Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Obsolete Garden ❯ The Depths of Insanity ( Chapter 5 )

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Obsolete Garden

Chapter 5: The Depths of Insanity

By: Revamp

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“This is crazy,” Iliya couldn't believe what was going on. Why exactly had he agreed to let Venetia drag him down into this dark lab with a psychopath? He wanted to trust her, but he couldn't help the growing feeling of illness in his stomach.

“I'm sorry but please understand,” Venetia didn't like that she was putting Iliya through this but she didn't want to kill her brother. She had protected him all this time and the last thing she wanted to do was stab him in the back. Vlad was too precious to lose. He meant the world to her.

As they were dragged down to the lab's darkest floor, they were tied to chairs with ropes made of unbreakable fabric. They were a creation of his, fashioned to be retardant against magic and fire. They glowed an eerie mint green and dug into their bodies with how tightly they were tied. The inventor wasn't about to let the two of them have an inkling of a chance in getting away.

Vlad laughed a little at his handiwork, straightening his glasses as a wide smile crossed his face, revealing his long, pointed, hellish teeth.

“Vlad…” Venetia closed her eyes and furrowed her eyebrows. Her head dropped and a frown crossed her face.

“What are you going to do with us?” Iliya finally asked after a few moments of silence. He watched as the goat demon turned his back to them.

“I want to show you things, yes? I want to show you all of the beautiful things. My scarlet harvest.” Wasn't that what they wanted? They did want to see who the real killer was, right? He was there to show them that he had been the one responsible for such dastardly actions.

“Wait, I thought Thanatos killed these people,” Iliya was confused. Had Venetia really been right about there being multiple people involved in the murders? Maybe Vlad was lying, but he couldn't quite tell. He was quick to stab his sister in the back in the most literal way possible, so calling him a liar at this point was risking a lot.

He would hear Vlad out for now.

Vlad turned to them; confusion masked itself behind his large, round glasses. “Thanatos? Who is that again?” He had never heard of this person. Why was he even being asked about him?

“Vlad doesn't know Thanatos,” Venetia backed up her brother's bewilderment on the issue. To her best recollection, he hadn't even seen the blue scorpion much less knew about him by name. The goat demon was often isolated from most people, an introvert by nature and someone who tended to stay far away from people or even public events in general.

“Wait, one of them is lying,” Iliya was very confused. Why would someone lie about being a killer? What was there to gain from any of this? Now he was interested in which one had done is. He knew that Thanatos was a violent killer, a predator by nature and Vlad was so unstable Iliya believed that he had every capability of killing someone if he wanted. Everything that came from Vlad's mouth was a garble of nonsense, so he very well could have been lying. There was no way to tell given both of their natures.

“Thanatos killed Lafayette. That's for certain,” Venetia knew that even if Thanatos was lying, he still murdered someone. He was responsible for at least one murder.

“Then something isn't making sense. Are there two killers?” Iliya didn't know what to make of this, as both supposed killers had very compelling arguments.

“Vlad, did you kill anyone at the party?” His sister wanted to get to the bottom of this. If her brother was going around murdering people, she wanted to know what his motives were. She was confident that he would be honest with her.

“Why are you asking him?” Iliya knew that you couldn't just ask someone like that if they did something. What made her think that he was just going to give the answers away so easily?

“He won't lie,” Venetia was certain of that.

“I don't believe him. Why would he tell us the truth?” The moth didn't believe that Vlad would be so happily compliant. It would have been too easy, and why would he want to admit to something so sinister? Something that could get him into so much trouble?

“Did you?” Venetia pressed. She wasn't going to back down about this.

“Oh my, oh my! You really think you're in the position to ask me questions? That's not why you're here. Not at all.” Who did they think were calling the shots? They were in his laboratory and chained to chairs by his ropes. This was hardly something they could demand of him.

