Karl awoke in the middle of the night only to pull back his light cover of blankets that he laid under to look at his latest gash upon his thin stomach. At only twelve, he had many scars, some from his father, but mainly from the knife that his father had given him when he was only five.
Reaching under his pillow, he felt the beautiful cold steel he had loved all his life. Following the edge, he grew more comfortable in the dark night. As long as he had pain, he could do anything. Even though he loved the darkness of night, he still looked for his comfort, his beloved pain. His rough fingertips moved lightly over the engraved symbols as he took it into the moonlight. Twirling it within his hands, he knew that nothing could ever come between him and his knife.
At school, he was laughed at and called a freak because he always wore gloves and clothes that covered his entire body even during the summer where most children his age went swimming or laid in the grass in the schoolyard. All people could see was a child huddled in a corner attempting to never be noticed in life. He was always that boy in the back of his class with wide fearful eyes and shaking body when someone would pass by him. Metal, precious metal didn't have that effect. It was meant to be his only love in life, he had thought back then, the only thing that could please him with such vague ideas of torment that made him moan in pleasure, even when he toured the capitals of Europe to sing, he missed them utterly. In fact, he mourned them while he was away singing for the masses and watching them in pity.
He was always the freak. He would always be the freak, he soon realized. Because he was different, but he didn't care or mind, seeing them for who they were and noticing their dark secrets that they all carried. He was no different from the man in the ally taking the woman's clothes off with impatience. Seeing their inner demons at a young age, and he had no choice but ultimately to find comfort in it. But still everyone wanted to criticize him for any bad thing that happened to the town because he couldn't hide. He had thanked god as it seemed when he was a young child that he was never there and the blame soon disappeared, however he was known as the freak still, never coming to school like a normal boy ect.
Karl couldn't remember when this talent had not prayed upon his sanity. This talent to cut upon things. The feel of blood flowing through his skin and onto the floor, or the tough but tender meat as he dug into his arm and removed a chunk of the meat only to replace it once again like a puzzle. Once he had even skewed a squirrel and once it was dead cut it to pieces only to put it back together making it look new with only matted fur and the stench of a dead soul.
He had a tantrum that day, and earned his fathers harsh cold punishment- a switch when he was young, a rod when he was older. Nothing remarkable in being beaten; most of his classmates were, and Karl had been often enough before, but usually for reasons he could understand. But for every time he was punished, he asked for more, secretly wished for more no matter if it were a rod or a branch.
In a rare moment of empathy, Karl's father had asked, "Why don't you scream like any other boy? Do you like your punishment?" He was young, but knew even then that the full truth would only earn him more pain.
"I deserve this punishment and I will take it with a calm attitude. Always obey your parents, is that what the bible teach?" he had lied.
"Yes, yes it does. Good boy." His father's empathy soon turned to confusion and wonderment but a man he only was and the wonderment soon passed thinking that his son was speaking the truth.
He begged his mother for gloves one year hoping that he could hid behind the leather or cloth, seeing them upon a window seal in France. Begging for them upon the street, his mother gave in and bought the fine leather, not knowing what he would do when they reached their home once more. Not knowing the horrors of her son, his lust and obsession. But it wasn't only an obsession; he hated this pleasure, this demeaning of ones self. Once returning home, he found his knife and instantly set to work upon his hands carving into them wondering what was below the skin, a sickening sweet smile upon his face as he let the blood drip upon the floor.
Once a boy tried to take his gloves. When Karl got them back, he tripped the thin scrawny boy down the steps of a dark hallway that no one dared to use. Karl stood over him before anyone else came, and leaned down wondering what he should do to the pathetic piece of meat that lay sprawled before him. Then he bared his hand and stated with a cruel voice, "I will show you the hurt that I have endured today without my gloves."
Taking the boys thin hand, he grabbed a finger and with a much practiced twist, cracked the bone until it broke in half, letting the limp finger hall and repeated the session enjoying the screams that issued forth until he finished the hands. The last one started to bleed and drip upon his hands as he removed it. Taking his hand, he sucked at the pooled blood in his palm, smiled then left the thing to think upon what he had done.
