Isaac Miller
Was I a bad person? No, I don't think so.
In fact, I thought I was a very good and well-behaved person.
Many people can say that, of course, when in fact they are terrible people or neutral at best. As my church pastor used to say, a great man by the way, or at least as far as I know.
'Most people just aren't bad, which doesn't mean they're good. Nobody wants to be the villain in their own story, after all. But God will see more than that on judgment day.'
'How many times, for example, have you stopped doing what you love to help someone? How many times have you gone out of your way to help a poor soul? How many times have you gone hungry to give your miserable brother something to eat?
'It's easy to help when you're well, but what about when you're poor? Remember, whether or not you know the sufferers, the sick and the beggars, they are your brothers too.'
A great man indeed, of course, until he was caught liking the faithful and children more than he should. Of course, that last part I tend to ignore at the moment. Not least because he must be dead by now.
They all must be.
It took some months of planning to design an unfair game, a game that of course ended many lives and undermined the order of an entire region. Unfortunately, if big shots disappear it would cause a lot of problems, but people will eventually get back on their feet.
They are not that important after all. They are just images that people give power to.
And my region, the one I wanted to destroy, was too small for their luck. Otherwise the damage would be greater.
I feel like I could end the entire world with my rage.
Yes, I could.
I don't need to see it to know, I know the police and their rigid procedures. I know how it's going to start, I know how it's going to end. I know every step they'll take, desperate to solve a problem that has no solution.
Even if some protocols are broken in an emergency situation it will still take some time and in the end the only thing they will think about is torturing me.
And as I said.They tried to get more out of me, but unfortunately they couldn't and now I was sitting here in a cell wondering what the outcome would be.
I had many truly good attitudes throughout my life, I was a good Christian, recognized by everyone.
I understood how David felt, living doing good all the time with an earthly paradise guaranteed and a heavenly one waiting. And in the end I threw it all away...
Did I regret it? No, certainly not.
There is no paradise for me without them.
Life is only worth something as long as you value it, there's no point in being alive after that.
A loud noise from the steel door opening caught my attention, some policeman had snuck up on me without me realizing it, lost in my delusions.
"How many days has it been? Three or four?" I asked him, provoking. The look on his face was one of complete disgust.
"Ten days have passed, I hope you've enjoyed your solitary confinement." I nodded at him vigorously. "Yeah, yeah, of course. Man, time passes quickly when you're having fun, I've even lost track of the days."
"You talk too much, for a pig, get up,we'll go for a walk. There's an old friend of yours who's literally dying to see you." I laughed at the mention. "Ohhhh I miss him, our little bad cop wants to see me again? It's so sweet of him to invite me."
"I've never had anyone so interested in meeting me before. Actually, I even had a girl just like that once, but damn, I'm not really into BDSM."
His face contorted with every word I said. it was cute at first,they thought it was going to be an easy job and now they were somber and hopeless.
He had a lot to learn from me about torture.
Mine screamed a lot and here I am still smiling and very happy.
He didn't answer me, though, pulling me out of the room. My eyes hurt when I saw the light for the first time in a few days.
I didn't have a mirror with me, but I could imagine how disheveled I looked at that moment. I could also imagine how the media would explain the incident.
But I had a small doubt: how much do they know? I mean, I made a bit of a mess… I wonder if anyone would have the courage to tell them.
Have they blamed some terrorist group for the burning buildings? I mean, it's not my fault if some of my targets are workaholics. I did my best to limit the damage and not hurt anyone else outside of my list.
I tried my best to narrow down my targets, but there were too many...a few dozen died within a few hours.
Strangely, he led me down an empty path, the corridor was gloomy with not a soul in sight. Maybe it's their turn for revenge, I imagined some corrupt cop would kill me off camera.
I had already done everything I wanted.
I lived a worthwhile life.
Even if the end was abrupt, It was worth it.
All I had to do now was accept it, this is my end.
What I did was a crime and deserved to be judged.
