The First Kill

By

HUDA Ansari

The pain from his shackled arms woke him up. The numbness had moved further down from the tips of his fingers to the wrists of his hands. But he could still feel the rusty metal clasps digging into the flesh of his skin. Blood from the earlier torture episode had crusted on his forehead. His vision was blurry but he could make out the faint light seeping through the bottom of the door.

Pain couldn't describe what his body felt anymore. Pain is pleasure he would tell his victims. Not for them, but surely it was so from his perspective. The gurgling sound of life leaving their hollow shells at his whim left him feeling perfectly satisfied. Some would say he was a sadist but he never considered himself one. He knew he didn't take pleasure from their suffering, his pleasure came from his total control over their existence. He could decide their fate at the snap of his fingers. He knew he was not God but he felt he sure came pretty close.

He knew it was his time now. He had played around in this filthy business long enough to know when someone was no longer useful. He knew he had stirred enough trouble for himself over the years, he knew his friends would be the ones to mark his end, he knew the fate that awaited him.

He wasn't scared. He knew the rules and he knew he broke them and he knew he would pay the price for this. What intrigued him was how would he be paying this price? Would they torture him till he was left lifeless? Would they shoot him dead in the middle of the night? Would they starve him to death?

He had subjected his victims to each of those and more and as he sat there screwing his eyes trying to make out his surroundings, he started reminiscing his innumerable kills. Some were short and sweet, some went on for weeks, some were exciting, some were routine.

But by far, his favourite was his first kill. He couldn't forget it, none of the ones after compared to it, and it forever held a special place in his heart. Or whatever dark pit of emptiness that lay in his chest instead of a heart, for he had been told many times, by enemies and friends alike that he possessed none.

He wondered if his captors would do the same to him. He wondered if somewhere a young boy was preparing a gunny bag for his remains. Maybe they'd incinerate his remains and have a bonfire to celebrate his end. Or perhaps dispose him off chopped up just the way he did so many of his victims.

As he watched the wounds on his legs ooze from infection, he wondered how poignant it would be if he were to meet his Maker in the way he shoved his first victim to - it'd almost be like a circle of life, or death in this case. The only difference would be she was innocent and would probably have met her Maker. He was everything the opposite of that, and he didn't gratify himself with vision of Eternal gardens. To him, he had enjoyed his gardens on Earth and if hell were to be real, he knew there'd be a nook in there with his name singed on it.

He never felt any remorse, nor did he feel guilt. But he did often think about her. He could always remember how feel soft her skin had felt under his being. She was an inconvenience for someone and removing her was getting him easy money. He just had to take care of her but he had gone beyond the call of duty to finish this particular job. He wasn't trying to impress his boss - he was always a conceited over-confident man - to him it was about the purposelessness of her delicate existence. He couldn't remember her face or her name for that matter, but he remembered that she was the most beautiful thing he ever saw. Just ending her life seemed like a shame to him. No, he had to take his time with her. He always considered himself a purveyor of beauty. She couldn't die looking like she did, she couldn't die beautiful. But somehow, even at the very end, as her helpless bare figure writhed from all forms of indignities and tortures he had subjected her to, she somehow still looked more pleasing to him than any woman he had before or after her. He remembered her with a degree of fondness that couldn't be defined by words. Did he love her? Of course not. But she was much like a first love: she was his first kill.

He was smiling to himself as the cellar door creakingly opened. He had just finished thinking about re-living his first kill. Remembering watching her breathe her final breath always made him smile with satisfaction.

His captor now stood by his feet. He couldn't make out his face but he could tell that it was well-built young man and that the remainder of his existence was left at his whim. He romanticised the idea of being his first, being forever imprinted in his captor's memory, being the start of his journey of power, lust, sin, money, and death. He continued smiling maniacally as he watched his captor gesture for the door to be shut.

The door slowly creaked shut, blocking away almost all the light. The darkness within soaked whatever else remained.