“I won't do anything if you tell me the truth.” The truth was all that his sister desired. If he just told her the truth, then she would be fine with that. If he just told her the truth, then she wouldn't press him further.

“Did I?” Vlad placed a finger to his chin in contemplation. “That's a good question. Ah, but I wouldn't show up where there are so many people. No, no, too much of a chance I'll be caught. I prefer to be more…isolated. I love their screams. I hate them. I hate them so much. I want this to end! Please!...Please…” His voice grew more unstable, rapidly shifting from emotion to emotion without any descent or ascent. The jarring quality to his speech made him seem like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

“This guy is scatterbrained. At least Thanatos made sense. I believe him more than I do this guy,” Iliya couldn't believe that they were entertaining this mental patient. He knew that Vlad was related to his friend and that she cared about him a lot, but he couldn't take Vlad's words seriously.

“Tell me, are you the killer everyone's been talking about?” Venetia was determined to get something out of him. Any answers at all would make her feel better about the course of events, and answer the lingering questions confined in her mind.

“My sister, we have always been so close ever since we were small,” Vlad's voice was filled with fond nostalgia as he spoke. “I can't begin to count all of the wonderful memories I had with you. When you went off to serve the god of this world, I stayed here and cried for days on end,” his voice dropped into bitter sorrow. “The whole world was colorless and decayed without you here. You started becoming enamored with that god. I tried to support you, but you just had to rub it in my face, didn't you? You had such a wonderful time together! I was so upset, so very upset. How could I have no faith in someone so amazing? The best…” he trailed off before an unstable chuckle escaped his lips and his voice turned drastically cold. “Piss off…I told you that and you left. Don't hate me. Please don't be mad. I didn't mean to.

“That's the last time we talked,” he voice them changed back to its normal tone.

“Now we're here, just the two of us. We can make up. Yeah! Yeah-yeah! I wasn't upset. No, beyond that. I was beyond that,” Vlad gestured to the darkened room that was dimly lit and contained several boxes and old laboratory equipment that had been forgotten by time.

He held his hands out, gesturing the dark space between them with a sinister smile plastered to his visage. “This is a very special spot. A black hole far from god. No one is around. Just you and I. I'm sorry this isn't what you wanted. So sorry. Don't worry. There is a lot of food. Yeah-yeah. Lots and lots.”

He held up his butcher knife, still covered in his sister's blood. The blade glistened in the dim lighting of the small room. “This knife is really special. We used to stab it between our fingers real fast,” Vlad laughed a little at the memories that flooded his mind of their morbid little game. “I cut myself so many times, but I got real good at it. You were always there to lick it off for me. Special. It was oh so very special,” he caressed the knife gently, as if it were a precious child in his arms. He ran his tongue along the blade, lapping up his sister's blood as she had his over the years. It tasted so very sweet. “I accidentally stabbed you with it. I didn't mean to. You probably think this is some sick-minded joke. We were always sick people, talking about torture…ironic that we're here, isn't it?”

Vlad continued to lick the knife, the tang of copper in his mouth. Reaching down, he caressed his sister's cheek. Her cold, maroon eyes stared back at him, piercing through his glasses. Such a dirty face for a sweet girl. “Guess it's not funny anymore, is it? Your blood tastes so good. I'm losing myself in the moment. I only did it for your best intention. I wanted you to feel a little of my emotional pain. We're not through. Not even at all.”

“It was hard on you…wasn't it?” Venetia's voice held sympathy for her brother. She could tell that her decision to go off and serve Cambria had affected him more than she would have liked to think about. “It was so hard…”

Vlad said nothing; the gleam of his glasses shaded his visage.

“Please listen, Vlad. I know things will be hard for you to accept…” She didn't want to bring these things up, but she knew that she had to. Vlad might not like her decisions, but there was nothing he could do about it now. They could always come to terms, but she wouldn't think about giving up her goddess not even to her own brother's demands.

