he started to pursue his love of observation more and more. He would go to his local mall and sit at the food court. He liked to watch all the people around him. Often times they were oblivious to the fact that they were being watched. They had their conversations. They had their laughs. They had thoughtful looks on their faces as they shopped alone. This was the world. It was in motion, oblivious to those who might be observing.
After a while Steven started to take his interest in observing a bit further. He would focus instead on individuals. He would follow them as they shopped. He like to follow beautiful girls. He liked to watch them as they moved around the mall. In the beginning, he was not very good at the following. He was seen at times. Sometimes a girl noted that she was being watched. When this happened, the game was lost. Once observed he was now part of their world. He preferred to stay out of that world as long as possible.
From each mistake, he learned. From each mistake, he became better at his task. He learned little tricks to following.
He learned how to always stay out of a person’s line of sight. Eventually the girls he followed stopped noticing him.
Steven began doing little things to aid himself in his following. Sometimes he would carry a jacket with him. After a while the simple act of taking the jacket off made him seem different. Sometimes he carried a baseball cap in his jacket. To someone who was not paying close attention the moment he put it on he was a different person. He loved to watch from his peripherals as the eyes of the girls he followed passed over him and made no notice of familiarity. It was a fascinating game and Steven became very good at it.
By the time he began regularly selling his work in art museums, he was taking his game of watching a step further. He started following girls to their homes. He would go to their homes and observe them. He liked watching them through their windows.
One day Steven decided he wanted to slip inside a girl’s home. He watched the girl’s house for days. He also studied different ways to enter a house. There was much information out there if one knew where to look and no one had ever accused Steven of not being intelligent.
After two weeks Steven built up the courage to take the next step. He entered the house of the girl he had followed. He crept through a window he knew she sometimes forgot to lock. He entered her world.
He sat in her dark living room and he imagined what her days were like when he didn’t watch her. He wondered about this house that was oblivious to his existence until he decided to step inside it. These walls existed. The pictures in this place existed. This television had sat where it was. But it had existed without him. It was a strange thought for Steven that things exist without him. On some level, he knew this. But in quiet observation it became real in a way he had never before understood.
Prisons of Stolen Dreams Page 13