It was cold, the sounds of people footsteps hitting the ground by their walking, running, or tapping, waiting for the train to come, or hurrying for the train to not leave. Instead of smelling the stench of crowded people in a close subway, I smelt the outdoors, me dreaming of laying down under a tree. A certain tree, it’s a fruit tree, but I couldn’t tell what fruit tree it was.

I suddenly opened my eyes, looked down at my feet crossed and my hands on a black leather bag. They were holding onto it tight, but I don’t remember what was in the bag. Actually, I don’t remember why I’m here, or how I got to this subway. It seemed like I just appeared here. Like I was stuck and couldn’t leave.

A word flashed on the left side of my eyesight corner, bright red, saying “Mission”.

I looked around to see if the word would go away if I moved my head, but it stayed in the left corner of my eyesight. My thoughts ran, ‘what is the mission?’, ‘what does it mean?’, ‘why am I here?’.

And then more words appeared, the words were getting typed out. It wrote, “Kill the guy in the gray suit, to the right of you.”

My eyes widened, I turned to the right of me, I didn’t see any guy, just an old man with an overcoat, knitting.

More words typed in my eye saying “Look up”.

I did as it was told, scanning my surroundings. Then I saw him, a guy with a gray suit, wearing leather dress shoes, on the phone. He looked like he was trying to calm someone down, with all the hand gestures he was making. He looked middle-aged, barely any facial hair, almond brown and his skin was pale, lighter than his gray suit. I couldn’t keep my eyes off him, something was stopping me from looking away, my hands tightened on the black leather bag. Then a voice for the calling of trains came on, it seemed to be too loud for him because he covered his ear and walked away.

More red words showed up, “Follow him.”

I got up quickly, my left hand holding on to the leather bag. I saw him go past some people, clearly not paying attention to where he was going because of how many times he bumped into others. However, I was still following him, watching his every move. He got onto the stairs and went up, still talking on the phone, with one finger in the other ear. He got onto the roof of a building, I hid by a door leading out to the roof.

Meanwhile, he was pacing back and forth, still on the phone. Not noticing that someone was looking at him. I looked down, I saw my hands open the black leather bag and pulled out a knife, it was long and sharp.

Three words appeared, “Finish the Mission”.

I don’t want this, I’m not a murder, I don’t know who he is’, but I can’t control my body getting closer to him. As he calmed down and stopped pacing, he looked out from the roof, not knowing I was coming up behind him. My left hand holding the knife lifted, about to stab him in the back. But I used my right hand to stop myself and shifted my body to turn around, that led to me bumping into him. He lost his balance, and fell off the roof. All I heard was the impact of the body hitting the ground and a phone breaking into pieces.

Two words showed up, but this time the words were light green, saying “Mission complete”

I rushed to the edge of the roof and I saw the tree, that I was dreaming about a while ago, the tree was down below. It was a peach tree, I remember the tree now, but I know there’s more to it. And then my eyes slid to a pool of blood and the guy on the ground with his phone right next to him. My heart started beating fast, I started to sweat and breathe in fast. I couldn’t think, everything happened so rapidly, I don’t know what’s going on.

So, so, I believe I fainted and lost control of my balance.  My body felt lighter than ever and then felt the cold hard ground on my face, and a red liquid filling up my eyes and then…

A beaming light shined on my eyes, as I opened them, blinking fast to make the bright light not blind me. I tried to cover my eyes with my hand, but I couldn’t, something was holding them in place, like a rubber robe. I moved my head to look down on my body and I saw that I was lying on a melted bed almost like a tray, my hands by my thighs and my feet tided up by leather, and I assumed my neck as well because I couldn’t lift my head.

My eyes shifted to the left, it was a dark and gloomy room, with little to no light, but that light above my head. I saw little with the darkness, but in the back there were shelves, bottles stacked onto each other, they looked like they had organs and body parts in them. There was one that had multiple eyes, and one that had two hearts in them, and another that had a lung packed into one jar. There were other shelves that had many books on them, the covers on some of them wrote out ‘human anatomy’ and ‘technology for replacement of human body parts’, and there were many books about programming and coding. Close to me, I see utensils that you would see in hospitals for surgeons to open up a body and do surgery on, but there also, jars that were opened. Some were emptied, they had green liquid in them that smelled like old rotten bodies.