“Maybe it's hard for you. I think you are mistaken,” he knew the cold, hard truth. He had been living with it all of this time. He questioned who really was taking this situation to heart.

“This can't get any worse, can it?” Iliya didn't see the light in this at all. With the way things were going down, they could only descend from there.

“Something will happen. Someone's got to give,” Venetia knew this would end, but it was all a question of whom.

“It might be us,” Iliya shed a dark reality of the outcome.

“Do you have a better idea? Don't make him kill us. He's already shown us he's not fucking around,” Venetia was getting a little tired of hearing the moth complain and doubt everything she had posed as a solution. If he had anything that would help the situation then she wanted to know what it was. He could stand to be a little more helpful.

“How many people has he killed?” Iliya was morbidly curious.

“I…I don't know…” Venetia had a feeling she didn't want to know, either.

“We have to find a way to get him to let us go,” Iliya knew as long as they were tied up they couldn't even fight him off. If Vlad decided to attack them they were as good as dead.

“I'm glad you came with me. It's bad enough you had to deal with Thanatos,” the female goat demon closed her eyes. She knew that she wouldn't have been able to do this alone, not considering who was standing before them. Iliya was such a brave knight.

“Right now, you're my flame of hope,” the moth knew he wasn't strong enough to go against a psychopath like Vlad. Thanatos was dangerous, but at least he was sane…saner than this guy anyhow. With Venetia with him, he had someone who understood this messed up man. That gave him an edge.

`That look in your eyes. You think you're going to die. You don't want to accept it but you know. At this rate, I don't know either. Will I survive? Am I going to be killed? Will I get to see Lady Cambria again? What will happen to Vlad without me?' A thousand thoughts flooded Venetia's mind, and she found herself desperately wanting to help him. Vlad was ill, to the point of needing someone around. If he was killing people than he needed her more than ever. She wanted to help him and she felt as if she had not been giving him proper help at all. It was her fault that he was this bad. He was completely right, but she didn't know how to get to him at this point.

Venetia knew that there was a high chance that she and Iliya could end up being his victims.

“Do you think he'll really kill us?” Iliya knew he had a higher chance than she did, but would Vlad go as far as to murder members of his own family. He stabbed her, sure, but maybe he was just trying to get his point across. Maybe he was bluffing.

Venetia closed her eyes and frowned. She knew the answer.

While the two of them had been engaged in conversation, Vlad decided to grab his latest prey. He took the unconscious body of a female devil and dragged her out before them. She was a young one, with small, black horns, short, dark green hair, a slim build and dressed completely in red. A red crop top, short, tight, mini skirt and red boots adorned her body and her long, black tail trailed behind her lifelessly, the triangular end slithered across the tile floor.

Venetia's eyes popped open as the girl's body fell at her feet. She felt her heart speed up and a sense of panic ran through her. What was Vlad planning to do? Was this girl dead? She didn't appear to have any wounds on her body, but maybe she had been killed in some other way. It wasn't like Vlad didn't know how to experiment with things. He was a master at making inventions and she didn't put anything past him.

`We're done for `er,' Iliya thought to himself as he watched in horror as the demon girl's body hit the floor in a crumpled fashion.

“So very quiet…very quiet. Studying the way I killed her. There is nothing for her now. Nothing for any of them,” Vlad let out a maniacal laugh as he held up his butcher knife.

“Is this some kind of test,” Iliya didn't understand. He wanted to know what Vlad had planned.

“Is it? Do you need redemption for your sins? Repent…Yes, you all must, right? It does your god so well. Such sad amalgamations of sorrow, hopelessness and depression. Does it hurt? I wonder. I wonder…Do you want to know what I've done? Do you? Do you?” Vlad was so happy that they finally seemed interested in his endeavors. They were finally listening to what he had to say. Maybe they were finally believing him and taking him seriously. Ah yes, such a wonderful thing.

