Alex. Day Eight - 1:27

He's asleep, his eyelids flickering slightly as the moonlight streams in through the blinds in slightly wonkily shaped quadrilaterals. He looks beautiful with his stupidly long eyelashes and overly bushy eyebrows furrowing every so often as he dreamed, relishing sleep far too much to allow me to feel anywhere near comfortable and anything but guilty. Guilty that I had reduced his basis human rights to the level that sleeping on a sofa brought him this much joy. It was rather eye-opening and intriguing; human emotions always were fascinating, mainly because there's nothing quite like them, not in the whole universe, nothing. Humans are unique and bizarre, but I couldn't focus anymore, I couldn't be intrigued anymore, I couldn't be fascinated anymore - all I could be was guilty. Terribly, sickeningly, guilty.

Guilty is an emotion.

Guilty is far too human.

I can't feel guilty; I want to be clever- no, I need to be clever. I can't be human; there's a strict divide between prey and predator and there's a very well-engineered reason why, but with that divide broken? Humans hunting humans? Now that was madness; a real mess indeed, maybe even the highest form of insanity.

But I wasn't insane, I couldn't be insane - I was just clever, cleverer than all of them, they just weren't clever enough to recognise the gems of genius that lay wait within my brain matter.

If I wasn't clever, the world would have caught up to me by now and I'd be locked away with several life sentences, and I can't allow that to happen now. I couldn't imagine spending the rest of my life in a cell, away from my gun, away from my home, away from blood, guts and adrenaline, away from Jack-

No. Jack is irrelevant; that, in fact, is a lie, because Jack is the problem. Jack is the emotions, Jack's what's causing me to feel them; Jack's making me ill, Jack's making me sick, Jack's trying to kill me.

I have to kill him first. The hunter won't be hunted-

But, no, no - I can't-

No, I have to; he's just making me think I can't and that's precisely why I have to get rid of him. I don't know what it is, but he's truly brought out everything I despise in myself; everything hurts. Is this how everyone else feels all the time? Suddenly suicide victims don't seem quite so pathetic. The screams as they fade in and out of consciousness don't seem so ridiculous, the desperate scratches of fingernails against coffins don't seem so tireless, and I start to feel sick. It's not just last night's dinner, it's the guilt; it's always the guilt. Everything is the guilt now; I live in a guilty world full of guilty people with guilty actions.

I can't cope with this, I can't live in this world; the emotions are strong, the emotions are wild, the emotions are guilty, the emotions are selfish, the emotions are angry, the emotions are burning like a forest fire inside my heart- but I'm not going to kill myself.

My goal here is self-preservation, and in fact keeping Jack alive is practically suicidal; Jack's quite clearly the problem, the fire from his burning heart is far too quickly spreading into mine, and it hurts, it aches, it burns, it hurts like hell, I want to scream, but the smoke's already hit my lungs, choking my windpipe until I can no longer make a sound, just stupid, pathetic whimpers.

I need to put out the fire, I need to get rid of the source - I need to get rid of Jack, I need to kill him, I need to fix this Jack shaped problem, because Jack is horribly blatantly a toxic poison, the corruption, my Achilles' heel here. I just can't rectify that, just not yet, not now - I need to get rid of these stupid thoughts first, these stupid feelings, I need to detach myself from him, because you can't kill a man you're in love with - that's another stretch into insanity.

I've made myself sick with feeling- no, maybe, just perhaps, I've even made myself insane; horribly and brutally insane.

And then I did something rather stupid, but rather necessary and necessity truly is a troubling thing, because the overwhelming desire to want something- no, not just to want something, but to truly need it, is horribly chaotic and even less controllable. It's also human - this forest fire has necessity, this forest fire needs to devour me, maybe even without motive, without reason, but motive was another human thing, so maybe it had a motive, a terrible motive in fact - one that'd send shivers down my spine and shatter my bones if I lived long enough to find out what it was.

The medicine cabinet didn't even have a lock on it, so my mildly intoxicated fingers didn't have to fumble for ages to get it open. Intoxication was yet another human trait, but I'd missed the smell of alcohol and the burning sensation that came as it slithered down your throat, slowing claiming every cell in that godforsaken human body.

They just sat there in their masses. Little bottles and boxes all with labels and instructions. I knew a lot about drugs; they were a useful asset in kidnapping someone, but I'd never before even considered the effects they took upon the person, especially in overdose - I usually gave them too much, just to be sure, and I never cared what happened: if they passed out, it was an asset; if they began screaming the house down, then I'd thank the soundproof walls and gag them simply to save my own ears; if they choked violently then the job was already done, the fun revoked of me, the fun of watching them squirm, but I could still entertain myself with bodies, because bodies were always so much more eager to comply.

