To die in the dark.
That's how I wanted that rat bastard to die. Alone. Afraid. And with the full knowledge that he had no one but himself to blame for his demise. It's what he deserved for killing Angelina, for cutting her open like a god-damned Christmas present. It was a fair trade, really. He opened her throat and I opened his stomach.
God, I remember when we were kids. It would storm a lot where we lived. Every week, there would be at least one night full of rain and thunder and lighting. Me and Angelina, we would spend the night in each other's rooms, make a tent out of the covers and take turns trying to comfort each other until we both fell asleep or the storm passed. I remember it was during one of those little sleep-overs that I made a promise to Angelina. I promised that I would always protect her. I would grow up to be a big strong man capable of protecting her from anything and anyone that wanted to harm her. Hell, I became a cop just for that purpose, just to protect the innocent like Angelina.
And in the end, I couldn't even be there when she needed me the most.
I still remember that day clear as yesterday. The scent of blood in the air. The sight of Angelina's slain body thrown on the bed and the pure fury and horror that consumed me that day. All I wanted from that point forward was to find that bastard Seth and rip him into every tiny piece I could. I wanted him to feel every ounce of terror and pain he put my sister through and then some! I wanted to strip away any self-delusion that he was a man, that he was a human being. I wanted him to die know full-well what he was, a dangerous animal in need of putting down.
I tried to settle for him being locked away for life and maybe, just maybe if he had rotted in jail, I wouldn't have gone down the road I did. But that's the thing about the American Justice System. Hell, the thing with any American System really. If someone fucks up somehow, somewhere even a little, the entire fucking thing falls apart. Court decisions are overturned. Evidence is lost. And animals like Seth Baxer are allowed to walk.
I still remember the day I got the idea to give him his just desserts. I was at the station, reading The Pit and The Pendulum by Edgar Allen Poe. There was a TV in the station, always set to the news and for the past few months, it seemed like all they would talk about over there was Jigsaw. It seemed every day they found a new "player" in one of his sick little "games" It was always the same crap. Poor bastard or bitch wasn't living their lives up to that asshole's moral code and so he stuck him in a death trap which would leave them epically fucked up even if they did get out alive. And if they didn't, they won the grand prize of rotting in the trap until we found them, a piece of flesh in the shape of a jigsaw missing from their bodies.
It was during one of those reports that the idea just...came to me, really. I'm sure what I was really thinking about, first and foremost was how much I would love to find Seth in one of those traps. Not a single soul in this city deserved a little playdate with Jigsaw more than him. Yet my sources told me that he was still alive and well, getting doped up in the alleyways and nightclubs of our fair city. I pissed myself off thinking about that and tried to get back to the damned book. That's when it hit me. The Pit and The Pendulum. The Jigsaw killings. The whole thing came together like a beautiful mosaic.
The plan itself was almost too easy to enact. Seth was practically coked out of his mind by the time I had finished the trap and searched for him. Bastard probably never even realized he was being dragged into the trunk of my car. I had found a nice little hall no one ever really used anymore to do the deed. I even found a nice little spot to observe the "game" from, just like Jigsaw would do in his own "games." I even grabbed some footage of that creepy-ass puppet he would use to "guide" his victims through the game and overdubbed it with my own little rules.
Everything was perfect.
I remember Seth's death clearly as well and even now, as I wait to die in this dingy bathroom, I can still say without a doubt that it is one of my most treasured memories. I watched as that son of a bitch woke up in the dark. Terrified, confused and probably already realizing in the back of his mind that this was the day he would die. I played my little tape for him and the piece of shit had the nerve to tell me it was an accident. Yeah right pal. You accidently slit my sister's throat just like I accidently put you in that trap. As I expected, he wussed out as much as he could before his survival instinct kicked in and he slipped his hands into those vices. I can only imagine the agony that he felt as his hands were crushed and I could only wish that it was even worse than that. He got one last moment of relief in his miserable life when the pendulum stopped...
...for a moment.
The look of terror on his face as he saw it continue to swing down was priceless. At that moment, as the pendulum began to cut into him, he turned toward me. I'm certain he never figured out who I was nor would it have done him any good even if he did but our eyes did meet and you know what that rat bastard actually said to me?
"B-But I did what I was supposed to do."
What you were supposed to do is rot in prison for the rest of your life, you miserable piece of shit.
Once I saw the pendulum cut through his torso and the collar holding him down break apart, I made my move. I cut out a piece of his flesh in the shape of a puzzle piece, just like our old pal, Jigsaw. It wasn't long until I was called into the scene after that. No one ever suspected a thing, at least not at the time. I had won. At long last, I had gotten revenge on that monster that killed my sister.
That's where the story should have ended. But like a bad horror series, it just kept going.
In hindsight, with all the evidence we had on the guy leaning toward a narcissistic artist type with a flair for the dramatic and ironic, I should have figured he wouldn't have been so keen to claim credit for my little game. I should have been more cautious, at least until things had died down or they caught the son of a bitch. But I let it get to my head. I let my guard down and one faithful day on an elevator ride to who even remembers, I felt the sharp needle of karma slip into the meat of my neck.