“I don't want to. I don't like you and you don't like me. Frankly, it can stay that way. None of this makes sense. Why are we in here? Do you want to kill us? You're just standing here, watching me, waiting for me to ask but I won't. I hate you. I can't be optimistic anymore,” Iliya had enough of this. He couldn't stand being stuck in that lab, and he was sick of Vlad's blood red eyes piercing his soul. If that damned inventor wanted to kill him then he just needed to get it over with and stop prolonging his suffering. Vlad just stood there, spouting off his poetic nonsense and mocking him. He was fucking with his mind and Iliya knew it.

“Iliya…” Venetia cast him a sympathetic glance.

Iliya gritted his teeth together and furrowed his furry eyebrows. He cast the inventor a look of malice and spoke in an angry tone. “I don't have a family or a lover to go back to. I'm just alive as I am, besides that damned killer. He just keeps enticing me into the darkness. His questions grasp at my body. Chills run down my spine as I think about what he's done. I don't want to know.”

“You all take your outside lives for granted. What I wouldn't give to see them again. A normal person's nightmare is now my dream. What did I do to deserve this fate? I'm here, a captive in my own laboratory, away from civilization with my scarlet harvest to keep me company…and a horrible sister and a damned moth for company. Ah, fucking children of god. Perhaps it's best like this, yes? I have killed. I should be doomed to this darkness. Haha…Oh when are you going to thrust me into hell, death? When will you scorch me alive? This…This is just like death. I feel like I'm immortal, but this isn't what I desire. Not at all. It's not. It's a fucking curse! It's like I said…death is all there is. Always. I can't ignore it. It feels so certain,” Vlad knew his fate. More than anything, he was waiting to meet the end. Living was something that he had come to hate. There was nothing good in his life but mental illness and loneliness. It wasn't the kind of life that he had wanted and he couldn't wait to start over with a much better one, and with death came much needed answers to questions that he could never get them to while living. To him it was the ultimate piece to complete the puzzle.

“The voices whispering, taunting me. Laughter penetrates my ears and I can't ignore it. Whispers, laughter and my own heartbeat,” Vlad's words trailed off as he placed a hand to the side of his face.

“The darkness is around me, you see. It's waiting for my next move. What if nothing happens? What if this is just a game? What if my voices are trying to save me? Want to find out?” His voice darkened as he took his hand away and leaned in towards his two captives.

“We'll still be here, trapped. No magical exit is going to uncover just because we play along,” Iliya knew that to be fact. There was nothing saving him now.

“Do you know why? Do you? Voices can lie, stab colder than any rival,” Vlad responded.

“Fuck you in particular. Fuck you. This is all your doing,” Iliya's words poured from his mouth like poison as a light rain could be heard pattering against the roof. Usually, the rain was something calming, something that washed away one's stress and worries but in this situation it seemed to be nothing but ominous.

“Let's gamble,” Vlad held out his hand and smiled. “We should do that. You know, we are all trapped in the deepest holes of our mind, waiting to be free. My mind is flooded with dreams of gruesome murders. I wonder if it's happening somewhere when I do. I wonder if I'm making it happen. I dreamed I died in a cave with someone stingingly sickly to me…I wonder. I wonder. I wonder. Did it happen? Did it?

“Did you know? Did you? In your life there are many instances where you can't see for a few seconds of time? Not blinking. No. That's too fast. Its moments where you're taking off your shirt or washing your face. These moments. Yeah, yeah. A brief instant of darkness. It's a gamble. People go missing in these moments all of the time because they lost the bet,” Vlad knew this to be certain. In that moment of darkness, there were several weaknesses that were exposed in people. Those were the moments where something terrible could happen. They were the moments he decided to strike.

“What do you want?” Iliya was getting tired of hearing him rant about his sick dreams and ideals. He just wanted all of this to end.

“This is punishment,” Vlad's dark words flooded his senses.

“For what?” The moth questioned.

