Chapter 2: Killer Unleashed
I woke to the feel of a hard wood bench and a warm jacket on my face. I opened my eyes to see the dark of night blanketed across the sky. The stars were nowhere to be found but the moonlight escaped a prison of clouds. A man stood at the other end of the bench and spoke in a hurried tone into his cellphone.
"I understand director, I'll return as soon as I can... No I can't come now, it's that day I told you about... Well maybe if you were ever interested in my life outside of the lab then I would've explained it thoroughly to you... Yes actually, I think it might be relevant to work... Well I had always hoped it wouldn't." the man kept talking as I sat up. Then the man said "I'll see you later, he just woke up." and shoved his phone in his pocket. A long silence fell between the two of us while we both waited for the other to start a conversation.
"Fainting isn't like you. School isn't becoming too much of a challenge for you is it?" The man jested.
"Shut up Kurama. I still surpass everyone in grades and three universities have already accepted me."
"Heh, that's impressive Sora, your mother would be proud." he paused and stood. "Speaking of her, did you visit her yet?"
"No, I had too much going on today to get around to that."
"I can tell."
Kurama walked with me to the end of the street and we both turned into the entrance of a cemetery. My mother had been dead for years but I spread her ashes at the base of Mt. Fuji three years ago. My father died when I was seven, I still don't know how he died. I am sixteen now and my only friends are Yumi and Kurama. Some people would find that sad but it was enough for me to be happy. I had been so lost in thought that I didn't realize that Kurama and I had already reached my father's grave. Me and Kurama stood staring down at the stone slab with fresh flowers laid across it.
"The Cemetary employee is a nice man isn't he?" Kurama asked with an expressionless face.
"Yeah. He always gave him fresh flowers on grandpa's grave, and now his son." I frowned at the irony.
"I think he would say that he was satisfied with his life, if we were to ask him now." Kurama said.
"Why do you say that?"
"He had your mother, and he loved playing with you as his child. I rarely saw him without a smile on his face."
"You're forgetting something."
"Am I?"
"Yeah. He had you for a friend, Kurama." I smiled at him. It took a while before Kurama spoke again. He turned his head. The light of a nearby street lamp made his glasses form a shroud of bright mist between myself and his eyes.
"No Sora, having me for a friend was more of an inconvenience than it was a benefit for him." he remained emotionless and still. "I doubt he enjoyed my company while we worked. I can assure you that he hated the way I dealt with things at work." The sudden mention of Kurama's work struck me like a static shock.
"Can I ask you something Kurama?"
"Depends."
"What is it that you do for a living?"
"Well, I-"
"Specifically, what work did you do with my dad?" Kurama paused for a moment before continuing.
"Your father and I were researchers in a top-secret laboratory close by. We researched a certain organisms there, seeing how they function and how different from each other and ourselves they are. Does that answer your question?" he stared at me, tilting his head to show only one of his serious, cold eyes.
"Not really." I replied. "Though I think it's good enough because I think I might fall asleep if I listen to anymore details."
We stood there, not knowing how to act. Should we tell jokes? Kurama isn't all that humorous. Ask about each other's days? Mine was a personal subject and Kurama didn't look all that inviting to share stories either. The awkward tone of this situation seemed to weigh heavily on the both of us. An interruption in the moment came in the form of a flare of pain from my migraine. Kurama looked concerned at where I massaged my head.
"Have you felt like this all day?" He looked at me with a mixture of concern and fear, as if I would accidentally kill him in an instant.
"Pretty much, gah-! It slowly got worse and worse.
"This isn't good, I was shure this would not happen so quickly. Have you killed anyone yet or had the driving urge to kill anyone?" Kurama's voice was calm but I could tell that he was a little frantic.
"No. Actually, I felt some strange voice in my head try to convince me to kill someone but I don't think that is what I truly wanted to do." I keeled over on the ground and felt the bone-like protrusions throb so hard that they felt like they were going to stab out of my head.
"That alone is extremely bad. I'm going to have to take you to my lab." Kurama dialed on his phone and rushed to my side. I cried out in pain and fear welled up inside of me when I felt the bones on the sides of my head begin to stick out of my head. I lost conciousness as I screamed out in agonizing pain when the bones stabbed out of my skull, splattering blood all over the ground and surrounding graves.
"This was bound to happen, I only wish you had realized that sooner." the clone of me stood in the middle of the water with the mannequins contorted, twisted stances creating a maze around him. I tried to lunge at him but two of the mannequins were holding me in place.