I still remember waking up to that damn shotgun pointed toward me and to that old bastard monologuing to me while I was strapped to that chair. I was almost certain I was going to die that day and as I sit here with the stench of my own sweat the closest thing to experience I've been afforded, I honestly wish I did. But John didn't abduct me to get revenge for infringing on his work. He didn't care about that. What he cared about, what he was more concerned with, of all things, was the fact that my trap was inescapable. The fact that I didn't give that rat bastard a chance to survive my game. I explained to him what he did and it went as well as I expected.
In the end, even after all this time, I must admit there's still a strange ounce of...respect for John Kramer in me. The man was devoted to his cause, however flawed it seemed and he sure as hell planned a lot further ahead than I could have ever imagined. I have the fucking chain around my ankle to prove that. But when you get right down to it, it was mostly just blackmail that was the reason I joined him that day. That and me losing faith in the system that let my sister's killer walk.
It was an...interesting experience working with John. Many a criminal that would have otherwise got off easier than they deserved or even walked wound up "players" in his "games." I can't say I felt sorry for most of them, especially those scamming scumbags who lured John to Mexico with the false hope of a cure for his cancer. I personally told the last of them that his fate could be chalked down to epic bad luck but let's be real, it was karma, plain and simple.
All in all, it wasn't all that bad. At least until that bitch Amanda got involved.
She was ticking time bomb waiting to go off as far as I'm concerned, a danger to herself and the overall cause. And to be honest, just a tad bit annoying. I did some digging and uncovered her dirty little secret concerning the night John lost his child. I wrote her a little letter explaining the situation to her while she and John were running Jeff's "game" I told her how I would let John in on the secret if she didn't kill the doctor. I figured with how vengeance prone Jeff was, he'd waste her the second she carried out the order.
I was right on the money. Both she and John died that night.
Around that time, I was busy with Officer Rigg's test. He was a pretty decent guy and one of the few I was sad to see fail. But he was too obsessed with being the hero. Too damned obsessed with saving everyone. His failure caused the death of Detective Matthews as well.
That just left Agent Strahm. Oh Agent Strahm. A hot-headed son of a bitch if there ever was one. He had somehow found the building that the games were taking place in but I figured he would accomplish as much. I prepared another trap just for him, one that was inescapable. Sure, John would have disapproved but then, he wasn't around to complain anymore was he? It was the perfect plan, really. Get rid of Strahm, save Jeff's little girl and become the hero of the story.
John always told me about the human instinct for survival. How, under the most brutal of circumstances, humans who really wanted to live would perform the most amazing feats. I always wrote it off as just more of his philosophical bullshit but looking back at it now, I really wished I had paid more heed to it.
Because honestly, who the fuck would punch a hole through their throat in order to survive drowning? Apparently, Agent Strahm would.
That's wasn't even worst bit of luck I had after John's death. With him gone, I figured it was over, just a few more post-mortem games figuring out how the get the police off my fucking back and I would be in the clear. But like I said before, John thought way further ahead than any human being ought to be able to. Far enough to swallow a fucking cassette coated in candle wax just to get a message to me from the morgue.
The message on the surface: That I still had a test to look forward to.
The message hidden beneath: Fuck you, Hoffman.
It wasn't all bad. I got promoted to Detective Lieutenant for saving Jeff's kid at least. But let me tell you, that Strahm was getting to be a real pain in my ass. A rabid hound dog right on my trail, all the more vicious because he thought his partner Perez was dead. He almost had me, I'll admit that much, but he should have listened to the rules. If he had, then maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't have ended up the world's shittiest-tasting pancake. Even now, I can still hear his screams and the cracking of his bones as he was crushed.
It was messy but it also created the perfect opportunity for me.
Using his hand, pretty much the only part of him not reduced to mush by that point, I planted fingerprints over the next game to make it seem like he was the one carrying on John's work. It almost worked too if it hadn't been for one oversight, one little factor I had no possible way of accounting for.
Agent Perez was alive and just as hot-blooded as Strahm was.
Like I said, it's always the smallest fucking details that shoot your whole operation down to Hell. Such as forgetting to brush your teeth or not carrying over the 2 in your little equation. For me, it was using a different knife than the one John had used to carve out his little puzzle pieces. That one little mistake, that one microscopic oversight, was enough to get them to reopen that bastard Seth's case. I'd hate to admit it but I was worried. I felt cornered and that bitch Jill didn't make it any easier with her condescending attitude towards me as I demanded the envelopes John had left for her so I could get the next game underway. That game had just about finished when I got the call that they had found the tape. Right away, they were able to tell that it wasn't John's voice.
Things were getting ugly fast.
My mind was racing as I drove over to the lab. How would I get out of this one? What was I supposed to say when they decoded my voice on the tape? John told me once that to him, killing was distasteful. That's part of the reason he blackmailed me into being his lackey. And even then he would give me shit about the way I handled things, said I liked the way brutality feels a little too much.