“Lost the gamble. Your bad decision brought you here. I didn't have to ask you. Not at all. You came by yourself, you did,” Vlad didn't seek them out. They crawled into his hands. How could they think they were going to get anything but what they deserved?

“You can let us go. You have that power, the power to regulate fate,” Venetia tried to talk some sense into him again. She wanted him to see that he could play god in ways other than killing people.

“That's not important. Not at all. Killjoys. Such killjoys,” Vlad dismissed her pleas.

“This is fucked up,” Iliya closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He just wanted Vlad to stop fucking with him and get to the point.

“Do you want to join them? Do you?” Vlad was a little disappointed that the moth gave up so easily. What a defeatist he was. How boring. He expected better of the knight of a god.

“This was a mistake,” even Venetia knew it in hindsight.

The demon girl felt heavy and her limbs felt as if they were made of concrete. She tried to move but everything seemed as if it took an extra amount of effort. It was like she was waking up from taking a name on a blazing summer day, only the feeling was very unpleasant.

She felt like a weight was pressing down on her and she found it even harder to move. She tried to open her eyes and barely managed to. Even when she did, her vision was blurry. She felt like she should have been disturbed or frightened by this.

Time was malleable and held no sense of merit to her. Who knew how long she had been out, but did it really matter?

The effect lessened slowly and the girl began to become aware of her predicament. The thumping in her ears became the beating of her heart. Her eyes adjusted to the poor lighting conditions slowly, but all she could see was blurred images and dark, depressing colors. Where was she, anyway?

“Who are you?” She looked to the inventor before her and tried to figure out who exactly he was. The memories came back to her…the cave, she tried to venture out to find the killer and bring him to justice, a horrible taste in her mouth. With a shock, she realized exactly what happened and why she couldn't move became crystal clear.

“Are you comfortable? Yes? Ah, good,” Vlad gave her no opening to even give him an answer. The truth was, he really didn't care what her answer was. She was there to prove a point to him and nothing else.

Green eyes looked to the two prisoners he had, tied to the chairs and staring at her. They both held hopeless looks in their eyes. She recognized one of them; she was a very important figure to Natsuhama. “The right hand of the goddess,” she whispered those words before her sight went back to Vlad. “You're the killer people have been talking about. You got me in the cave. Funny, I was trying to kill you first.”

She did her best not to panic, but she could feel the adrenaline rushing inside of her, ready to be released upon the first opportunity she had.

“Making promises you can't keep is bad, you know? Very bad. It's time to play,” those words were sinister and made a promise that sent chills through her body.

“You won't get away with this,” the girl used that surge of adrenaline to make it to her feet. She tried to stand the best she could, but it was short-lived as Vlad knocked her off of her feet. She was sent crashing to the ground and felt the cold of the floor against the skin of her arms, stomach and thighs. She closed her eyes fearfully and felt something slide into her side. That butcher knife that the inventor used was plunged into her ribcage. Pain flared up as she gasped for breath and let out a shrill scream. He plunged it into her again and whimpered.

“You don't need to run. No, no, no one should know our secret,” Vlad left the knife lodged in her side and pulled out something much more intimidating - bone saw. He had retrieved the rusty medical device from a nearby table.

“Vlad, don't!” Venetia shouted desperately, trying to get her brother not to kill this girl.

“What the hell are you doing? Stop!” Iliya begged him to as well, but it was like talking to a wall.

The girl felt the surge of adrenaline still flowing through her as she dug her nails into the cracks of the tile and attempted to crawl away. The blade lodged into her side made her feel a searing pain as she tried to make her way away from the killer. However, he got on top of her and she felt a pain flaring around her legs. Blood flowed as Vlad began to saw off her legs. The teeth of the bone saw tore her flesh and ripped muscle tissue. She kept trying to crawl away as the cutting became frantic and increasingly messy.

