This is a story of a girl I used to know. An innocent thing she was, but not so devoid of evil.

We are all thought to be born sinners, crying the moment we enter the world, and our sins only escalate from there. We go on to do so much more evil than simply crying as newborns; we go on to become murderers, rapists, and abusers. Most of us, of course, dont accomplish quite that much evil in our lifetime; most of us end up living fulfilled lives being liars, thieves, whores, racists, cheaters, and manipulators. Some, however, claim to be mere victims of evil. Once this indefinable thing we call evil is given to someone, they too are infected with it, and can be disguised as victims of this disease. This disease, whether seen as a victim who was unavoidably infected by someone that is inherently evil, or seen as the inherently evil person themselves, leads to death. And make no mistake; evil is not a curable disease. For those of you who claim to be neither the evil inspirer nor the victim of evil; its only a matter of time Black is better than gray. She would rather feel the darkness of black than feel the blankness of gray. Gray is like being exiled to live in a smoke-filled room with empty walls and an empty mind. Black at least offers something to think about. It at least can fill your mind with aberrations of horror and sadness. Gray offers nothing. But it is a necessary step, a prologue to the comfort of black. We all know that something is better than nothing. This unnamed girl is a lost child. She is like a sad dream that you forgot about the next morning, that you cant quite remember why it left a bad taste in your mouth and a taint in your memory. She lives with her parents in a nice house. She has two brothers. She was eight years of age once. Her brother, the older one, had been playing with a knife that his father had given to him for his 14th birthday. He found a dead bird lying on the side of the road, and had the idea, in his innocent, yet warped, mind to skin the feathers off so he could see what was beneath the exterior of the creature. That same idea applied to his sister. He tried to peel her skin off, simply wanting to find out what was beneath her skin. It could be disguised as a mere childish curiosity (or the works of a psychotic child) but we both know that disguises of evil are just that: disguises. Her father found her bleeding, and rushed her to the hospital. On the car ride to the hospital, her brother repeatedly asked with much distress: Whatd I do to her? Which I believe was asked more out of curiosity than concern for her. However, when he saw her lying in the hospital bed, with various tubes plugged into her small body, he went beside her and held her hand until she fell asleep. Four years later, she woke up in gray. She didnt know that the gray was only there to fill the void until the black came. She woke up as she did every day. The light came in through the cracks in the blinds that safeguarded her from the pureness of sunlight. She got up and stretched and tried to figure out why she felt so tired. Her limbs felt numb and useless. She went downstairs, to where she would normally feel comforted at the sight of her mother sitting at the kitchen table, sipping tea. Instead, she felt slightly nauseated and all she could see was gray.

She walked slowly over to the sink, where she poured herself hot water into the same dainty tea cup she used every morning. She stirred in some milk, and dazedly kept stirring and stirring until her mother said, Your brother is picking you up from school today. Startled, she spilled her newly perfected, though slightly overly-stirred tea. Her mother just sighed and went back to smugly sipping her coffee and continued staring at the salt and pepper shakers on the table. She always liked them. They were in the shape of little Victorian dolls, one colored white for the salt, and black for the pepper. This story isnt meant to cheer you up. It isnt meant to teach, nor is it meant to be used as a cautionary tale to scare you into obedience, to follow a path of righteousness or to commit to a life of fighting evil. Quite the opposite; this story will show you that evilness is everywhere, and to fight it will only result in a failed attempt to prove yourself only slightly more dignified than criminals. Sometime later, she was cutting up an apple. A favorite fruit of hers, most likely because of the fond memories she associated with it. Back before her mother was the way she is now, she used to give her daughter apple slices after school every day. Shed have them waiting for her daughter the moment she came home. Now, of course, she has to make the apple slices herself. Which is fine, she can cut her own apple slices, thank you. But still. Its nice having someone else prepare apple slices for you. Today, in her gray haze, she accidentally cut herself with the knife. It hurt, but it was a dull pain. She merely blinked and stared at her cut finger. It was bleeding, not profusely, but enough to form a little droplet of blood on the cut. She continued to stare blankly at it. She stared and stared, until her mother sauntered into the kitchen with a glass of wine. Did you cut yourself again? You better not let that happen again goddamnit. Now go put a bandage on it before you make a mess. Its an indefinable thing, evil is. Its the opposite of innocence. Its the opposite of good. We know what evil isnt. But what is it exactly? Its hatred, corruption, and anger. Its an influence that guides us to do what we know we shouldnt do, what is often known as our sinful nature. But perhaps its more than that. Her brother was late picking her up from school, so she waited by walking around in circles at the playground. A girl younger than herself, was sitting at the edge of a slide, asked casually, will you be my friend? Ignoring this strangers request, she kept walking in circles. But the stranger was relentless and asked again, will you be my friend? This made her stop from her circles to stare at this strange, but friendly, little person. Why? Will you be my friend? why? Will you be my friend? Youve said that four times now. The little person responded by blinking. A moment later she asked, Will you be my friend?

