* A/N: This is my first story. However, I'm not asking you to take it easy on me. Please comment, and any sugestions/complaints are welcome! Thank you and..on to the story!
Questions
It was one of those nights. It wasn't raining, or foggy, not even a little colder than unusual. Outside, it was a perfectly ordinary night, the moon gazing upon the filthy town, shining in broken windows and rusty cars, leaving the small alleyways and slim, mysterious figures roaming around into the black, welcoming shadows. Just… he had that feeling again. Like his whole body, no, his whole self was longing for something. And it hurt.
He let his body slowly fall on the wooden floor. The old flooring creaked sharply, sending it's faded echoes through the empty room. It was pitch black, but his eyes were well adjusted with the darkness. The window, filthy and cracked cast a grayish square of light, only enough to light the thin outline of his body. He took his head in his hands. They were ice cold. "What is it with me?!" the whisper barely left his lips. But he knew. A shiver crossed his spine, making his whole body tremble. He was cold. He was thinking about her.
That night, they looked at the stars. Once, he was ready to go there, to leave all this and become one with the things he regarded the most. But he wasn't allowed. But then, that night, that didn't matter. Nothing mattered, except her. He wanted to look up on them. Because she was looking with him.
He asked her that night. He asked her the question that tormented his sleepless nights, that followed him into his mind's darkest corners, always lurking, always there. The silent question that everyone of his nightmarish paintings screamed whenever he passed them by. The question that followed him through Heaven and Hell, the last thing he carried with him when he left house 777.
His voice was shaky and his hands were sweaty. His head was pounding and his heart was racing. Though his question was almost a whisper, his mind was screaming it in pain. "I kill people. Am I jist 'a murderer"?! Am I not an artist only because I can't paint anymore?! Do those things define who I am?!" and, most importantly, "If I stop doing what defines me, What remains?!". She had no answer. "WHO AM I?!" she had no idea.
He was empty. No, he was incomplete.
"Who am I?!" He thought that answering this question will make him whole. When he found out that there is no answer, he started searching elsewhere. He left his home, trying to reboot his life. He's gone through all those stupid sleep researches, trying to find missing pieces of him among hellish nightmares and broken realities. He even settled in this nameless town, away from everything that made him "past him". He bought a house, cut his hair, bought new clothes, everything to build a new "him". Everything, except the killings. He couldn't resist. It wasn't a habit anymore, it became reflex. But he was still undetected... the police here was even more idiotic. Nevertheless, nothing changed inside. He was the same. When he left, he thought he was free, that he was the master of his fate. He had plans, hopes and maybe, just for a split second, he was happy. Now, everything was the same. Even worse, he was thinking about her, the one who got away. But that was years ago, in another nameless town. She was probably a success painter, had kids and a non-homicidal husband. She forgot him long time ago, and even if she didn't, she hated him back then, she'd probably still hate him now. Then, why was he feeling like this?!
He had no direction, no landmarks, nothing. He was killing, sometimes eating, sometimes just standing there, in the dark, alone. He remembers women. Faceless, tasteless, smelling like cheap cigarettes and whiskey. Their flesh is sticky and sometimes bruised. He sees cheap motels and dirty beds. Blood everywhere. A gun. He wanted to die, once. But hell is just another place on earth, so why bother.
And then it hits him. The sudden realization makes him get up so fast, his head starts wheezing. He can't even remember what was last time he ate. But it doesn't matter. The answer, he had it all along. He was such a fool, running away from it, when he was so close.
He must return.