Tears flowed down her face. Her breathing was ragged as she glanced over her shoulder. She could see the inventor holding the saw, most of his body was a dark silhouette and the light of the room reflected from his large, round glasses. She could make out a dark smile on his face. It reminded her of how he looked when he sang to her in the cave. Intense pain from Vlad's knife sawing into her bone was so bad that it made her eyes roll back into her head. She had never felt anything like that before in her life and wished she never did.

Vlad reached around her, the bloody bone saw slashed her throat and ended her life. The girl's voice gargled as blood choked her out and ran from her mouth. He soon removed her head and held it up by the hair. Her dead eyes, glazed over from death peered at his two captives.

“Good memories, so many good memories,” Vlad smiled happily with blood staining his face and dripping from his saw onto the tile of the floor.

“F-Fuck you…” Iliya was visibly shaken by the course of events. He just saw someone die. He saw the despair in her eyes as she so desperately tried to get away, and he could do nothing as her life was savagely ended in front of him.

Vlad stood up and pointed at Iliya with his bone saw, who jumped. “Rude, rude, RUDE. I am being thoughtful by proving to you that I did it by killing someone in front of you as proof. I did it! I did! I am the enigma. Kill me if you want.” By this point, he was sick of them not believing him. He had done this to prove that he was the serial killer. How could they not believe what was right in front of their faces?

“You lost your damned mind,” Iliya's voice shook from the mix of emotions that he felt from watching a brutal murder take place. The fact that the girl's dead eyes were staring at him, asking him why he did nothing in silence only unsettled him even more.

“Hypocrite! Hypocrite!” How could Iliya tell him that? That moth was the one who had questioned him about it, so much that Vlad felt he had no other choice than to show him. It was his fault she died.

“I don't want to hear your shit. We just came here for answers,” Iliya was tired of this. He didn't want anyone else to die. He just wanted the truth. He was tired of all of this. So very tired.

“Going to kill me? Are you? Are you?” Vlad taunted him.

“Are you suicidal?” Iliya didn't know what the hell to expect from this killer anymore.

“I wonder. I do. You're bad at getting rid of problems. Really bad,” Vlad didn't think that Iliya really should have been talking considering how he was handling things. The knight couldn't even handle seeing a little bloodshed. Natsuhama really did dull one's instincts. How sad.

“What makes you an expert?” Iliya wanted to know why he thought he was so good at handling his problems. Vlad was the most unstable person he had ever seen. What made him even think that the goat demon had a handle on his issues?

“Surgical bone cutters always work. The femur can't be cut through so easily,” Vlad brought up a valid point. He had his affairs in order because he had knowledge at his side. That knowledge made him an effective killer.

“How the hell do you know this?” Iliya didn't understand where he pulled his knowledge from. Vlad was a scientist, right? Maybe he leaned more towards the medical field in that sense? He couldn't really tell.

“Obsession, screams and yells are a symphony to my ears. Tell me, dear Iliya, what do you know about yourself? Do we exist for a reason? Tell me. Do we? What about the worlds we know nothing about beyond ours? Nothing. Nothing at all. What is our reasoning based on? Do we know? We don't. We really don't. People I kill. Where do they go? I wonder. What if we're already dead? What if? Do we die in cycles and come back? Do we repeat life never knowing we do? Do you know? Do you? Why do we have gravity? Evolution? What drives us? Does anything? Does it? What about people who love us? Why do they do that? You don't know. You don't,” Vlad dropped the decapitated head to the ground and stared down at it with that unstable smile still plastered to his features.

“Pointless. Silly. Why do we feel? What are oddly shaped lines you don't get? Why do we all stay separate instead of becoming one? Greedy. People are very greedy. They think of themselves. So selfish. What is reality? What is it? What makes us so sure we exist? That this exists? Why would the gods create us so utterly flawed? Why isn't everyone crazy? Or are we? Are we all crazy? Why were we created? Do we see the same colors? Why were we born to lead such short lives and die right after? What if you could have been opposite of what you are now? What if? What if you turn that way if you just say one word wrong? Why do we think about these things? Why are we selfish? So selfish. Why do we wish things were different? What if none of this happened? None of it. None of it at all. What would you do? What would you do? What?

