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The first thought that came through her mind when it was over, was that she shouldn't have been alive.
Or, she wished she was dead.
She really thought they would kill her, those men in scary masks — clad in all black — when they snatched her off her feet, as though she was a rag doll, as she was walking home by herself at night, and the street was dark and lonely.
She really thought they would kill her then. She hoped they would kill her when they held her legs open and forcefully ripped her panties apart. She had hoped then, with four of them holding her down and the man in a red devil mask forcing his way in and out of her body, that they would murder her afterwards.
She'd tried, kicking and scratching. At first, it was a feeble attempt to escape. But after her body was violated and her mind became broken, she knew — crying until no sound left her throat anymore — she wasn't going anywhere, until they either let her go or kill her, and the fight she put — as much as she could with the pain so excruciating she thought she was going to pass out — was an attempt to provoke them into killing her.
She had always been a coward her entire life. She wouldn't dare do it herself, but if she provoked them hard enough — biting the hand covering her mouth and trying to claw out their eyes — it would anger them enough. Death was the escape she needed.
But after he finished in her, they only beat her up until she was half conscious. Then they left. She couldn't even cry anymore; too physically weak that all she could do was lie still on the cold, damp floor with sticky liquid leaking down her inner thighs. Semen or blood. Undoubtedly both.
She wanted to beg them to come back and finish where they left off, put her out of her misery for good, but as she gasped weakly, no sound left her mouth.
She... didn't know how long she'd been lying there, too hurt to move, in that old, ran down warehouse of sorts that she was taken to, but she'd been slipping in and out of consciousness. At some point she didn't know if she was dreaming or if she was awake, but pain was the only thing letting her know she was alive.
Shame was what stopped her from calling the cops, or an ambulance. She only wanted this to be over. When she could, she gritted her teeth and ignored the pain, getting up on unsteady legs. Her clothes were torn apart and her skin was covered in blood and bruises, but she had to go home. She'd never felt so dirty. So worthless.
Like a piece of meat.
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It was a miracle she made it home without passing out.
The first thing she did was toss what was left of her clothes in the bin and never looked at it again. She stumbled to the bathroom, almost fell on her knees, but she managed. The water was cold — ice cold — against her skin. She winced, biting her lip until she tasted blood, to cage in a sob.
It felt like the assault was happening again, the way the water touched her bruises, the cuts. But she needed to be clean. If she could, she would gut herself inside out and rinse her insides until all traces of the man who raped her were gone.
But she couldn't rid herself of what happened. It'd live with her, be a part of her until the day she died. What she could was do her best to rub herself as clean as she could, even if it meant scratching her already bruised skin until she bled.
The water beneath her feet was a disturbing shade of brown and red mingled together. She watched it go down the drain, and decided to scrape harder until the brown was gone and red was the only color left. It felt like it still wasn't enough.
Her hand came between her legs, and she couldn't hold back a sob anymore. The sound left her throat, it was broken. She covered her mouth with one hand, cleaning herself down there with the other. The slightest touch sent hot waves of pain through her core, threatening her legs to give up.
She did, eventually. Sitting on the tile with her back against the cold wall, hugging herself with her face between her knees.
The water was still on. She let it pour down on her.
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After that night, she didn't leave the house at all.
It helped that she didn't have friends or family to check on her. She could run her small business at home, anyway. And she was trying to do that, live a normal life and pretend nothing happened.
She was... managing, for a while, until she broke down and found herself curling up into a ball on her bed, weeping. It'd become a reoccurring pattern.
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She'd thought about it, more than once.
Death sounded easy. Tempting. Surely, it would end — it must — if only she had the courage.
Coward. Pathetic. The voices whispered.
But she threw the razor blade across the bathroom frustratedly, and punched a hole on the mirror in front of her, painting at the sight of her cut knuckles.
Blood falling onto the countertop's sink and down into the drain. But it was... something. She needed that, the pain. Anything to distract her mind from rewinding in vivid detail, what happened that night.
She would... work up her courage to actually do it, one day. She told herself, a promise to keep herself from breaking down again. She would. And then she could finally escape this for good.
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She was coming to the realization that she was never going to work up that courage. Ever since she was a child, she'd always been a coward. Her parents had made sure to always remind her that. Because she never told them about the times her teacher took her to a quiet room and started touching her breasts, putting his hand under her skirt and fingering her, before he started unzipping his pants next.
She was twelve when it happened. And she knew it was wrong, or at least she knew he hurt her, even if she didn't know, at that time, what it was. Except that it hurt.