In the forest near his family's home he found dead squirrels, insects, even once a dead wolf, and he would study them wondering if he could piece them together. Eventually he didn't care about life only chaos and death; he could soon predict the catch of faltering breath, the feeling of blood slowing, and of the heart beat stopping. The dead animal would soon pile and rot bringing more deadly animals to his knife. That was around the time he started to hear them.
He could even still remember in detail when he first heard the Elder Gods. He was fast with his pocket knife and skewered a squirrel as it came to chew on the bread he left as bait. It yelped in pain as it tried to wriggle away from where his blade impaled it's tail. That was the first time that Ogdru Jahad had spoke to him. Of course though, he didn't really hear them at the time, but he learned later that every drop of blood spilled for pleasure is a message to them- it wasn't the cravings of chaos or death, but it reaches them all the same.
He made the squirrels death last a long time hoping that it would bring more pleasure from it, more meaning that what it had given him. But it was a death of a family member; the cat who had perished under his knife when the seven elder gods had made their presence known. Under the map of death woven in the cat's matted fur was their promise. If he would be their servant, they would take his hated gift from him. But he must prove his loyalty, no mere animal, a dumb; unthinking thing but a human must die under his knife.
That was only a week agon upon his twelfth birthday. And Karl Kroenen cried for the last time, but the messages from the gods were implacable. And even as he sat upon the mossy ground and pitied himself, he felt a growing temptation. Yes, that was the next step in facing his pleasure. He dried his eyes on his sleeve, and made his plans.
Now as dawn approached, Karl cut deep in his arm and drew his own blood, which made him smile. Today was the day where he would be rid of his awful curse. And yet he would be a slave to a no holy thing. It made him shiver slightly knowing that soon he would be pleased with himself and not for pain or the company of strangers in the night that whispered how they pitied him.
Having a week to plan and save for today, Karl ran the process again through his mind. There was a widow named Welsker who had bore a deformed son. Soon after his father had killed himself and rumor had it that the father had killed himself out of grief. But Karl knew otherwise since he had seen the bastard of a father only in England a month ago taking upon him a new wife a young blond girl with a rich family. Humans were all the same, Karl thought bitterly, how he hated it all.
Karl passed the grave of Alfred Welsker, and paused for a silent moment to read the inscription.
1901- 1911
Loving son who had died to young
Karl then placed a nazi gold bar upon the grave of the child he had killed for greed and lust so long ago.
He had lured this innocent child into the forest where he had killed so many before with a simple thing as sweet abstracts from his mother's kitchen. He had held the boys sticky hand in his own as they walked to the forest. And as he held the boys hand Karl felt at peace, this young boy was pure it seemed, nothing horrible to reveal, nothing to keep a secret nothing at all. However, he bound the boys mouth with his handkerchief and cut the soft throat with his pocket knife. The blood splattered on his hands and watched as the boys brown eyes sank into realization that he was going to die. He felt no remorse, no sorrow, only wished he had found a more worthy sacrifice.
That time the Elder God's message wasn't subtle; darkness fell and they took his mind entirely for a time, filling him with magic and memories of dark things that had not yet occurred. The utter chaos and destruction of everything that was born from the spirits that had poisoned them. And their plan to destroy the world, to fix what had been made undone. When Karl returned to himself he knew his great destiny: to bring the Ogdru Jahad back to earth, to be a servant for them and seed thoughts upon the willing people that would live it the Ogdru Jahad's paradise.
"Wait," he had cried out as he felt their presence leaving him. "What about your promise?"
The blackness around him darkened slightly but there were no words, nothing but emptiness. It was as if the gods were mocking him for not embracing his pleasure, to realize that he would always remain this way, the way of a freak. Suddenly a voice like a whisper of the wind came to him, "Why would you want to be normal? Embrace the gift that we gave to you."
"You promised!" he screamed into the empty woods. A child's protests, some dry voice in his mind noted. The body at his feet was gone, nothing of it remained besides Karl's bloody handkerchief.
Now as he drew in a ragged breath from his gas mask that he wore so often now adays, the same dry voice that he had heard so long ago came again. "My devotion was betrayed… I am so sorry Alfred, if I only knew." Since then, he chose fencing and later on surgical officer just because he could cover his face until the early 1900's. He could still even remember the year that he had rid his hatred of himself only to bore a new one.