“It's connected. It really is. We all think it. No one likes to believe how much they don't know. It's still there. It really is. Don't you see it? Your mind is the only thing that ensures you see reality. Think about it. Don't judge.”

“It's not that easy,” Venetia argued his points. “It's hard to talk about. You should know, brother. I have always been distant. You understand. It's painful. It'll slip one day. You of all people know you can't fight who you are. You can always fake emotions. It's that feeling where it all blacks out. A heartbeat so loud it overpowers everything.”

“Yes, yes! I want to be close to you again. Oh, how I long for it!” Vlad clasped his hands together in delight and his smile widened. “It's not a coincidence we are here again. It's not! Special. It's very special.”

“What makes you think we want to be your friend? You think you should just keep it quiet? We got our reasons for pursuing you. That's not the point.” This wasn't just some happy family reunion where everything would be okay. Iliya wasn't even going to play that game with him. It didn't change that Vlad took countless lives. He wasn't going to be won over so easily. He wasn't Venetia.

“Not your position to question me,” Vlad threatened happily as he held up his bloody bone saw in dark promise, “it's not, it's not, it's NOT!”

“We're pursuing you so you don't kill any more. We want to help you,” Venetia was determined to get that through his head. She knew that Vlad could be reached; she just had to keep trying.

“Silly little girl, you understand nothing,” Vlad nearly laughed at her pathetic plea. She really did need to give up. He wasn't buying anything that she had been selling. They weren't simply going to make up and go back to the way things were before. It was so much deeper than that.

“What did you say?” Venetia gritted her teeth in irritation. Was he really trivializing her feelings like this?

“Chivalry is dead,” those words sounded so certain coming from his mouth. Vlad didn't know what she was trying to gain from any of this but he wasn't having any of it.

“Fuck you,” Iliya shot, “your own instability got you into this.” He was tired of Vlad making a mockery out of their efforts.

“You think its okay to kill people who go against your god? It's fine if it's in god's great name?” Vlad wondered what made the two of them so different. Did Iliya really think he was so much better just because he claimed to kill people who deserved it; those he thought opposed Cambria's peaceful messages?

“You don't know anything about us,” the moth seethed. Who the hell was Vlad to make assumptions about him?

“Your hypocrisy is astounding. A good man you are not,” Vlad was tired of the moth putting himself on a pedestal and acting as if he was some lowly, uneducated cretin. One killer could not criticize another and call them wrong for their actions.

“Fake scientist,” Iliya threw the first insult.

“I am an inventor.” If the knight was going to throw punches, he had to close his fist first.

`This is torture. Not normal torture. He's mocking me. He's taking things from my grasp to drive me into breaking. I got to beat through this. This guy is going to try and destroy what's left of my sanity. He's not going to stop until he's finished. He made me sit through his game and watch.' Iliya's thoughts trailed off as he cast a glance to the discarded head on the floor. Blood poured from her severed neck as her eyes still stared at him in conviction, damning him for not lifting a finger to help. `The loss of that girl…I feel like this is all a nightmare and I can't wake up.' The moth squeezed his eyes shut, as he felt the guilt assault him. No matter what he did, he couldn't get the girl's dead gaze burnt out of his mind. `I don't understand what he wants from me. All this death plays over and over in my head.'

“Why am I continuing to go through this?” Iliya finally asked himself in defeat and regret. “The same shit over and over. Between my life and another, I chose my own and I'm still breathing. My mourning hasn't ended and it won't. So many people have died. No doubt about it. It's inevitable. This is cruel.”

“Why did you kill her?” Venetia wanted to know. It couldn't have just been to prove his point to them. She felt like there was something much more to it than that.

