Beneath the Mask
Well, well, well. Here we are again. Now, let me give a quick explanation.
First of all, congratulations to LuxUmbra2012 for making such a successful story on your first try. This brings me to my next point. In the recent one-shot done by MintyFishbowl 'I Got Better' shows that Leo has a darker side of him. As well in one chapter inside of 'No Longer Alone.'
Now, inside of No Longer Alone, Leo has a darker side, but it appears and disappears too quickly. Plus, a lifetime of pain and loneliness doesn't exactly give you evil super powers… But hell, it's your story. But this idea gave me a nice plot bunny, which I figured I would jot down and work on when I am not working on my other story.
Now to those of you who haven't read my other story, here is an explanation of how the universe is done.
"If you are a Doctor Who fan, let me explain it like this. It is a parallel universe in which the humans went extinct before they could ever reach their full potential, and felines arose instead. They eventually evolved into a humanoid form, such as opposable thumbs, but still kept their feline features. Anything of man was forgotten besides skeletons discovered by archeologists.
Put simply, cats are sentient humanoids. Any other generic animal like dogs, birds, and several others remain as they would be. Obviously there are no more house cats however the cat looks at the tiger like we do when we look at apes. We think of them as our ancestors.
And for you who don't watch Doctor Who, humans are replaced by humanoid cats. The end. No explanation required."
Now, I hope you don't mind, LuxUmbra2012, but I'm going to borrow your backstory on Leo. Namely, the Christmas double homicide. Now relax, it's not going to be a copy and paste, I'm simply taking the general idea of it.
I have a bad habit of dragging these things on… So, here ya go. Hooray.
My name is Leo Leonardo III. On the surface, I'm that funny guy. The one who does constantly stupid things for the laughter of others, even though I really don't know many people. I'm always in a good mood, and am always making yo mamma jokes and other generally funny comments.
But beneath the surface, I feel… Hollow.
Something no one will ever know about me is the emptiness that lies below.
Why? Well, my emptiness came from a place. A memory. Something perched on my shoulder, whispering to me. Reminding me every day.
December 24, 1998. The last night innocents ever dwelled inside of me.
I was four years old. An excited little kid. Every so happy with the Christmas presents to come. Giddy with anticipation as I lied in bed. Too excited to go to sleep.
It was almost 2:00 am. I was still awake, thinking about the day that has come. Waiting for daylight so I can run downstairs and wake up my parents.
Sitting in silence, innocent thoughts in my head. Thinking of happiness and joy.
Then a shriek came from downstairs. A female one. I sat up, eyes wide, and I slowly crept out of bed. My bare feet making no noise. Then, came a whistle. A whistle from a man. A happy tune. He was whistling 'Row your Boat.'
I stalked silently from the top of the stairs, looking down at a man, in a grey sweater, and brown winter pants. He looks like any ordinary person. He had black fur and a white face. Simply and happily whistling that tune.
He walked to the photos on the walls. Inspecting the photos of my parents and I. My British father, always in formal wear, had grey fur, but his chest, hands, and the lower half of his face is white. Just like me. My Canadian mother, always the wonderful cook, the one who reads me bed time stories, the one who cradled me. She had tan fur, with a white face. It seemed like no matter what anyone did, she would always have a good attitude.
As the man was inspecting the photo, he seemed to put his hand on one part of the photo.
Me.
I snuck downstairs into my parent's room.
What I saw was terrifying. What I saw was mortifying. I saw what no boy my age should've.
My father, had blood all over his pajamas, with a large, apparent knife wound in his chest. He seemed to have been sleeping when he was stabbed.
However, my mother, lying on the floor next to the bed, was still breathing. Her eyes spelled fear and agony. She had a single slice to the throat. She was gasping for air, looking straight at me.
She was breathing faster and faster, I could almost hear her heartbeat quicken, and slow…
She mouthed something to me. She said something silently.
She said… Leo…
A tear escaped her eyes, and she stopped breathing. Her eyes were still open, but they seemed… cold. Her blood pooled on the carpet.