She decided against responding again, and instead relocated herself away from this apparent friendless little person so that she can walk in circles in peace. Finally, her brother arrived. The friendless little person waved to her as she climbed into his truck. Is that your friend? I thought you didnt have any. Just kidding. He wasnt. She opened her eyes the next morning and the sun was shining. The walls of her room reflected the color of the sun, but she blinked, and her walls were gray. She looked up at the ceiling and there was a patch of black, where the corner of the ceiling and the walls meet. yesmy name is Samuel Lawson. What is it? What? Who told you that? That happened a long time ago I was a child. I didnt know any better. I cant be convicted of a crime I committed when I was just a child...14 is a childThis is fucking insane, who told you? She told them. She blinked and looked in the mirror. Her eyes were grey. Well, some would say they are blue. But they looked grey to her and she wanted to shatter her face. So instead, she shattered the mirror. The broken pieces fell to the floor, and she picked one particular piece up that happened to be the largest one, and held it in her palm. She made a fist, and the sharp edges caught her skin, making her palm drip with blood. Everything turned inward. The environment disappeared, and all the outside noise and commotion stopped. It was there she entered the void. The journey through the grey seemed endless, but she could see the dark at the end of the tunnel. She vaguely remembered being in a hospital and inhaling the toxic smell of disinfectant and death, and the relief that came to her after taking pills they gave her in a little plastic cup. Days of grey passed, until one night, it faded to black. Relief swept over her, despite the pain that it brought with it. It was like a fever breaking, but without the comfort that the worse has passed, for she knew that there was so much more to come. She laid in bed for what seemed like years, but after one particularly dark night, she woke up and could see clearly. She stood and walked gingerly across her room, to where her broken mirror hung. She stared at herself in the mirror, only able to see half of her face in it. She walked downstairs, past where her red-faced and grief-stricken mother sat on the couch, to the kitchen drawer where the glue was kept. She walked passed her mother again, ignoring her surprised and admonishing glances, and went back upstairs to her room. She picked up the broken mirror pieces from the floor and glued them back together. Her fingers were bloody from handling the pieces but she didnt care. Once finished with this project, she looked at herself again in the crudely reconstructed mirror. She was oddly pleased to find that her face appeared broken and jagged in the mirror, as if she had empty black cracks all over her face. There was a knock on the door. It was soft at first, then became bolder, until it was pounding. She sat still on her bed, watching the door shake. She looked down at her bed, and stroked its blood splatter patterns on the blanket. The pounding eventually stopped, leaving her numbed in peace.

She knew her mother would be angry with her for turning in her dearest son. But she had to. She thought maybe it would release her from that gray state. But it didnt. Something else did. It was something she couldnt define, like truth without all the lies that build up to it. Perhaps the awareness came from the broken mirror. Seeing herself in pieces was the truth. Truth that she couldnt escape, truth that was staring her in the face, in broken shards. Her mother wasnt one to apologize. Things just slowly went back to normal, each treating each other with cold civility. The daughter, because she felt like she truly didnt care about her mother. The mother, because she couldnt forgive her daughter for betraying her family. But despite her previous attempt at savaging her daughter in her room, she of course, as mothers will often do, loved her daughter unconditionally. She felt as though she was going through some sort of transformation, that didnt seem to have a beginning or an end. She couldnt recall when this inner corruption began; it just seemed to slowly transcend upon her, like a blanket of smoke that you barely notice is around you until it is right there upon you, enveloping and consuming your outer self. But instead, it consumed her inner self. It was a calm torture; she wasnt struggling to break free from this anymore. She no longer clung to her innocence, though nor did she embrace the corruption. She accepted her fate and didnt even hope to ever go back to her youth. She has only aged months, nothing compared to the aging of a lifetime that all of us must endure; what seemed like a gradual change to her was in fact an abrupt change in the grand scheme of her life. All she knew was that she was dying. Not physically dying, though in some way or another we are all dying slowly as each day passes. But it was more as if her insides were dying, the ghost organ, often referred to as the soul. Her consciousness didnt waver, however. She was all too aware of what was happening, which made it all the more unbearable. Death is said to be unpleasant. And indeed it is. But there is something to be said for the unpleasant. There is something to be said for death. Death can take on two different forms: physical death and psychological death. Physical death is inevitable; no one can escape that form. Psychological death however, is not inevitable but quite common nonetheless, which is believed to be the more tragic form of death. Psychological death is what happens to those that have died on the inside, yet still have to suffer through living in their physical bodies. For those unfortunate souls, they cannot escape the relief that comes to those who have experienced physical death. This is a morbid tale. One that involves the more tragic of the two forms of death. Whether the story will end tragically or not, is for you to find out. Call it gothic, call it misery, call it unpleasant. Whatever it is, it is truth. The power of death makes us alive. Fear of death, that is. Fear of dying is what drives us to make the most of life; the looming, inevitable death of our physical selves drives us to want life. In this way, death is not sad. Without death, why would we want to live. Though without death, there would be no life. With no death to compare life to, life wouldnt be life as we know it.