I flinched, I heard a snorting sound coming from the right of me. My eyes moved to the right, I saw the other side of the room completely different with wires, and cords strung around on the wall and some attached to my arms and reaching all the way under my back. There were also tubes connected to needles in my left arm, pumping red and clear liquid into me. I moved my eyes to this huge desk filled with flat computers all around it. Some of the screen showed a whole body or body parts, others had words or 1 and 0 repeating.

In the circle of all the computers was a man, he was wearing a white long coat, like what doctors wore, but the coat was dirty and wrinkly. The back of his hair was messy and long, it seemed like it hadn't been cut for months. You could see a gray spot growing in the middle of his head, almost like a straight line. However, the rest of his hair was a light ginger, like a peach.

The man suddenly turned to me, his eyes dark green, but the white of his eyes were red. He had dark bags under his eyes, but I could barely see them because of how much hair was covering his face. I saw some facial hair growing in just patches on his face. He rubbed off the white powder from his nose, “You’re awake.” he spoke. He rolled his chair close to me. “I can tell because you are blinking” he paused for a moment, maybe waiting for me to speak, “Dead people don’t blink.” he started to laugh, hard, like it was the best joke of the century.

Then he rolled his chair again, moving right by my head. I could smell the stink of him, I could guess he hasn’t showered for weeks. I tried to look up to see what he was doing, but all I could hear was his laughter and the touch and the movement of a plastic bag of water or some liquid, and he flicked something over and over again, but I didn’t know what. He rolled his chair to my feet where another computer laid, he started tapping away, sometimes he would look at me and then went back to the computer. Every time he looks back at me, his face gets more worried and worried.

And then he shifted his whole body to my face, “Why aren’t you talking?” He looked back to the desk of computers, “It’s like I’m forgetting something.”

My eyes moved to where he was looking at, and I saw bunches of pink sticky notes on top of one computer. One wrote out ‘memory deleted again’, another wrote, ‘Tell her everything, however not at once’ and another had, ‘Voice box removed’. My thoughts started to flood with shook, and terror. I opened my mouth to try to speak, but nothing came out, I tried to yell, I started to move my body, shaking rapidly trying to get out of the bondage.

However, the man seemed to be unfazed, he just rolled back to his desk and started reading the sticky notes. I could see him nodding his head, like he was reading instructions. He turned around, and rolled his chair back to me, he leaned his head close to mine and smiled showing his gray teeth. He lifted his left hand to my head, I closed my eyes and tried to move myself away from him.

All I could feel is his hand rubbing on my head, like an owner would do to his puppy. He said, “You did well on your mission.”

I opened my eyes wide, I looked at him with recognition, ‘So it was him giving me the order.’ ‘Is this all him?’ ‘But the stick notes.’ I thought, wrapping my head around this, but all he did was smile at me with his teeth, barely blinking.

He shook his head a little, maybe to unfreeze himself, “Pushing the guy off the roof instead of stabbing him, was-was pretty smart, I got to tell you.” He rolled back to the computer by my legs and started to tap away again. “Like it seemed like suicide, so the cops will not be looking for someone responsible for his death, I wouldn’t have thought of that for another 10 years or so.” he chuckled. “But again you had to kill yourself afterward, why do you always do that at the end.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but I forgot I couldn’t. He just glanced at me and looked back at the computer.

“Don’t worry, I’ll give you back your voice eventually.” He smiled with his teeth again, and rolled his chair to my head, “I decided to remove it because you keep on telling your victims to run or to get away. Making it troublesome for you to kill them. You’re welcome for that.”

I wanted to tell him he was a ratchet, vile, terrible man, and the people that are working with him. All I could do was drop a tear from my eyes to my cheek, while I stared angrily at him. He smiled even bigger and wiped the tear off my cheek and turned around to his desk.

“Somehow, I can’t control what you can say yet.” he whispered under his breath. “Oh!” he said loudly, he turned around towards me, holding this little black box with 4 needles sticking out of it. “I totally forgot to give you this.” He came close to me, I tried to move away, “Don’t worry, the pain will make you pass out.”

He lifted the box to my head and stuck the four needles on the left side of me. The pain was excruciating, I was yelling, but nothing came out. He stuck the needles deep inside my brain, tears came crawling down my face. After a while everything became dizzy and fuzzy, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t feel, and I slowly closed my eyes. The last thing I saw was the man's creepy teeth smile and slightly heard from him, “Everything is going to be alright.”