I had no reaction. I was too scared and sad to scream. I was too shocked to cry. I sat there, looking at those lifeless eyes for the longest time.
Then I heard the murderer's footsteps go up the stairs. He was looking for me, I knew it. I walked to my mother. I touched her hand.
"Mom?" I whispered.
I looked on top of the bed.
"Dad?" I whispered again.
Then I felt something warm on the bottom of my bare foot. It was my mother's blood, staining my fur.
I heard the footsteps come down the stairs. I had to hide, but there was nowhere to go.
I panicked, and I stepped over the corpse of my mother, and stepped in her blood. I crawled underneath the bed, crawling through the blood endlessly pouring from her neck. I had lied down in the crimson fluid underneath the bed. I was literally bathing in my mother's blood.
The man walked inside the room.
"Where are you, little buddy?" He said softly.
"I'm not gonna hurt ya!" He said, trying to sound friendly.
I didn't know what to think. Did he know where I was? I sat underneath the bed, holding my breath, shivering.
Something startled the man, and he left the house in a rush. I was left there, alone. I hadn't moved. I didn't sleep, I didn't cry, I didn't scream, I didn't do anything. I was in shock. So many emotions trying to manifest themselves at once. I sat there, with a blank mind, a still body, and I remained underneath the bed, until the remaining innocents inside of me died.
Their bodies were discovered ten hours later. The police came, searched for evidence, and I hadn't moved. I still sat there, in dried blood. Half of my face was red, my left arm and left leg were red, and my feet were red.
One of the police men discovered me when he looked underneath the bed for any additional evidence. They found it.
They took me, walked outside, the press snapping photos and asking for interviews, not caring for the traumatization I had just gone through. All they thought was, 'What a story!' The news teams had rushed towards me, put a camera in my face.
I didn't speak. I couldn't speak. I was unresponsive to all that was going on around me. Eventually the police had held the reporters back, as I stood in the same place. A blank expression on my face. A hollow expression.
I had never gotten a good look at the guy. He was wearing gloves, and the murder weapon was never found. The man who murdered my parents got away with it. No one ever knew who it was. But what bugs me the most, when I look back, is the sheer bliss of everyone that looked at me. Tried to talk to me that day. Christmas morning, I had spent ten hours lying in my mother's blood, with her corpse only six inches away from me.
All of them happily go on with their lives, and forget about it the next day. Their only comments would all translate to; 'That would suck.'
A week after, I had gone to a foster home. A nice married couple and the woman had lost the ability to bear children.
So they took me in. My foster mother's name was Jessica Sanderson. She has orange striped fur, and brown eyes. My foster father's name is Zach Sanderson.
They were kind, they tried to cheer me up, and they treated me as their own. I remember listening to Jessica cry to Zach about me. She said she was worried about me having thoughts of suicide. They had plenty of reasons to be worried. But I would never commit suicide. It's just too… undignified.
Only one thing cheered me up back then. Video games. I wasn't sure why, but the occupying nature of them was soothing. A moment to break away from life.
They had bought me more video games than anything else, because they knew it was the only thing that would bring a smile to my face. They were kind, they only wanted my happiness.
But one year later, school started. It was the first time I ever had social interaction with anyone besides my foster parents in what seems like forever. But I never really interacted. All of the other kids laughed and played, they were outgoing, and they made friends. I was always the one who sat somewhere during recess, and just waited to go back to class. The teachers worried about me, but they were told about my story. About what happened. They offered school counselors and social groups to make me become more… social.
None of it worked. I was alone. I preferred it that way. Any interaction with anyone I didn't know didn't end well with me. I always snuck away, trying to be unseen.
Yes, I was that kid that never talks. There was nothing to talk about anyway.
It was the same way through most of elementary school.
But, when I was eight, someone talked to me.
September 23, 2002 is when someone approached me in recess. It was a girl, named Aeris.
She was incredibly rare. She had naturally pink fur. She had pink fur, and a white face and belly.
