I won’t let myself become weak under the social pressures of trying to fit in or be skinny. I give it all up, or at least i would.. It’s around two A.M. and i am lost, more lost than i knew i could get.

I take careful steps onto the pavement, peering around for any one. I’m not fully sure what to do or if i even should, all i know is that the feeling of my lungs filling with sweet nicotine sounds pretty good to me.

I pull out a cigarette and flip my Bic, taking in a long hard drag. I almost don’t want to exhale, it makes me dizzy before i finally run out of breath. OK, i have to think, what am i going to do? Do i turn my self in for horrible mutilations that im not even sure i committed? Or do i just go on living like this hoping one day it will all stop and i can live peacefully without fear of waking up over a pile of corpses? Nothing i think of comes through clearly enough, im exhausted from lack of sleep. Just leading me to believe that i really am staying up at night unknowingly murdering people.

Besides that i don’t know if i should tell someone, or if they would even believe me when i tried to explain… I don’t know who i would go to either. The only person i could trust with something like this is long gone. Dead, before he got to live to see 20. Shawn, he was so innocent and sweet, but he was ripped from his family and friends by a scum bag who killed him over a few bucks. His death was so long ago i hardly remember his face if it wasn’t for a picture of him i keep in my wallet.

He was my best friend, and i loved him… It’s hard to tell exactly why it happened but all i was told by his family was that he was killed in a mugging. Some coked out bum who lived on the streets. I never got to tell him exactly how i felt and i regret it everyday.

        Tell me when it’s OK to go alright? This is just sad, I’m standing here helping an old man cross the street. Is that some form of Cliche? Even so, i don’t see us crossing the street soon, its rush hour and all i can think of in an insane way is what would happen if i dove in front of a car? SPLAT! Although, the gruesome thought of pushing the old man comes to mind several times in the moments until we cross. Why am i thinking these things? I’m a good person, or at least i thought i was. By this time i now stand at the scene of a horrific accident. Ive been realizing lately that the days are seeming to run into another all over again, i don’t remember the last thing i did or who i was with. Some days ill be fine talking to someone on the phone and the next thing i know its two days later and im laying face down in a bush. What the hell is going on!?

       Is there maybe a way to be rid of this awful curse? To fight off the blacking out and the unconscious urge to mangle humanity? How can i know when im about to have a fit or at the very least, control it. I think i might not be able to do this on my own, I’ll have to ask someone i can trust, but who? The only person that comes to mind was my room mate, Torin or as he was better known, Medic. He’s the kind of guy who enjoys Larping or to those who don’t know it means live action role playing, im not sure but i think they all get together and make believe in a forest somewhere..

       First, i think i need to figure out exactly how this happened to me. I drive down to my office, hoping no one will notice me using the equipment without authorization. Locking the door behind me, i extract a small bit of blood and slip the sample under the micro-scope.

This isn’t good at all…

Tell me when it’s OK to go alright? This is just sad, I’m standing here helping an old man cross the street. Is that some form of Cliche? Even so, i don’t see us crossing the street soon, its rush hour and all i can think of in an insane way is what would happen if i dove in front of a car? SPLAT! Although, the gruesome thought of pushing the old man comes to mind several times in the moments until we cross. Why am i thinking these things? I’m a good person, or at least i thought i was. By this time i now stand at the scene of a horrific accident.

When can i finally start living? Is there ever going to be a time where i don’t have to think for the future but instead i can live in the moment and have that feeling of wonderment and angst. Then again, is that really what i want, or even what is best for me? I would like to try and test my luck at trying to be someone. No one would suspect little me turning out to be famous or something. I doubt though that anyone would have guessed me a sick homicidal beast. What will happen next you ask?… Oh, you didn’t ask? Well I’m going to tell you anyway. I have a theory on how this happend to me. I think what changed me was when administering the initial testing on the new vaccine for rabies on one of the dogs there was a gene mutation and when the dog bit me the mutation passed on into my blood stream. I’m not at all sure how it makes me blackout or if that is truly what is happening or if im just having hallucinations. Either way it is making me go insane and i can’t think of how to stop this madness.