Well I say sometimes a little brutality is the way to go.
Needless to say, waiting in that room with Perez and the others was the single most nerve-whacking moment of my life. No thug on the street ever came close to making me as nervous as I was back then. I'm pretty sure that bitch Perez smelled it on me as well cause she started turning on the pressure, asking me about Strahm, all while that fucking computer came closer and closer to exposing my voice. Exposing me.
What happened next was almost a blur. At that moment, I simply let instinct take over, the will to survive, one might call it, and it just so happened to involve massacring every fucker in that room Perez was one of the last to go and I looked her right in the eyes as I asked her who else knew about me. In an act of defiance, she told me everyone did but we both knew that was bullshit. Once she joined Strahm in Hell, I took care of business, planting that bastard's finger prints over the bodies and burning them for good measure. You know, sometimes I think back to that night and wonder if I really saw Erickson's body twitch like I thought I did. Oh well. In the end, did it even really matter.
And wouldn't you know it, that wasn't even the worst luck I was going to have that night.
I returned to the game right as it had ended, only to discover a familiar note in front of the surveillance screens. It was the same note I wrote to Amanda regarding her dirty little secret. Before I could even think as to what the hell it was doing here, I was stunned by an electrical charge pulsing through my body. The pain put me right out and when I woke up, my head was enclosed in a fucking trap.
Amanda's trap.
Turns out that bitch Jill withheld a sixth envelope from me, one containing the instructions for my own little test, the same one John had warned me about back in the morgue. Only Jill had found my letter to Amanda and I guess she figured that since I didn't exactly play fair with her, she wouldn't do the same for me. By all definition, I should have died in that trap. There was no key and my hands were tied to the chair. The only option was to die, just like with Seth.
But Jill underestimated my will to survive.
It was a bitch trying to get that thing off and when I finally pulled myself free, the trap only being kept from killing me by two metal bars on the door, the pain from my torn-up cheek was excruciating. I'm sure I would passed out again in I wasn't consumed by rage against Jill. I made up my mind as I sat there screaming and bleeding from the gaping hole that used to be my right cheek that I was going to kill her if it was the last thing I did.
But first things first, I needed to hide, lay low for awhile. Not to mention settle one final game John had whipped up for me. What can I say, I'm a man of my word and there wasn't any reason why I couldn't proceed with the game and get my revenge on Jill. It helped that as a member of the force myself, I knew Jill would seek protective custody from me, running right into the big strong arms of the law. Hell, she ended up sheltering under my old partner Gibson. Life can be funny like that sometimes.
It was no easy feat distracting the investigating police force so I could hitch a ride to the station where Jill was being kept. But it all worked our perfectly. They never saw me coming, especially Jill. I took them all by surprise, gave them no room or time to fight back and while she almost managed to get away again, I was able to capture Jill and stuff her head inside that stupid trap. Gave her a taste of her own medicine and just like she did with me, gave her no option but to die.
That should have been the end of it. Everyone was gone. All the loose ends had been tied up and there was no one left standing in my way.
But as I mentioned twice before, John Kramer was a man of inhuman foresight.
There were three of them, all wearing those same pig mask me, Amanda and John wore while recruiting our players. They took me by surprise, left me with hardly any room to fight back and while I'm sure I could have taken them out before long, I never got the chance before one of those bastards stuck me with a needle and all went dark.
When I came too, I was chained to the bathroom. The same bathroom where Adam Stanheight and Dr. Lawrence Gordon met their fates. Only one of them was looming over me like a shadow. At that moment, I realized John had kept him a secret as a contingency plan in case I strayed from his path. The fucker even took the damn saw out of my reach before I could grab it and threw it out of the bathroom. (No choice but to die.) He turned off the light and uttered the final words I would ever hear spoken by another human's lips.
"Game over."
I...I can't even begin to think of how long ago that was. Days, weeks, even a month. None of it really matters when you can't even hear noises from the outside. You can't even see any light. Hell, I'm almost certain that if someone where to come in here and shine a flashlight in my face, I would go blind. I can't even tell if my eyes are open or not. In the darkness, it doesn't make any difference.
The only remotely good thing about this whole situation is that both of the corpses I've been locked up with have decayed long past the point of reeking. Recently, I even tried talking to them like they were alive. What would they even say? Would they have anything to say at all? I suppose I'll know soon enough. Starvation and thirst have worked in complete tandem to sap all my strength. Hell, I sometimes feel like I'm chocking, like I've breathed all the available air in this fucking room so you could add suffocation to that.
If there's one thing I regret from all this, I suppose it's how it all stemmed from Seth Baxter's test. It was never supposed to go this far. I just wanted to punish the bastard that killed my sister. Was that so wrong? God, what would she even say to me at this point? Guess I'll find out soon enough. My death will happen any moment now. I can feel it. And the scary part? With how dark it is in here, I won't even realize it. I'll never see it all fade to black because it's already happened. One moment I'll be alive and the next I'll be another corpse left to rot and my vision will not change. That's what it truly means...
...to die in the dark.