Author's Note: -sneakily tries to add chapter- Oh! You caught me. I get excited and post things randomly. Well, here's a new chapter. Don't mind the huge grin I have on my face from those reviews I got for the last one. But totally feel free to add to my happiness by reviewing!

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own only my own plot.

Chemists are kept locked away.

Tucked aside like the precious family jewels. Everyone knows about us, but they're not just not quite sure where we hide.

Yes, we hide.

And people help us stay hidden. Locked away.

Most of us prefer it this way. We can create, experiment, control to our hearts' content without being interrupted often. Only by the occasional extractor who looks for something they cannot do, nor their point men. We are usually the most expendable of a team; only needed for a few hours consultation and provision.

How rare it is that these people realize they put their lives, their sanity in our fickle hands. They take for granted the serum that always puts them under, they throw caution and their minds to the wind when they dose themselves with heavier sedatives with PASIV. And the lack of care they toss into their targets!

I suppose with being a chemist and being trained in many forms of medicine, it is quite normal for me to immediately balk at the thought of their rough treatment. Very few tend to care, just as long as a trail doesn't lead back to them.

Which is why the necessity of a pure, untraceable sedative is asked of us.

This was the first thing made clear to me when I take up my post and submerge myself in this highly lucrative, highly dangerous, and no doubt criminal business. Safety and well-being, if memory serves, was somewhere along the lines of fifth.

After money, but before figuratively shaking hands, closing the done deal.

Every con in this business is vain, selfish, and full of so much pompous sense of self-entitlement.

It makes me sick.

Years ago, I'd tried to leave. And learned the hard way that it didn't pay to pack up shop when you knew so much and so many people

These things always had a way of coming back and biting one in the ass.

Unfortunately, like an oath to the bloody boy scouts or the mob, I'd sold my soul to compounds and hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. That is, if, at this point, I had any soul left.

Most days it was hard to tell.

So, in my own ways, I've found ways to repent.

To possible buy back, or barter for my soul in exchange.

A penance of some kind, I suppose.

But like any man, I sin.

I am filled with rage and disgust at the business that has bought my life; at the people who hire out my services.

In each of their faces, I see a demon that represents a deadly sin. Eyes that are void of emotion, waggling forked tongues, flesh that rots off, melting like it wants to escape the bones of the evil incarnate.

I cannot profess that I am prefect.

These sins take me over after each time I shake the hands of the devil, fueling me until the job is done. And then I sit with my accumulated wealth, the pride of a job well done, and more knowledge than is right for a mere man to know.

Alone.

All alone because this job holds you like a vice. You dare not bring love in, to involve someone precious to you. It destroys your relationship. Then eats away at their innocence, their mind infests until they die from the knowledge.

The knowledge kills in many forms. It does not care.

Suicide. Overwhelming disgrace. A rival hit. Revenge from another.

Or just being used as a pawn.

Which is why I get my revenge.

Just once, I will be the original sinner. I will be Lucifer and torment them.

The wicked.

And I will stop only when they have learned their lesson.

My wealth has come in handy. Instead of destroying my life, tearing down everything I try to build around me, it will serve a useful purpose. Besides gathering dust.

Instead of being the pawn, I am now the master of this game. The conductor of this orchestra.

And they will move as I dictate. Play the notes I command they play.

I want them to know dreams.

They all forgot long ago what it was like to truly dream. The dreams synthetically made by PASIV are a sham compared.

Even sweet dreams are dulled, prefabricated and processed by that poisonous sedative. They constrict the mind, feed illusions of impossibility and delusions of grandeur. Lead the user along like a seductive dance by the sweetest woman. And once you are hooked, once the fangs are secure, your imagination is gone.

Poof.

Only the strong ones really ever kept their imagination. These were usually the architects. But even they run out of steam. Especially once they became just as addicted as the other criminals in their pool of disillusions.

But, like the kind, merciful god I think, know, I can be, I can give them a sense of hope.

A place of comfort and knowing.

I gift them with the haven of PASIV.

Let it be.

If they can realize it. And find a way to not greedily suck at the tubes for the sedative they'll crave. And run out of if they go under too often.

Before I decide to forgive them and have seen they've repented, I hope to be caught. Just for the trill. I know a few who would be merciful and end it quickly.

But of course, I haven't yet fully atoned for my sins, so that thought cowers back to the shadows of my mind where it belongs.

I sit here and decide who has been forgiven and who must continue to burn in the hell that they've created for themselves. And feel shame. And elation. And guilt.

So I do another good deed for the day. And wait.

A/N: Review, review! Now, I'm off to sleep! Props to totallyPsyched, Cymru na Alethaira, swampophelia and tulzdavampslayer!