         The headaches are getting worse now, I’m not sure how much longer i can handle the pain throbbing in my skull. Each day seems to slip into one another and I’m starting to lose my grip on the day to day reality. My vision is starting to go but my hearing i believe is improving. I have been trying to figure out just why i feel so damn old. I’m twenty three and i feel like I’m eighty. Even since the accident i had at work i just feel off. The accident it’s self was a bit hard to explain but i guess i should start from the very start.

          First and foremost i am a clinical trials expert under the FDA. I do chemical testing on a wide variety of medications for dogs. Whilst conducting a test on one of our mandated animal testing sessions something went irreversibly wrong. I woke up thinking it would be like any other day, but if that were the case i wouldn’t be telling you this story. The time that passes drudges on like an eternity, I’m not exactly positive on when the head aches got to be this bad. I have been trying to think back to the faces, the people i used to know, used to love. They can’t be found, lost deep in my subconscious i wish i could swim into that ocean of deep blue and fish out those faces i have a strange fancy and fear to see. I don’t recall if they looked hateful or happy, or even so much as skin color, they are invisible. The most i can conjure of them is a shadeless plain surface much like a mannequin face. Damn, I’m getting off track again, where was i? Oh right, the incident. Something I’ll never be able to forget, even in death. When i think back to it i get the feeling that i made the worst possible decision when taking the job. The listing read:

       TESTER NEEDED:

Clinical and chemical trials to be conducted, Handsome pay and benefits, number to call for interview below:

      That’s when my memory get’s hazy, the numbers that i once saw are now just blurs in my mind. I’m getting chills.. Something just feels weird about who i am now. I don’t feel myself anymore. I look down at my hands and see all the newly healed scars, i swear when i have one of those fits i wake up with another fresh gouge. What am i going to do..? Well? I’m waiting for an answer oh all knowing one. I’ll never get an answer, it’s practically a lost cause to try to get the attention of someone who can’t hear my voice, hear the tone of my pleading. You can’t imagine the mental tourment i feel when i see the reports on the news of people who have been slaughtered. there were even reports of it being a string of animal attacks. Is that my doing? could i be that animal they talk about? If i am and someone were to find out how would i be able to hide and make a life for myself. Will anyone be after me or will they even believe a human being could cause such horrors?

       Flickering lights dimly illuminate the waiting room. Walls and floors gouged beyond belief with rust colored puddles some large and some small in various spots of the room. The relentless pounding in my temple was growing and my vision blurred. This couldn’t be real, I can’t really be here right now. My finger tips and lips are stained red with blood and the stench of rotting flesh is deep in my nostrils. I can’t hear anything but a loud high pitch ringing that persists for several minutes. I remember standing up to the carnage laid before me. People strewn across the cracked floor tiles throats slashed faces smashed to the point of being UN-recognizable.

          Who did this? Could it have been me? I try to remember but all that comes to mind is darkness. An urging darkness that swallowed me until i felt like i was floating in a sea of my subconscious. None of this made sense but then again does anything make sense anymore? In a twisted and sick world like this where when someone dies no one cares but if someone doesn’t pay their taxes one month all hell breaks loose. It’s almost hard to swallow this harsh image i see in front of me, their is no way a person could have done this. Too violent and too messy. I step carefully around a corpse of a once living man trying to keep composed, as i make my way around a corner i see a particularly disturbing sight. A child, a little girl to be exact, with iron bars stabbed through her torso and forehead, nailing her to the wall. I can no longer bare witness to the death. I turn on my heels and run on my toes as fast as my body allows toward the nearest exit.

         Bursting out into the cold night i try not to let my stomach make an appearance on the ground. I’m walking now and my feet feel raw and battered like i have been running for hours when it had only been minutes. Suddenly a dog runs out in front of me knocking me down on the cold sidewalk. I wasn’t able to describe how the dog looked but all i could tell was it was running from something it was whining and obviously was in a hurry. I got the over whelming urge to know just what from?

          In the far off distance i hear the wailing of an ambulance racing to the scene. I take the chance to crawl off into the darkness and await the opportunity to flee, while sitting adjacent to a stink filled dumpster i think where has this night come from? How did i get to this spot and why did i run? How do i even know if i was the cause of the morbid scene that lies behind me. The fact is I’ll only know if i go back. So i did. When i went back to retrace that night everything looked worse then i originally perceived.