So when I was faced with hundreds of differently coloured little pills, not sure which one to choose, how many to take and what effect they'll have, I just chose the red ones.

Red was my favourite colour; it reminded me of blood, it reminded me of death, it reminded me of gore and everything unholy, everything inhumane, everything their little brains despised to be, and everything my clever, if not a little insane, one yearned for.

The bottle just sat in my hand for far too long; long enough to make me feel like an absolute coward.

I didn't know how many to take. I hadn't a clue - I usually just gave them pills until they stopped struggling, however many that took, and the side effects, the consequences were disregarded with a bat of an eyelash.

I took six pills.

Six was my lucky number: Jack was my seventh victim; Jack had ruined it all, I wanted to go back to that party and leave with someone else, someone less perfect, someone less important, less clever, with less of a raging forest fire.

I swallowed them together, all six at once and then my breathing began to increase; heavy and shaky, my heartbeats were far too irregular and my anxious listening for them only made them less frequent, or maybe my perspective of time was just askew - I wasn't sure. I wasn't at all sure anymore; in fact, I think maybe the pills had numbed my mind as well - I think they'd numbed it all, because I couldn't think, I could feel, but I couldn't feel anything, I couldn't think anything. It was just empty - a gaping hole where my heart was.

My head was pounding and I fell back against the kitchen cabinet; my head feeling more like a heavy boulder attached to a fragile spine than a skull containing my operating system. My eyelids flickered shut for a few seconds as it went black, and I woke up as my head collided with the cupboard. Crockery smashed against the marble flooring, but I didn't care, I couldn't even comprehend caring; all was gone, except panic.

Panic was there, panic was strong until the very end.

I panicked when I couldn't keep my eyes open; the blackness pulling me in, slowly at first and then all at once, tugging my life support at a sickening rate.

I panicked further when I couldn't remember being sick a few seconds after; the memories only flooding back to me as my eyes fixated upon the sickly yellow pureed mess polluting the marble flooring.

I panicked even further when I finally looked at the bottle and figured out exactly what I had taken - Mexiletine. 1200mgs of it, in fact.

I panicked as I began to wonder if any of me would even survive this at all, or whether I just dissolve into the marble flooring and become part of the house itself.

And then, I couldn't panic as I just collapsed against the marble, my skull probably shattering in the process, but if it got rid of these emotions then it'd be worth it.

I panicked when the last thought crossed my mind; a thought of Jack. A thought of when he'd find me, a thought of when the pills-

Nothing.

-

Jack. Day Eight - 8:56

I was delighted to see I had gotten up a relatively decent time today, my eyes flickering open and alert within instants, fixating upon the clock that hung on the wall of Alex's living room. It was still weird to wake up here; it was even weirder to constantly find myself waking up alive.

That delight however, soon turned into disappoint as I realised I'd woken up without Alex. In fact, Alex wasn't even in the room. I panicked as I came to realise that he might not even be in the house, but what was he doing? He was most likely taking advantage of the fact that he thought I wouldn't have woken up by now and that only lead my curiosity to question as to what exactly he was doing right now. Fuck, he could even be planning my death, getting the murder weapon, loading the gun, sharpening the knife and getting ready to pounce- no, I was just overreacting again.

No, no, no. No, in fact I was overreacting at all, and it's just sickening that the painful fact that Alex is in fact a murderer, a cold blooded murder, could escape my mind so easily, so regularly in fact.

This led me to soon find myself stumbling off the sofa, knocking over a vase and at first not bothering to pick up back up, but doing a double take and realising that this was Alex's house, Alex's vase, Alex's gun and picked the thing back up, placing it back down as precisely as I could, before pulling my shirt back on and wandering out into the corridor.

The whole house smelled weird in fact, it smelled vague, vaguely of nothingness, like nothing important was here; it didn't smell of Alex. It smelt of hospital, it smelt of disease, it smelt of hygiene and rubber gloves and anaesthetic and heart rate monitors and white.

I proceeded to get more than lost in Alex's colossal mess of a house, my panic and worry growing with every door I opened to find Alex not inside. I was rather surprised at how many doors he'd left unlocked, and even more shocked at the things that lay inside; I'd seen a room with a torture rack, an electric chair, a shooting range, a massive freezer that contained things I didn't want to remember, and what looked like, well, a sex dungeon.

Why he had left these doors open, I couldn't quite comprehend: if the police or someone walked in here, well, he'd be more than screwed, but then I remembered he was Alex and I bet the police weren't even aware that he existed, heck, maybe even the census data wasn't. Alex would have taken great pleasure and care in making himself invisible, because no one would question the witty guy with the cute smile. Alex really had everyone in the world working for him without them even realising it and if that wasn't terrifying then I don't know what is.

Alex isn't just a psychopath, he's a brilliant one, but the doors; the doors were an anomaly.