However, we soon left through an unknown back door. A car was waiting for us, a car that didn't belong to the local police. Apparently there was something more to talk about.
We walked along a sidewalk full of puddles, evidence that it had rained recently. The clouds were also dark, as if mourning the disaster on land.
I smiled at that.
It was euphoric.
I felt like I had done something that no one else could have done.
The policeman was not gentle, forcing my head to get into the car at once.
The car was wide and glossy black. It looked like a beautiful mafia car and, as I could quickly see, the driver was certainly a hired hand.
The real owner of the car was next to me in the back seat, he had very pale, slightly greenish skin full of wrinkles and marks. His hair had recently fallen out, evidenced by how it looked like someone had plucked clumps straight out of it.
The old man was very shabby and worn out.
His cough was dry and sickly.
When he saw me his face was dark but first he had taken some medication, one of which looked like a tranquilizer, which I had also taken in the past, and the other I could identify as something more atypical.
I had some knowledge of pharmacology and chemistry.
After that, he took out an ordinary cough drop and started sucking on it.
"Do you remember me? Do you recognize me?" He spoke in a voice that scratched my ears, the sound not pleasant at all.
"Sorry, no, I have no idea who you are." He clucked his tongue even angrier than at first, but soon softened his expression.
"I admire your patience..." He snorted at the satirical mention.
"Don't mention it, my doctor said that if I got angry I'd have a heart attack and I had to avoid that as much as possible. " His eyes then refocused on me, his dark circles looking deeper than at first.
"Not to mention that a little piece of shit like you doesn't deserve my anger. There are plenty of others who want to tear you apart like rabid dogs, that's what they've become after this mess."
"And I'm going to hand you over to them."
sitting in the car seat, I waited patiently, not knowing what they hoped to get out of me.
I doubted they would be satisfied after losing so much.
After some time in reflective silence, he spoke to me again.
"I'm the father of one of the boys you..." He looked away, staring at the floor with painful tears. "I was a father... my son hurt you and you did what you did, I was the one who got him out and who got you to start this."
"oh my, yes. You are the one, and now we all lose, don't we?"A bell went off in my head, I knew who it was. One of the targets, this one was kept alive on purpose, his fate was a little different from the others.
poison? mercury? a virus?I still have some needles with HIV… But… Well…
I don't remember how I did it. but his illness is my doing, after all.
"I'm as guilty of this as you are and I'll pay for my crimes later, not like you, of course. Abuse of power and authority are lighter crimes even in the worst possible scenario.They probably will only remember the poor management of the crisis." I nodded to him.
"I know, that's why I chose to intoxicate you. You can live long and enjoy the pain that will come and the guilt as well. You've aged a lot in the last few days and you'll soon be as wrinkled as a raisin."
He sighed, the medical report wasn't optimistic for him. And that was how it had to be.
"I hope you're as cocky afterwards too. They'll love it that way."
"Don't worry, people have been really liking me lately.Who knows, maybe I'm in my popular phase." The conversation went cold. The streets passed silently by me.
This city was beautiful on sunny days, my sister and I played in a park near here with some catarrhous children. She was small but very irritable and often ended up making a fuss, which I sorted out.
Nearby was the school I went to, where I met my fiancée. At first she thought I was amazing until she saw how clumsy I was. She was constantly surprised by this.
We should marry in a few months.
We should already be married.
Many of the stores, restaurants and cafés I used to go to were closed. Memories both good and bad tried to surface, but I suppressed them. I shouldn't cling to the past.
It is already gone.
It required some level of coolness to plan and execute everything, learning to ignore one's own pain and embrace the pain of others was a necessity.
And as such I looked again at my victim and began to wonder how the others were doing. I was due to meet some of them later.
When I realized that the car had stopped, we were in front of a large mansion. The golden gates and glamorous gardens caught the eye of any pedestrian, not that anyone would pass by.
An isolated location was perfect for any crime. Both for me, who had been here before, and for them, who wanted to see me again.
"Lovely little place, isn't it? I was even sorry to put a bomb in it..." I giggled again.