A puddle of water splashed me when a car passed by, I was soaked, and deranged. I lifted my hand and touched the left side of my head. The pain was going away, but I could still feel something there. I put my hand down and looked at it and saw blood on my hand. I lifted my head, and saw I was surrounded by trees, and this one curvy road. I was pondering on what to do, wait for another car to come and ask for a ride, or walk my way to civilization.

The sun was nowhere to be seen before I got my message to walk through the woods. I couldn’t stop myself, my legs moved on their own, through the branches, stepping on twigs, and rocks. 2 hours later it was pitch black, I used my hands to navigate my way, touching what was in front and then moving my body through the darkness. ‘How much longer?’ I thought, a message popped through my head to keep going. After a while I saw nothing, but the dark, until I saw a glimpse of light. Every inch closer to it, the light started to get bigger and brighter. As I followed it, it turned into a house, a big one, almost like a castle in the middle of nowhere.

I finally reached the house, it was a four-story building, with a balcony on the second and third floor, and a swimming pool in the backyard where I entered from. All the lights were on, that’s why it was so bright from a distance. I stood in place for a while, before I heard a car engine stop, and people's laughter became louder. As I moved my body to see who they were, I saw that there were 5 people, they looked young. As they got out of the car, they took in their packs of beer, large bottles of alcohol, and a great deal of chips. It seemed like they were going to have a party. I observed them more, they were cheerful, careless, and messing around with each other. I could tell they were really young, probably in college or younger.

Two words typed across the left corner of my eyesight, “Kill Them.”

My heart started to race, as my foot took a step closer to the house. I could hear my heartbeat coming louder as I walked across the backyard, passing the swimming pool, and reaching the back door. My hand reached out to the doorknob, me hoping that it was locked, as I turned it slowly.

‘Click’.

I took a breath and opened the door and went in. I left the door slightly open to make less noise and made my way through the house.

It seemed smaller on the inside, with all the pictures on the wall and the furniture all around. I took small steps through the hall, looking through every room. Then I heard a door opening, it was them, laughing and chatting to each other. I dashed fast to a wall and hid behind it, while they passed the hallway. My heartbeat was still loud, as they drank their beer and joked around. Making small steps around them, finding places to hide to conceive my presence near them.

I found myself in the kitchen, picking up the cleaver from the scabbard. I turned and stopped; I saw my body in the refrigerator reflection. I was slim, wearing raggedy clothes, pants too big that hid my feet, and a shirt that had holes in them. I moved my head left and right, seeing stitches all over my face and in the back of my neck. I saw that box thing that the man had in his hand, it was bulged into my buzz cut head, blood covering it. As I lifted my right hand.

“You’re the pizza man?” a girl giggled. She was in the doorway, wobbling in place, clearly under a substance of something. “That was fast, I swear Jerry ordered a few minutes ago.”

She laughed while coming towards me, I hid the cleaver on the left side of me, so she didn’t see it. She opened the refrigerator, scanning the food with her eyes, as I stood behind her, sweating up a storm. For a while nothing happened as I looked at the back of her head and she looked for something to munch on. She took a long sigh, suddenly my right hand grabbed her hair, pulling her towards me, and then slamming her into the refrigerator shelves. I did that repeatedly as she frantically screamed and tried to pull away. The last blow made her forehead bent and got stuck between one of the shelves that I couldn’t pull her back towards me. So, I let go of her, and she stayed in place, her body dangling out of the refrigerator and her face blooded and smashed in. I brushed her hair from my hand and stepped over her body to the next room.

I went into the living room and found everyone gone, bottles of beer scattered everywhere on the floor, and some clothes on the couch. I went towards the table with all the liquor bottles and bowls of chips in them and grabbed an unopened liquor bottle. I opened it with my teeth and spit out the lid on the floor. I dribbled the liquor on the ground and walked around the house trying to find the rest of the kids. I heard laughter coming from outside and water splashes, I headed outside before taking a toaster from the kitchen. I made my way to the pool; the lights were turned off so the two people ***** in the pool messing around couldn't see me walking around them hiding in the darkness. I searched around the area, and I found an extension cord to plug in the toaster. As I walked towards it, a snap interrupted the couple's kiss session.

“Did you hear that?” One of them asked.

“Probably a deer.” the other one answered. “What, are you scared?”

“No.” the person squealed from hearing another snap again.

I slowly made soft steps to the cord, reaching out my hand and plugging in the toaster.

“The captain of the college football team is scared of the dark.” the other person laughed.

“That’s not true.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah” the person whispered with a deep voice and began to kiss the other person again.