She never told her parents though. Until that teacher did the same thing to another girl, and she — this girl — she was braver. She didn't keep her little mouth shut. And it turned out he had done the same thing to so many little girls, and when she was asked if she was one of them, she didn't say anything, but her tears gave it away nonetheless.
She remembered, her parents were so mad at her. Mom wouldn't stop crying, and dad wouldn't stop yelling.
Although she was too young to know what it was back then. She knew what it was now. And that it'd happened to her again.
Only that this time the monster had planted its seed inside her, too.
She found out she was pregnant a few days ago, and it felt like everything came crashing down again. That tended to happen a lot in her life. She considered her options, she could get rid of it. And she knew she should.
Going to the clinic would mean being asked questions. She hadn't talked about what happened to anybody, and while she could lie, the thoughts of leaving her house and letting strangers touch her again... she threw up more bile into the toilet, having forgotten when the last time she ate something was, but the thoughts of being touched by someone else again were enough to send nausea down her stomach, making her feel sick. Or maybe it had something to do with another life forming into existence inside of her, too; a chunk of meat that that monster had left that would develop into a person with a soul, a constant reminder of her sin.
Unless she got rid of it. Yes, she had to.
But since she wasn't going to the clinic for that...
She looked around. Her eyes landed on a hanger. She didn't remember herself reaching for it, grabbing and holding it like her life depended on it, although her hands were visibly shaking.
She needed to do this, get rid of that thing.
Straightening the hanger wasn't the difficult part. What was, she gulped — now her entire body was shaking, sobbing in fear of what was about to happen, what she was doing — was the act of doing it. But she had no other choice.
Sitting on the bathroom tile with her back against the wall, she spread her legs. Her hands were shaky and she felt dizzy, but she closed her eyes and positioned the sharp edge at her entrance. Holding her breath, she slowly inserted it inside her. She hissed when the pain hit. Her body fighting the foreign object, telling her to pull it away. She forced her hand to push it in deeper. Although she kept her eyes closed, she was certain blood was starting to pool on the floor. She could feel it, sticky liquid on her inner thighs. It only reminded her of that night, and what happened when she was twelve.
Disgust outweighed pain. She couldn't turn back now. The makeshift rod went in deeper. She could feel it in her stomach, prodding at her insides. Her womb. She could feel wetness on the floor, surrounding her, and she didn't open her eyes.
She felt more dizzy, probably from blood loss and fear combined together. Even though her eyes were closed, she could smell the coppery scent of blood now, it was making her feel sick. More sick.
She screamed then. Bleeding and hurting. Feeling herself fading away. Maybe this would kill her, eventually. And if it did, she'd count it as a blessing. The first one in her life.
She didn't fight it when consciousness swallowed everything whole.
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It turned out she passed out from blood loss. Just that. She didn't die.
She woke and found herself lying on the bathroom tile. Dried blood on her inner thighs, and the floor. The bloodied hanger lying by her side.
Her inside hurts, like someone grabbed her innards and twisted it. But she was no stranger to pain, after everything she was put through.
She gritted her teeth, and slowly moved up into sitting. She felt thirsty. If she stayed there and waited for another hour or so, maybe she could move to fetch herself a glass of water.
Though she hoped it worked, that the thing inside her had died.
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It was still alive.
Whatever cruel joke this was. It survived. Like a plague. A virus. Something that couldn't be killed.
She considered trying again with something stronger, sharper.
For some reason, she let her stomach grow bigger. She could still kill it after it was born. That would be... a lot easier — less messy — than trying to kill it when it was in her womb.
She'd have to carry it with her for nine months. But then she would kill it.
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She felt nothing but hatred towards it when she held it for the first time, after it was born.
It was a boy. A spawn of Satan who violated her.
She'd already had everything planned out, how she would kill it. She went back and forth at first, between throwing it in a fireplace and drowning it in a tub. She opted for the latter. It was tiny, so hiding its body wouldn't be too difficult a task.
But it was crying, and it was holding onto her finger with its small hand. And suddenly killing it seemed a tad harder than she originally thought.
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She'd told herself she would never get attached. Couldn't.
This wasn't her son. Only an offspring of the monster who raped her. But if she couldn't kill it — weak. Pathetic — then eventually she would have to name it.
Arthur sounded... decent enough.
She could call it Art, for short.
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Before she knew it, Art wasn't an infant anymore.
She wouldn't say she'd come to loving him, Art. But every time she looked at him, she slowly saw less and less of his father, and more of... something that was hers. He wasn't a golden son, that much was clear, and that what they had was the furthest thing from a perfect American family, but he was... hers.
