I Didn't Take These | Episode 3
The big finale!
Hello everyone!
After a long and anxious week of waiting the finale of this serial is here! Thank you for going on this high with me and I hope the finish doesn’t disappoint.
This is part 3 of the ongoing serial if you didn’t read the previous parts you can do so here:
The nightmare came again. Not as vague as the others. This one was picture-clear.
I saw the inside of Deborah’s house. She lived just across the street. I knew the wooden floors of her living room well, we used to train yoga there together many times. Back then they weren't stained with pools of blood. Smears of crimson were going from the living room, all the way to the bathroom.
The killer followed the trail. The bathroom door slid to the side and revealed a gruesome scene. Red raindrops raced over the white tiles, the fluffy bathroom mat had been colored pink.
And in the tub laid Deborah's lifeless body, butchered and disfigured.
Wake up! WAKE THE FUCK UP! Please just wake up! My voice echoed in the dream. But the nightmare continued. My phone came into view. And the killer took photos and even videos of his horrific work.
I began to scream. Begging my mind to snap out of it. Stop this hell and bring me back to reality. But the vision kept on going. Showing the killer's grisly process.
Then the view shifted towards the mirror, but before it reached the killer's face I finally woke up screaming.
It took me about a minute before my brain realized what was happening. I was inside Deborah’s house, in her bathroom looking at myself in the mirror. I was soaked in blood and there was an expression on my face I'd never seen. Combination of absolute terror and pleasure.
I looked at my hands. I held a phone and a knife. The photography app was open on the screen.
The stench of iron and guts was overwhelming and I knew that I couldn't turn my head to the right or I was going to lose it completely.
I stumbled out of the bathroom and dropped to my knees, crying.
No. No! NOOOOOOOOO!
My bloody thumb tapped the colorful gallery app, it didn't register the touch at first. When it finally did open, a collection of photos and videos popped up.
Morbid selfies with the corpse. Photos of the killing and videos of the butchering.
I ran outside and threw up over the little fence. My mind shattered into a million pieces.
There is no fucking way this is real! No way. I didn't know what emotion to go through first and what to do. My body decided for me. Without thinking I checked the time 1:58. The patrols came around every twenty minutes. Which I didn't even realize I knew up until this point.
I sprinted back to the house.
Opened the door and collapsed.
Nobody saw me.
What the fuck is happening. what the. How could this be!
I used to sleepwalk as a child. My parents used to catch me sitting at the stairs, eyes open with nothing in them. Staring in the void of the night.
They had to wake me up extremely carefully and bring me back to bed. But that didn’t happen for years… Or did it?
I rummaged through my memories. Trying to think straight for a second and I couldn't find a moment in the last couple of years where I just sleepwalked somewhere. Maybe I just didn’t remember it because I always found a way back home. What if I was doing this for years!?
My whole life was flashing before my eyes. I tried to figure out when this started. What was really happening…
Some of my pets had gone missing, my girlfriend left me after a night that she never explained to me, and my roommate’s stuff broke randomly.
I am the monster.
The realization hit me like a bag of bricks. I just sat there breathing frantically, shaking. I felt my sanity slipping.
My life ended right there.
I unlocked my phone, skipping over the morbid pictures with closed eyes.
With a deep breath, I dialed my mom.
She didn’t pick up.
“Please leave a message”
“Hey mom, it’s me… listen…I …” my voice breaking, sobbing, “I…I did something … something terrible… and I just wanted to say that… that I love you… Whatever happens to me… Please remember me as your son…”
I finished the voice message and lay there for hours. Crying until there were no tears to shed. The cold floor held me in its embrace. Cooling me down and calming my mind slightly. My eyes began to shut.
No. No.
I sat up struggling to catch my breath and calm myself down.
There was only one thing left to do.
I picked up the phone again and called.
"911 what is your emergency?" came from the other side.
Thank you for reading! As always if you have a friend who might like to get regular fiction doping, send them my way!
Everything that comes up from the lab of the Fiction Dealer is free, yet if you want to support my work and keep my sanity intact you can buy me a cup of coffee!
Brilliantly ended! I kept asking myself "man, how's he gonna get out of this?" And for the answer to so clearly be "he isn't" is such a powerful message for me. It would've been so easy for you to just give him a way out or do like a jeckyl and Hyde thing where the monster was someone else in his body but no it wasn't it was him but the conscious part of him owning that was
WOO
Fantastic, thank you.
It was indeed worth the wait.
And part 3...wow! So much opportunity here, Miguel S., to explore what happens before and after!