She was shy, she was lonely, and she was picked on.
Aeris was always teased because of her fur color. Throughout school, it was that way for her.
Her parents died in a fire when she was three. Her foster parents had several children of their own, all of them male. She was picked on by her foster brothers at home, and she was picked on at school. She was alone.
Back when we first met, she tried to be my friend. I wasn't sure why. Was it because I hadn't picked on her? Was it because I was alone too? I don't know.
The children would tease her when she sat next to mend because of this; I got in quite a few school brawls. None of which were won or lost, since they always were broken up before the conclusion.
Over time, I grew fond of her. She was like a sister. She learned to fight because of her brothers, and I learned to fight because usually I was dragged into conflicts in school.
But as we grew up, people in school became more mature about the situation. The first question everyone would ask her is 'did you dye it?'
Me? Once I hit middle school, I just tried to 'fit in.'
I became the funny man, the class clown. Aeris, however, turned to more of an aggressive nature. My foster parents thought I changed, so did Aeris, but really, I had never changed. I just put on a detailed mask. Beneath the mask, I am empty. You don't know how tiring it is, to always act your appearance. To always fake laugh, to always force a smile.
Aeris likes to use me as a punching bag. She would usually kick me or something when I say too many jokes or become annoying to her. But no matter how annoying I got to her, she somehow remained attached.
She puts up an aggressive front, but I see behind her mask so clearly. I see that she wants to be accepted, and she feels insecure about her color. I really don't understand why. Most women would love to have that color naturally.
But I still remain her only friend. It's not that no one has tried to be her friend, but she seems to push people away. She only hangs out with me, simply because she knows me the most.
Me? Several people consider themselves my friend, but I never really fall in the lines of friendship. Sure, I make people laugh, and people like to be around me. I just don't like to be around people.
I don't like people, because almost all of them don't understand the true meaning of loss.
The true meaning of losing something dear to you. The feeling of worry, helplessness, physical, and psychological pain.
When I was 15, I stalked a man. Not as an admirer, but rather, a detractor.
His name was Jason. Jason Lamguarder. His fur was fully white, and he had a black stripe going down his back, like a skunk. He had a wife and two children. A seemingly happy family. But what I saw was terrible.
He abused his spouse in terrible ways, he locks his children in their rooms, and molested his 12 year old daughter. A sick man, I thought. Taking advantage of everything and everyone he has.
I'll show him what it is like to lose something, I told myself.
One night, I had worked a plan together. I put on leather gloves, and an apron. At about 2:00 a.m., he was going to a bar, but I intercepted him as he walked out of the house. When he unlocked his car, I used a shoelace; I put it around his neck, kicked him against the car, and pulled until he stopped moving.
He was unconscious. I took his keys, loaded him in the back of his own car, got in the front seat, and drove.
I only had a driver's permit, but I managed not to be noticed while I was driving.
I drove far east, to abandoned docks. It was a thirty minute drive. Once I had arrived, I picked him out of the car, and took him inside of the warehouse they used for loading ships at one point.
I tied his hands behind his back with rope I found, and I awaited his awakening. He had woken up, and his first reaction was confusion. He asked me where he was, who I was. I only laughed as he panicked because of the ropes. I hadn't known he was claustrophobic.
I grabbed a baseball bat, and walked towards him. He panicked and screamed, and he got up, and attempted to run away. Nowhere to run…
Once he hit a dead end, I swung the bat at his calf, bringing him to his knees. I hit his back with the metal bat, sending him to the ground writhing in pain.
I placed my foot on his back, to hold him down, and I continued to hit the back of his calf until I hear a snap, and he screamed to the top of his lungs.
"Oh, you can scream all you want." I told him.
"No one can hear you out here."
The strangest thing was, I had not felt nervous. I didn't feel anxious, I felt… at peace.
Odd thing to feel as you slowly break the legs of a man. But his screams somehow left a spark in my emptiness. I didn't want it to stop. I had broken every one of his limbs with the baseball bat, and he was quivering on the floor, begging to me.