"Was the soup too cold? I could heat it up a bit for you,"
Art didn't verbally answer (though he was at the age where he should've been able to talk now), but he nodded. Wordlessly, as always.
She ruffled his hair, and took his bowl to the microwave. She could feel Art's eyes watching her. It did give her the creep, but he was her son — no, no he wasn't... that. But he was... she had the duty of taking care of him now, if she wasn't going to kill him.
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Art's lack of voice meant he would never ask about his father.
She almost felt ashamed that she found his disability convenient. Even more so that, deep down, she suspected her attempt to kill him when he was in her womb may have played a part in his silence.
She never took him to see a doctor. Any decent mother would, but what she was, she wasn't that, a decent, loving and caring mother. Maybe Art had some sorts of a brain damage from her attempt that day, but it didn't kill him. That was... all that mattered.
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She learned, after Art's fifth birthday, his silence wasn't the only thing wrong with him.
"Art?" she entered the kitchen on slow, careful footsteps. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. "What are you doing?"
Art turned around to greet her. His smile was wide. Disturbingly wide.
Something was inside the microwave. Something that... should never have been in it.
She covered her mouth, stunned. She would undoubtedly see flyers all over her small town, it would even be on the news; a missing toddler, two crying parents begging for any information. Her neighbors. She never actually talked to them, but the woman next door with her perfect husband had just had a baby. And this baby that was burning inside the microwave couldn't be any other baby.
The thoughts of Art sneaking into their house through a window and snatching their infant like it was a sweet. She hadn't felt this sick in so long.
She knew there was nothing left to be saved. But she still flinched and screamed when the tiny body exploded, blood and organs splattered all over the glass.
Art laughed at the sigh, pointing at it while looking at her, and clapping his hands enthusiastically. She never saw Art laugh so hysterically before.
She figured, at least, there was no body left for it to be tracked back to her and to him.
She would just have to... buy a new microwave.
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It was Art's tenth birthday when she took him to the carnival.
He still was silent, and at this point she expected it to last a lifetime. His silence. It never seemed to bother him, though. Although he was old enough to know his difference, the way other people were able to speak.
Art was a special child. And it wasn't because he was mute, or because he was her baby (any parent would say their kid was special, right?). But she knew, Art really was special. He was different. Not normal. And sometimes he scared her, but as strange as it sounded, she didn't regret not killing him when she had the chance.
She watched his eyes light up when he saw Bozo the Clown.
It was the exact same look Art had on his face when he microwaved that infant.
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She didn't give it much thoughts, how Art reacted when he saw that clown.
(At least it meant he was fascinated by something else that wasn't blood or organs — she'd lost count, how many times she walked in on him dissecting a roadkill he found in the basement, playing with its intestine the way other boys his age played with a robot toy — so she figured it was a good thing.)
She saw him painting his face, one day. Black and white, and he'd found a fabric — black and white, too — to cut and turn into what appeared to be a clown costume.
"Quite a skill you have there, huh?" she sat next to him.
Art, behind the face paint, gave her a smile with perhaps a bit too many teeth on display. The look was... disturbing, to say the least. But beyond that, there was something else. Something she couldn't put a finger on, but it sent shivers down her spine.
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She was hoping — praying — it would get better. He would get better.
She should have known; whatever Art was, she couldn't pray to God for him. He was... the opposite of that, of anything holy.
"This cannot continue, Art." She wasn't outright screaming, but her voice was filled with poison and rage. "You need to stop doing this."
There was a body in the living room. A mutilated body of a little girl. She couldn't be older than ten, though her face was unrecognizable. Art had made sure of that when he peeled off her skin with a kitchen knife.
He was seventeen. As he got older, his violent nature seemed to only grow stronger. His face — behind the face paint, the black and white clown makeup — was covered in the girl's blood, and he was wearing the clown getup. Lately that seemed to be the only thing he wore.
Art looked at her. He was smiling. There was blood on his teeth, it made him look less like a human and more like a predator. A hungry lion after it torn apart a lamb. Or a hyena having feasted on a fawn where its entire face was covered in blood and parts of innards.
"Why do you keep doing this?" She approached on uncertain footsteps. Her voice shook and there were tears in her eyes. She was scared of him. Terrified.
Art stood still. His eyes glued on her. He was panting, breathing loudly like some sorts of a bloodlust creature straight from hell. Something that wasn't created by God but Satan himself. Something inhuman.
He was smiling still. Sometimes she wished he would stop doing all of these, the eerie smile, the killings. She now wished she had gone ahead and kill him when she had the chance.
