Re: Backwards Mafia [D5]
October 1st, 2011
I suppose it was bound to happen in the end. I could find no way of convincing Inspector Bittern to release me from protective custody, and I've long since given up on finding a way to quiet my demons. They filled my head with their yelling until I could no longer think; they drove me to agitation and fits of anger, so that I could not gain the trust of the officers who watched me; and they kept me awake through long nights with their howling, so in the end I could no longer care about what I did, as long as it silenced them. The gods help me, but I wept when I killed him, and it was not for sorrow, but relief.
If I do as I say, it will all stop, they whisper to me. They are my only guidance, the only hope any of us has of defeating the organization. There is nothing I can do by sitting cooped up under the police's supervision, and it is clear that they have no chance of actually solving their case. What good is allying myself with them? What good is sitting around doing nothing, when by my actions alone the organization can be broken? When one is delirious with fatigue and defenseless against the constant hum of their words, their reasoning begins, horribly, to seem correct. More seductive, though, is their insistence that only deaths will end it. If I kill when they say to kill, if I trust to them and my own knowledge of the lore, then I will be able to hunt them down and put an end to them. And then, nothing. It will all be over. I will be at peace, and I will have done a great service to the world.
I know that it won't end, but desperation will make men forget much. It does not end but only gets worse, and all that keeps me marching along is the lack of any other option save, perhaps, taking my own life. But I know what lies at the other end of that thought, and such is my cowardice that I would rather do murder than face it.
They'll find him at the next shift change, and then they'll come looking for me. I have nowhere to go. They know all my likely haunts. For now, I've stopped at the library to sleep and write, but soon it will close and I will be on my own in the chill night. If only the spirits had as much inclination to guide me in the practical matters of staying alive as they do in directing me to kill people.
If I'm lucky, they'll think that the organization was responsible, that they compromised the safe house, killed the guard, and made off with me. Or perhaps killed me then and there and took the body with them. Or perhaps I escaped. In any case, the best I can hope for is that my deed will be put down to the organization, rather than myself.
Is that not how it should be? Is it fair to call me the perpetrator at all? I did no more than wield the knife. After all, it's not as though I wanted to kill the man. Who could think that I ever wanted this? That I wanted to know what it feels like for the knife to glance off bone when you're stabbing a man to death? That I wanted to have to watch a man drown in his own blood, cursing me with the remains of his last breath? That I wanted to harm anyone at all, that I had any hatred deep enough to goad me to kill?
But oh, I did, once. There was a time that I did. And, perhaps, it has been my penance to receive exactly what I desired.
Glace is dead. He was not mafia.
Forty-eight hours for night actions.
October 1st, 2011
I suppose it was bound to happen in the end. I could find no way of convincing Inspector Bittern to release me from protective custody, and I've long since given up on finding a way to quiet my demons. They filled my head with their yelling until I could no longer think; they drove me to agitation and fits of anger, so that I could not gain the trust of the officers who watched me; and they kept me awake through long nights with their howling, so in the end I could no longer care about what I did, as long as it silenced them. The gods help me, but I wept when I killed him, and it was not for sorrow, but relief.
If I do as I say, it will all stop, they whisper to me. They are my only guidance, the only hope any of us has of defeating the organization. There is nothing I can do by sitting cooped up under the police's supervision, and it is clear that they have no chance of actually solving their case. What good is allying myself with them? What good is sitting around doing nothing, when by my actions alone the organization can be broken? When one is delirious with fatigue and defenseless against the constant hum of their words, their reasoning begins, horribly, to seem correct. More seductive, though, is their insistence that only deaths will end it. If I kill when they say to kill, if I trust to them and my own knowledge of the lore, then I will be able to hunt them down and put an end to them. And then, nothing. It will all be over. I will be at peace, and I will have done a great service to the world.
I know that it won't end, but desperation will make men forget much. It does not end but only gets worse, and all that keeps me marching along is the lack of any other option save, perhaps, taking my own life. But I know what lies at the other end of that thought, and such is my cowardice that I would rather do murder than face it.
They'll find him at the next shift change, and then they'll come looking for me. I have nowhere to go. They know all my likely haunts. For now, I've stopped at the library to sleep and write, but soon it will close and I will be on my own in the chill night. If only the spirits had as much inclination to guide me in the practical matters of staying alive as they do in directing me to kill people.
If I'm lucky, they'll think that the organization was responsible, that they compromised the safe house, killed the guard, and made off with me. Or perhaps killed me then and there and took the body with them. Or perhaps I escaped. In any case, the best I can hope for is that my deed will be put down to the organization, rather than myself.
Is that not how it should be? Is it fair to call me the perpetrator at all? I did no more than wield the knife. After all, it's not as though I wanted to kill the man. Who could think that I ever wanted this? That I wanted to know what it feels like for the knife to glance off bone when you're stabbing a man to death? That I wanted to have to watch a man drown in his own blood, cursing me with the remains of his last breath? That I wanted to harm anyone at all, that I had any hatred deep enough to goad me to kill?
But oh, I did, once. There was a time that I did. And, perhaps, it has been my penance to receive exactly what I desired.
Glace is dead. He was not mafia.
Forty-eight hours for night actions.