He said he would let me have sex with his wife, and I was disgusted. After he said the line, I grabbed his broken arms tied together in rope, and pulled them up to his head, hearing disgusting crunching noises as his bones snapped further. I put his hands in front of his neck, and because of the disfigured position, he was further breaking his own bones as he tried to move his hands, but as he did that, he was also strangling himself.
I took out a digital camera, and I took a picture of me next to him. Something to remember him by…
"Smile for the camera." I said, as I forced his head to look at the lens.
He had eventually stopped struggling, and his eyes went blank. And for the first time in eleven years, I had smiled for real.
I took his body, loaded it in the car, and drove to Dawes Road Cemetery. I had found an open grave in which they were putting a body in tomorrow, and I put him in the grave, and put a small layer of dirt over him to cover his corpse. By tomorrow, he will have been buried in another man's grave. I hoped he didn't mind sharing…
I put the man's car outside of his house where it had been originally.
It was 5:00 a.m. I got on my bike, and I rode to my house, snuck in through the window of my room, and went to sleep.
They never discovered the body. His family woke up the next day, and they noticed he was gone. They didn't think much of it until he was gone for a full week. They figured he took off, leaving them behind. They were unsure of weather to rejoice or mourn his absence. But they ended up mourning, since he was the only one with a job. The wife couldn't find a job capable of supporting her children, and it landed her family into the ghetto.
Had I done them a blessing or a curse? I didn't know, and I still don't know. I don't care either. I didn't do it because it was the right thing to do. I did it because I need to share the pain.
I printed the picture on my computer, and I kept it. I put it in a box, and I hid the box in the wall behind my dresser.
I felt satisfied. But the feeling of satisfaction went away a few months afterward. It wasn't remorse. It was hunger. I wanted to do it again. I wanted it. I needed it. It was like a drug. I knew something was wrong with my head if I was thinking this, but I knew there was something wrong with me ever since the Christmas of 1998.
I had killed again. Over and over again. It was…. Exciting. It was exciting. Each of them I tortured, each of them I took to different abandoned locations in the middle of the night, each of their bodies were never found. Each of them had a nice picture with me, each of them have a place inside of my little photo album that I keep in my little secret box. This went on for two years, and is still going on.
No one knows about it. No one ever can. So I put on my mask, and act as if nothing happened. I put on my funny mask, the silly Leo, that gamer named Leo. No one is any the wiser.
But beneath the mask… The real me…
My name is Leo Leonardo III, and I'm a sadistic serial killer.
Uhg, there were so many Dexter references in that; it almost made my head spin.
I will be working on this periodically, but my priority is Nine Lives. And LuxUmbra2012, if you don't want me to use your Christmas double homicide thing, go ahead and tell me, I'll rewrite it as something different.
I can't help but feel I'm a slave to trends now though. Two stories have Leo as a darker person, one of which has him attempt murder, and the other has him commit murder, and now I go and make a story where he is a serial killer.
Well, those of you who are not fond of graphic descriptions of violence, I would not recommend reading this story further. I'm gonna make Leo pretty sick in the head. And no, it will not be all about killing. Mostly about keeping up his appearance to his foster parents, Aeris, and the rest of school. This is only a work in progress… Much like Nine Lives. But I have a plan where this is going. I don't jump into a story and make it up as I go along, that is a very bad strategy.
Now this might be a one sided Aeris/Leo. Aeris mainly. This should get a small bit interesting. But now, I am off to go finish writing the next chapter of Nine Lives. After that, I'll see what I can do about chapter 2. Shit. No rhyme intended. Damn that sounded cheesy.
And, no, I will not bump this up to M because of graphic content. I believe that the only reason a story should be rated M, is if there is explicit sex scenes. And I sure as hell don't plan on doing anything erotic with this.
Well, review. Tell me if you love it, or hate it. Either way, I feed off of your reviews. Nom nom nom nom…
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