She shook her head. This had been going on for too long. She had been enabling this for too long. The blood, it was on her hands, too. She needed to stop this. She needed to stop him before more innocent people — innocent children and women — died. She was right from the very beginning, it turned out, he was a spawn of Satan. A monster.
"I'm going to call the cops," she said, voice firm.
Art continued looking at her. He didn't blink once, and she had thought — hoped — what she said would at least wipe that smile off his face. It didn't waver. She wanted to scream. But she wasn't going to break down. Not again. Not anymore. She turned her back to him and made for the phone. This had to end today.
She never got to press the green button when the blade of a knife pierced through her throat from behind. The phone dropped from her hand as she stood still, mouth hung open.
Blood began to drip from her mouth. It splattered all over the wall when Art violently jerked the knife back. She frantically tried to... do something. She wouldn't know. Her hands touched her neck where a gaping hole kept on pouring out dark crimson blood. Thick and warm and slippery.
She dropped on the floor with a thud, choking and thrashing around. Her eyes were wide, they almost bulged out of her face. And she looked up at Art, wordlessly saying something, or cursing at him.
Art stood tall over her. His shadow devoured her alive. He was still smiling, tilting his head to the side. Never once had he blinked.
She grabbed his foot. Then the leg of the table. Then back at his ankle again. Anything she could reach. Jerking and twisting with blood splashing all over like one of those fountains in the parks.
Then it gradually came to a stop, her writhing. Her body lied still and unmoving by Art's feet. Her mouth and her lifeless eyes remained open, her gaze staring blankly up at nothingness. Dead.
Art chuckled in silence. He stepped away, forcing his ankle out of her grip. The knife was still in his hand.
He made his way to the kitchen next, and put the weapon back in its place before pouring himself a glass of water from the tap.
It had been quite an eventful day for him, but Art always liked treating himself with some nice murders and violence. It made him laugh, and he was pretty fond of that, laughing, inflicting pain and suffering.
He walked back to the living room where the bodies of his mother and the girl (his victims) lied, and chuckled in silence again.
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What Art was, besides a cold blooded serial killer who had no regard for human life, was a survivor.
He knew, somehow, she had tried to kill him. His mother. And he'd laughed at her pathetic attempt. He was created and brought into this world for a reason, a purpose, to bring destruction and agony upon those who were unlucky enough to get a smile from him.
He continued living in that house with the corpse of his mother and the rest of his victims until he was twenty-two. No one suspected a mute, thin, weak-looking man to be the one responsible for the mystery of all those children keeping going missing in this small town. And Art knew how to deal with the smell, just what chemical to use to make it go away. So the property was never searched.
He ate them, too. Starting off with his mother. Her flesh was sweet. Soft. He didn't even bother cooking the meat first.
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Art decided to move out once he thought it was time he ought to... look for his next victims someplace else. Someplace he could reign more horror.
Art had his bag with him, a black plastic bag where he stored all his tools; from a scalpel to a hacksaw and whatnot. They always came in handy.
He never got bored trying them on new victims, testing how each of them cried, and how each of the toys cut. What kind of wounds each of them inflicted.
They never caught him. The cops. They never even glanced his way. Never even knew who the suspect was. A strange clown walking down the street at night, with a bag slung over his shoulder, made for a disturbing sight, yes, but from the outside, he never posed as a real threat. Not with his slender, nearly feminine frame. And Art always used that to his own advantage. Always getting away with every crime he committed.
And if he ever got caught... Art knew, somehow he knew, he was made to be a survivor. To survive. If he died, he knew it would have to be by his own hands, and even then he would come back. Somehow he would always come back.
What he was — Art chuckled, making a jack-o'-lantern from a severed head of a recent victim who he decapitated — was something demonic and inhuman.
Something that could never be killed.
A spawn of Satan, that was what his mother always saw him, before he murdered her. What he was.
Art laughed. It was complete silent. The taste of his victim's flesh and blood was delicious on his tongue.
So he laughed and he laughed. The room was filled with utter silence.
"No one was born evil," as the saying went. It was... silly. Art never believed that. But it was either he was born evil, or the Devil himself had cursed him ever since the moment of his birth. Ever since his mother was raped, and her rapist, the apostle of Satan, had planted his seed in her. The seed that had grown to be a sadist fuck who fed on the flesh and the fear of his victims.
Either way, whether Art was born evil, or if he was cursed by the Devil, wherever he went — whoever crossed paths with him — there was blood. Death.
There would always be blood and death. Everyone died a violent death.
Everyone Art touched.