Giving me the opportunity to get closer to them, moving my body slowly, holding the toaster near the pool. I waited for it to warm up and dropped it in. The electricity formed by the toaster spread to the whole pool and caused the people to scream in agony. I stood there still, waiting for the noises of them to stop as the last one made its final breath. I turned around and went into the house again.

I grabbed another liquor bottle and dribbled it around the house while I made my way upstairs. I heard squeaking coming from a room, the door from it cracked open. I peaked in and saw the last two people fondling all over each other half of their clothes off, I wanted to look away, but my head wouldn’t allow it. I slowly put down the liquor, and pushed my hand on the door softly, making little to no noise. I came up behind them on the bed, I pulled the guy towards my head as the girl on the bottom watched in fear. I forced his head up by pulling down on his hair, I lifted my left hand and slid the cleaver across his neck. The blood poured out all over the girl as she screamed out, and the guy stopped making noise. She started to kick him off the bed, trying to push me away. I came closer to her, trying to grab her somewhere to make her stop moving. Suddenly, she kicked my head backwards, breaking my neck out of place. She paused with confusion that I should have been on the floor with the big breaking of the bone sound. However, I just put my hand on my chin and turned my neck in place.

“You’re a monster!!” she started screaming again, and ran off the bed towards the open door.

I sprinted towards her, and slammed the door in her face. She turned slowly with tears in her eyes.

“What do you want? Who are you?” she whipped, “What did we do?”

My eyes widened because I didn’t know, and also I wanted to know too. ‘There are just kids’ I thought. Me being a pound to an old man forced to kill them. I wiped some of the blood off her face and used it to write a word on the wall with my finger. The girl turned her head towards it.

“Sorry? What does that mean?” she cried.

I put the knife inside of her stomach, she tried to hold the blood flow coming from her as she spit out blood. I let her drop on the floor, and stared at her until her body stopped moving, and no air came out of her mouth.

I picked up the liquor bottle again and dribbled it all over their bodies and the room. As I sparked a match, red words appeared in the corner of my eye. “Not Complete.”

‘What do you mean not complete? I killed everyone in the house.’ I argued with it.

“The Owner of the House is Still Alive.” more words appeared. “Must Kill.”

A flush of the toilet came to my ears, I walked out to the hallway and saw a boy coming out of a room.

“You guys are wild in bed, let me tell you.” he chuckled while zipping up his pants, then he looked up and saw me standing there watching him. He backed up in shock, “Who the heck are you!” he said in anger, “How did you get into my house? Are you the pizza man?”

I walked towards him, hiding the cleaver behind my back. He stepped back as I came 6 feet, 4 feet, 2 feet away from him. He grabbed a flower pot and slammed it on my head. I tumbled on the ground disoriented on the blow to the head, he took his chance to escape me and ran down the stairs. In the few seconds I got up, I wiped my hand on my head and felt the blood coming from my head. I found another match from my pocket and set it on fire and dropped it in the room where the couple were and headed my way downstairs to catch him. He was already out by the pool, screaming with the things that he saw. I ran towards him as he ran to the woods. It was wet and dark, but I could hear his breathing and I followed the sound of his stumbling footsteps. He was tripping on rocks and vines, he was surely drunk and blind from the dark. I caught up with him fast, and grabbed the back of his shirt, pulling him backwards and hitting the ground. He groaned with pain, I got on top of him as tears came from his eyes, I lifted the cleaver high to get enough space to stab him straight through. The tears ran down his cheeks as he begged me to stop. As my hands went down, I shifted a little to miss him and stabbed deep into the dirt. The boy pushed me to the ground and dashed away, as I got up fast and ran towards him again. He turned around and saw my hand reaching towards his face, and I slammed his head through a tree branch. The stick went through his head and took out some of his brain with it, his face stoned in place. It was done, I stared at the boy’s corpse for a moment, my eyes fixated on his twitching fingers, slowly they stopped.

“Mission Complete.” the words appeared again.

I stood there still, looking at the boy, thinking of what I had done, contemplating on what to do next. Then I saw it again, as I turned around, it was that peach tree from the other day, but it was on fire this time. The flames were bright and warm, glowing with color and beauty. I walked towards it slowly, reaching my hand out towards it to feel its warmth. I came closer and closer to it, I felt the heat of its flame like a kiss of the devil, but it was nice. As the fire engulfed me, I closed my eyes and fell asleep.