After meandering around the city and dropping the baby off at an unnamed cemetery-where I found myself choking up with wretched emotions-, I realized that it was getting late and my presence at a certain football game was requested.

At a local gas station not far from the graves, I managed to steal a map of the area and find King Street, where Kyle had said the game would take place. From my current location, it was at least ten miles, but that was as the crow flew, so it was more like fifteen, by the time I followed the roads. After all, I certainly wasn't planning on walking that entire distance. Wearing myself out for an asinine football game was pushing it-especially when I had just hunted recently and was already prepared to die from exhaustion. So, being a well-trained Manticore thief, I found a car.

All right, technically I stole the car.

A pair of young teenagers-boyfriend/girlfriend, most likely-had gotten out of his black Chevy truck to go into some kind of restaurant. Silly boy had left the doors unlocked, figuring that no one in such a small town would dare to steal his truck. Well, I wasn't no one; I was a someone.

Needless to say, I took his truck.

Ten minutes later, after some simple hotwiring that a human monkey could have completed, I was cruising down the road, window open, so that the air could flow over me and relieve some of claustrophobia. At first, I had considered removing the weapons from under my jacket because they were starting to become irritating, as they prodded my already sore body. Then, I figured that if a cop got on my tail and decided to send me speeding down the road, I didn't want to have to pause when I fled the vehicle to grab my stash of armory.

The truck was a rather sleek vehicle, and one that I would've considered keeping, but it had its own trails to cover-such as insurance papers and license plates-and I didn't want to have to get rid of both my tracks and the truck's. Yet, as if desiring to spend as much time with the truck as I could, I aimlessly drove around, mostly just scoping out to the area to find a place to rest after the game, and I began to lament ever leaving Chicago.

People in this cliched community still existed in their deformed happy bubbles. Bubbles, meaning that they still contained the stupidity that life was going to be just grand for as long as they lived, for they were going to marry their high school sweetheart, and have lots of kids, and be rich and cozy in their lovely ranch houses. The outside world had only barely touched their minds, letting in just the squeaking of media influence and the horrors that truly thrived. I saw many of these people walking their dogs down the perfectly safe streets or tending their flower gardens as their yard-long rear pointed up in the air.

I hated them.

I loathed the imbecility in which they lived their droning lives.

I wanted to pull the truck over to the perfect curb and scream at them, throttling them back to the reality in which I had lived all of my life. How could they be so blind? How? These people acted as if life really was about happiness and puppy dog love. Life wasn't about happiness, and if it was, then I certainly had been passed on by. And, I definitely had killed enough dogs in my life-some for food, some for fun-to destroy any and all puppy dog love.

Somehow, during my mental fuming, the truck had slowed down to a creeping pace as I traveled through a small, innocent suburb. Tiny children ran across the cracked sidewalks, despite the dusky hour. In the many numerous cities I had visited, I had never seen anyone so trusting and so utterly blind. The only reason I walked down the streets of the cities at night was because I was…me, to be perfectly honest. Only a fool would exist after the sun had gone down in the worlds I flourished in; even the local street bums had enough sense to get inside if they valued their jugular in one piece.

I knew the power I held in my grasp. I truly did know it. And I both feared and loved it. Yes, I did have to question my abilities in the sense that I didn't know just how strong I could be. Moments of doubt were not something that I enjoyed, but yet they came nonetheless. They came without warning-usually after a killing-and I would be forced to question what I was doing. Did the Blue Lady really trust me? Did She really protect me? Or was I just some blind and stupid fool wandering around with the hope of one day avenging the death of Jack-and my own internal self guilt and abhorrence?

"Cinderella, dressed in yellow, went downstairs to kiss Adella…," the little girls jumping rope on the sidewalk, chanted to keep the rhythm. I stopped the truck and watched them with my arm resting on the side of the opened window, questioning, once again. They were fascinating. They were comical in their idiocy, almost. "…Made a mistake and kissed a snake, how many doctors will it take?" It was at this point that they began chanting as the third child jumped. "One! Two! Three! Four!" The skipping girl was focusing intently at her feet, lip bit, so as to not mess up. She seemed perfectly concentrated on the job at hand and was willing to do anything to avoid mistakes. Then, her eyes lifted for a brief moment and met mine.

I had been told before that my eyes betrayed my killer instinct and were dark enough in the daytime, let alone in the evening. So, it came to me as no surprise when the girl tripped in the rope, causing her friends to whine, "You only made it up to twenty!" She, though, did not hear the pleas of her fellow jumpers and watched me. Slowly, she came closer to the truck, wanting to know who and what I really was. Then, just before she came to the curb, I gunned the engine and sped away, my heart racing as I swallowed the acid that rose in the back of my throat.

Despite the fact I could grin and smile at a serial killer in my lap, I couldn't handle the innocence of a child.