Chapter one.
The woman scurried down the street, pressing her bleeding left knee with her slender hand and stealing quick looks behind her. She knew he was following her. The lampposts at her side offered no guidance; they all stood silently, their heads fogged with dust as if they existed in a place forgotten by time.
She gasped louder as she pulled her wounded leg behind her, unable to bear it anymore. The pain surged through her lower body and blurred her eyes. She wished for a voice to offer her a temporary refuge in the ever-increasing coldness of the night, but the buildings that surrounded her were all stark and dim as the trees facing them.
After sometime, she glimpsed the light of a far store she quickened her pace towards it. Footsteps emerged behind her. Afraid to turn her eyes from the store, she struggled faster down the street, convincing herself that it was just the sound of her high heels over the asphalt; it was just an illusion.
After falling to her knees in front of the store, she called out. “Help…someone…help me…”
A tall man appeared out of the store. He had a cigarette at his mouth. His face was brown and wrinkled; his eyes blue, narrow, and his chest bare and lined from the inside with the evident bones of his rib cage.
“He’s following me…I can’t walk…”
After placing her arm around his neck, he lifted her from under her armpit and dragged her into the store.
“What’s wrong…?” The man asked after placing her on a stool. “Who’s following you?”
“I can’t tell you…” She screamed. “Do something…please…the pain ….my feet is hurting me….help.”
“I can’t help you unless you tell me who’s following you.”
“I won’t tell you…” she screamed once again and kicked the man in his knee. The man shrieked and slapped her. Unable to balance herself over the stool, she fell to her face, crying at the ceiling. “Someone help me….” She scampered towards the door of the store. Every minute that passed, she knew, he was getting nearer to her. Soon enough, she would die.
Chapter 2
The man with the blue scar against his cheek stood at the door of the shack. It was still dark. The trees surrounding the shack shivered in the cold night air, filling the forest with furtive howling sounds. The lady escaped him this time. He would never allow it to happen the next time, but before this time came he first had to rest.
Inside the shack, he took off his black leather jacket and placed it at the hook behind the kitchen door. After standing naked in the dark, he walked to the small window above the red couch, and narrowed his eyes. He was waiting for someone important, someone that brought him news that he had been waiting for since last month.
He walked to a small table standing in the middle of the shack. He opened a small jar and took out a young girl’s ear. Slowly, he nibbled at the edges. He had been eating human flesh since he was twelve. He usually savored the soft parts like the ears and the nose.
Some minutes later, he sat down inside the small tub standing beside the door. The water was so cold like his skin and as his wounds unleashed their blood into the water, he sighed and started humming a repetitive lullaby that his mother used to sing to him when he was young.
He fell into a deep sleep in which he dreamt of the old lady he was trying to kill. She appeared out of a foggy street, ran at him and tugged at his throat, peeling his skin with her purple nails.
The door of the shack creaked open. He shivered, sat up and after raising the red handled knife above his head, he stepped out of the tub and walked, still naked, to the other man that went into the shack, his name was Ewan. His baldhead glimmered against the light of the small bulb that dangled down the ceiling from a white wire.
“Sorry for interrupting,” he said, “I know you were waiting for me.”
He nodded. “Have you brought it to me?”
“Yes sir,” Ewan dipped his hand into his brown jacket and tugged out a brown strand of hair. He placed it against the man’s wet shoulder.
“Thank you,” he said, “Now, you mission is finished.”
Ewan’s eyes widened and he walked backward; his hands shivering. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s ok. Just calm down.”
“You won’t kill me…” Ewan yelled at his master, throwing a small stone from his pocket at his face. “I trusted you. I helped you…”
He smiled and lowered his face. “I know. That is why I will kill you. You helped me and your mission is done. You are an extra organ in the cycle of life. You should die to give space to someone else…”
“You’re mad…”
“That’s why I survive…”
Ewan’ back trembled against the door before he could turn to open it, the man with scar at his cheek, raised the knife and dipped it three times at his neck; three was his favorite number.