“Do you know that feeling? Do you? The feeling that everything you could feel changes from joy to sorrow? You store the stuff that remains as rage? You just want to release all of the overwhelming pressure. No matter what you do, you can't get it out. Can't release it? You try talking it out, screaming into a pillow until your face turns blue? You still feel it. You feel it so much! You see, I know it really well. Really, really well. More than most. More than everyone. I'm not a run of the mill psychopath,” Vlad began to explain his perspective on the issue and explaining a few of his insights on the matter. He wanted them to know how he felt about everything.

“It's her fault she's dead. All her fault. The world needs me. She needs me. The look on her face…so daft.

“She wanted to challenge me. Just because I am unstable she thought I couldn't play a sane man's game. I saved her from a lot of pain. I did. I saved her. A hero. Her face was so wonderful,” Vlad's tone turned to one of longing and pleasure before alternating sharply between that and utter hatred. “The screams. I hate them. I love them. They fill me with completion. Her pain satisfied me but I barely touched her. Ideas. So many ideas!”

Vlad swung the bone saw around in a hacking motion. “Chop, chop, CHOP! Stab, stab, stab! Blood draining as she screamed. I've never felt so alive.

“I hate it.

“It's like cutting through butter. Wonderful. So wonderful.

“I help relieve pain. You'll love me for doing this. You see, I have been doing this for a long time. I can't stop now. Few people know me, my real mechanizations and idiosyncrasies.”

“I'm going to kill you. The more you talk the more I'm sick of your shit,” Iliya was brewing with anger. No matter how much he jerked and struggled against his bonds, he knew they were the only thing holding him back from lashing out at this mental patient. He wanted to bring him to justice. He wanted to avenge her death and get that dead stare of accusation out of his mind. “You've gotten away with plenty. More than you ever should have and if Venetia won't do anything about this, I will. You think its okay to keep killing people? I'm not afraid of you.”

“Brave. So brave. I am graciously sparing you. Fate favors you,” Vlad could tell that Iliya was one of the lucky ones. There was something special about him, something that was worthy of a fate more than death.

“I don't get you. Your ass must be jealous of the shit that comes out of your mouth,” the moth continued to take verbal stabs at him even after being told that he was being spared. Iliya didn't really care about that. He couldn't even tell if Vlad was lying to him or not. Listening to this psychopath rant and rave all of this time really got under his skin. He didn't care about Vlad's fucked philosophy about the world and all of the questions he had. He just wanted to know about the murders.

“Do you really understand nothing?” Vlad was a little disappointed that Iliya was so dense.

“You kill people over bullshit and you talk like you're god. Nothing you said makes sense and neither does this. What did I do to you? Forget about your sister. What did I do to you? Do you have some kind of problem with me? Did I do something to you in the past?” Iliya really wanted to know. It seemed like Vlad wanted to make his life hell on a personal level. He didn't understand why he was doing any of this other than to purely be malicious.

“Do you really not know the game you played?” Vlad shook his head in disappointment. “Sad, sad, you're rare and special.” It was a shame that Iliya hadn't realized this.

“You're a demented piece of shit,” the moth shot.

“Everything happens for a reason. Our biggest fear is the unknown. When you can't see what's in the distance you panic a little. You want something to be there. Maybe there is. Maybe it's me, watching your every move,” Vlad knew this very well. It was how he lured in his victims, how he was able to play off of their fears. He knew how the mind worked very well.

“Sounds like it's only there if you want it to be,” Iliya growled. He didn't agree with that logic at all.

“When you choose not to discuss something does it not exist?” Vlad countered. “Does it? Don't you see? Darkness controls our fears when we let it get the better of us. We see what our eyes want and hear what our minds wish.”

“I can't decide if you're really smart or really crazy,” Iliya couldn't deny that Vlad didn't make brilliant points despite not agreeing with him, and perhaps that's what made him so dangerous.

…To Be Continued