"I wouldn't want you to get away now would I Sora? I think it's about time you let me take over the show here and run wild." He smiled and the mannequins shoved my head under the cold surface of the water. I felt pain and agony leave me and I looked through my own eyes as if I were watching a nightmare on a TV screen.
I had no control over my body, all I could do was watch in horror as my body ran wild, killing random people I saw, hunting down and mutilating young girls with horns protruding from the sides of their heads long after they had died and killing the strange men with body armor and machine guns. My mind was in complete ecstacey and my whole body tingled with ardor of killer intent. My life and the human aspects were just dropped on the ground and crushed underfoot, and the mannequins released me.
I gained full control of my body once more, or so I thought. I could feel the cold, raspy breaths of the demon in my mind caress my spinal cord. But that was meaningless, all I felt was the desire for blood and death. I felt hands that I barely knew existed. I used six of them to slice through buildings, tear through flesh and smash in skulls as I used the last two to sprint/crawl over the town. I found many pink haired girls, with arms like my own, that attacked me with killer intent that rivaled my own, but fell prey to my deadly arms.
It was then that I felt a strange sensation envelope my brain, I felt the desire to grasp the arms they attacked me with. I grappled them with all eight of my arms and seemingly ripped them out of the minds of the girls, their bodies twitching with contorted pain and muscle spasms. My instincts took over and I drew the four severed, shimmering arms to my mouth and bit into them all at once. A bitter taste conquered my tongue and my invisible arms throbbed with nourishment, their reach and grip extending beyond their former extent.
I was overjoyed and wild. I sought out and killed another pink haired girl and devoured her arms as well, mine growing stronger, longer and wilder with every bite. I eventually ran into another squad of soldiers that looked identical to the ones I massacred a while ago. I lunged at them but Kurama's voice suddenly stopped me in my tracks. I stopped within inches of his face, breathing heavily in his calm, collected face.
"Stop this Sora, just stand down and we can help you." he had a gun but left his arm hanging by his side. The demon version of myself manifested in my mind and tried to wrench control of my body away from me again.
"Sora, kill him! He doesn't know what he's talking about!" my right arm snagged the gun out of Kurama's and I pointed the weapon at his forehead. He only held up his hand to keep the surrounding soldiers from shooting me.
"That's it Sora. Now kill him and lay waste to these humans." my demon demanded.
"Sora, come with me I can help you deal with this." Kurama pleaded.
My own voices mixed in with my demon's and Kurama's voices, rattled around and ricocheted off the insides of my stiff body. I pleaded with myself to drop the gun while my demon demanded that I pull the trigger. I was so paralyzed that Kurama reached up and pushed my hand down to my side.
"Don't let him touch you Sora! Kill him now!" My head throbbed with pain again and the bases of what I realized to be my horns, like on the pink haired girls, seemed to be the source of it. The demon's pleas and curses crushed every last bit of willpower left inside me except the one realization and desire to complete an action: my hand shot up, I slammed the end of the barrel to my left horn, aiming away from my head, and pulled the trigger.
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"
The demon wailed in pain and I shared in his inhuman screams of agony as I fell to the ground writhing and desperately clutching the gun. I struggled to keep the demon back and to keep him from stealing control over our arms and keep him from stopping me using the gun again. I could feel him wrestling to stop my arm from reaching up and aiming at the other horn. I was barely conscious and the pain from shooting off my other horn plagued my entire body with a burning, seething wave of agony.
"Stop it! What are your doing Sora!?" the demon shouted. "I set you free! I taught you how to be your true self! Why are you doing this to me!? Sora! WHY!" the words came out of my mouth like I was possessed and demonic. My other hand grasped the gun and helped me force the end of the barrel to the base of my other horn. I couldn't help but mock and shout at the demon fighting my actions. My last sight before shutting off my mind was my demon floating on the floor of water with blood clouding the surrounding water and his face contorted with mixed feelings of rage, pain and fear. My words exited my mouth as my demon's did earlier.
"You ask why monster!? I am trying to suppress and exterminate you from my soul! I WILL NEVER GIVE INTO YOUR MINDLESS KILLING EVER AGAIN!" I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger.
The hellish and demonic screams and curses of my demon faded into the recesses of my mind as I lost hold of my consciousness and fell into a dreamless sleep.
The pain of my head vanished and I felt hands lift me off the ground, like angels carrying me to heaven.