It was just oddly careless, despite his charm.

And careless was more than odd for Alex.

This caused me to suspect that something was seriously wrong. Had he run away because someone legal or the polar opposite was after him? And should I be legging it too? I doubted that the front door would be unlocked though and I didn't expect Alex, who kidnapped people, just to leave a spare key under a plant or something fucking stupid like that. But considering what I'd just seen, I really didn't know what to expect. There was nothing to be expected, nothing to be guessed when it came to Alex, not really, not ever, not at all.

"Escaping, are we, Jacky?" Quite the contrary in fact. He tapped me on the shoulder and I spun around to see the smirking face of Alex Gaskarth looking down at me. He didn't seem particularly disappointed, more of just amused. I didn't bother to answer, because he wouldn't believe me regardless, so I just decided to be risky, clever and strike him with a question he wouldn't want me to be able to ask. I was in a risky mood; I think maybe the hospital smell was messing with my head. The hospital smell confused me, and I couldn't quite settle it on the answer that Alex had been doing some cleaning, because really, did he look like the housewife type to you?

"Why are all the doors open?" He just looked at me, rather blankly, sort of scared, but not really, maybe empty was a better word, because Alex wasn't scared, he wasn't scared of anything, maybe not even death itself. "It just seems odd; I mean surely you would have a little more security-"

"Are you disappointed?" His face was engulfed by a devilish smirk. "Did my security measures not live up to your expectations? Was this all too," he paused for a moment, "boring? Yes, was this all too boring for you, Jacky? Should I, hmm..." he edged closer to me, putting his index finger underneath my chin and pulling my head up. His eyes worked on dissecting me remotely as he continued, "should I step up my game, Jacky? Would that suffice? Would you be entertained?" He let out a disturbing chuckle, and I felt a sickening shiver run through my veins, because Alex did scare me, maybe just more than I'd cared to remember.

"Not disappointed, just confused." I ignored his power games, trying to make me scared had become a rather boring game and that devilish glare had long lost its stigma. "I asked a question - why are all the doors open?"

He chuckled again; that chuckle unnerved me seriously and that was precisely why he kept using it, because I didn't even need to tell him - Alex just knew things like that. "Because I don't usually let people out of the room." His tone faded throughout the sentence. He looked like he'd been struck by something and quickly attempted to snap out of it, but it wasn't working - whatever it was, it was something he couldn't ignore, and that meant it surely had to be important, because nothing phased Alex, not really, not at all.

"Oh." I stopped trying to be clever when he did: it was Alex's job to win, and I'd finally learnt that by now, I think maybe that was what kept me alive, but it was Alex's decision, so really, I didn't have a clue why I was still breathing, I wondered if even Alex did. Maybe I was just an anomaly. 

It was then I noticed the dark circles under his eyes and the pale skin, the dead expression and the drowsy stumble. I narrowed my eyes; he usually looked pristine, immaculate, menacing, the devil in a suit and tie. This was the second concerning event today, if you count the hospital smell then the third.

"Are you okay?" He narrowed his eyes at me, probably assessing my appearance in an awfully similar manner. "You don't look okay-"

"I'm fine." He snapped back at me like an attention seeking white girl.

"You look a mess, like you haven't sleep, like you're hung over or something, but it's worse, fuck, you barely look alive-" The more I realised, the more I began to panic and I think from the look in his eyes, I think the more he did too, and I just stood there, looking at him, panicked, scared and overall terribly confused.

"I had something to drink last night, that's it. You wouldn't know how alcohol affects you, other than kidnapping that is, would you?" I bit my lip, memories of that first night coming back in their masses. He was terribly cruel, and he knew how to play with people's emotions to the extreme - I think that's what made him just so terribly dangerous.

"Oh." I let the silence linger for a little while. "You know you can always tell me- if there is anything, I mean."

He chuckled. "You don't believe me."

"Alex, I-"

"Hmm... Interesting." He grabbed me by the hand. "It's rather fascinating how you humans work really. You're fascinating, you are."

I shot him a confused, yet slightly concerned look. I didn't like it when he used the word 'humans' like he too didn't have a pulse, and a brain. I think it just strengthened the divide between us and I hated that so much.

"You blushed as soon as I touched your hand; I think that's interesting, because really I've fucked you, Jacky. Maybe you should stop being embarrassed around me-"

"No, you rap-"

"Gah, I don't care." He snapped at me. "Maybe you should just shut up and listen like a good little whore if you don't want it to happen again."

And with that, he was gone. He disappeared into the hospital smell, into the rooms with open doors and I was just left there, with nothing to cling to but the remainders of a sanity once lived.

I can't begin to let you know just what I'm feeling, and now the red ones make me fly and the blue ones help me fall. I think I'll blow my brains against the ceiling

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