Tangled in her misery, and filling the holes with whatever innocence she had left, her soul became a dark mess, despite the light poking through the holes. The small bursts of light were not enough to kill the darkness. She grew older, and parts of her changed. Her hair grew long, now almost to her waist, and she accepted her fate. She is never going back to that childhood, for there is nothing left of it that she wants. She tries desperately to remove any trace of the child. She sets fire to all her old pictures and exterminates every trace of memory she has of her former self. Dont be fooled, shes not running from anything. Her name is Charlotte, but Lottie is what most people call her.

This isnt what you were before what happened youre forever ruined and immobile in your despair how is this happening dont go back to that world it isnt there you dont need it anymore anyhow what are you going to do now what am I going to do now for I am you and you are I
These are the kinds of unintelligible thoughts going through Lotties head. Theres a sort of convulsion in mundane things. The normal, everyday activities, that we all must succumb to on a scheduled basis. We all transform into robots once this occurs in our daily actions; monotonously folding laundry turns a lively human being into a robotic servant. Showering, shampooing your hair, clipping your fingernails, all of it conforms us into cleanly, boring, monsters, bent on destroying every speck of dirt and disdain from our bodies, hoping that it will have the same cleansing effect on our souls. But it never does, and our young Lottie knows this, choosing to forgo these meaningless everyday activities. Her mother, of course, disapproved of this decision, being disgusted by these new non-habits of personal hygiene. Lottie didnt care, being no longer concerned about any disapproval her mother bestowed upon her. Evil is more than that. Its necessary. Its an irreplaceable part of our existence, without it, we are nothing. Without it, we are shells of fake human, our skin barely masking the plastic, empty, holes in our heads. Its there to fill the void, so kill your loveless marriages and sacrifice your kids that you bore because you thought they could distract you from your sorry life. Thats what Lottie would say if she could articulate things better. But right now she is getting rid of every distraction and annoyance known as normal life, and hardly able to spare a moment to write her feelings down just for our benefit. If Lottie could turn her stream of consciousness into poetic, yet nonsensical, writing, it would look like this:

My mind goes blank and stops the clock the world and we it seems have disappeared far from this scene removed are we the self and me up in the air my mind a fog it covers us from this wretched mess but in this mess my mind is found but forever lost is it no map can free it from this world and me are one, two, and three were different forms never the same detached forever and long to unite but dismissed is the part that waits alone the shadows that swallow me in fragments I crawl towards peace that deceives for never will I be whole an unfortunate fact that logic cant prove but relentless is my will my other face that tortuous force that will be the life of me but I would rather choose death

There is nothing wrong with her. Think what you like about her, she isnt who she appears. There is a strange power in her that dominates everyone outside her. You would be foolish to even try to wield her power, for you would be dead before you even had the chance. Youll be struck down if you judge her, and your identity diminished to nothing if you stand in her way. You will find yourself to be a corpse in the end, like all of us. Except her. Even when dead, her soul will still remain, but her body will disappear like it never existed. Here begins a series of crucial events in Lotties life and death. Here is where she parts from the normal remedy of life. Grow up. Go to college in a sad attempt to make something of yourself, to graduate only to find you have nothing left of yourself. Get married to someone whom you eventually, inevitably, grow to hate. Have children so that you have someone to love, because you hate yourself. Go to church to pretend you are a good person, to pretend that you are doing something other than cheating. Get a face lift to salvage what is left of your youth. Take a yoga class to try to find what little peace 30 minutes a day can allow. Oh and try not to be depressed, because no one likes to be around that. Take any prescription your doctor throws at you, because that is the only thing that will save you now. And whatever you do, do not embrace the evil that is yourself. I know who she is, but who are you? Her first encounter with her new self was manifested in the form of her new friend, whose real identity may or may not be obvious. For the time being, lets just say hes the best friend shell never have. She often wandered through the local cemetery, for she felt more at home there among the dead, than at her house among the living. She stumbled upon a shaggy-haired boy who looked rather homeless. Are you okay? she asked the boy. He looked up at her, for he was sitting down on a cold, wet surface, next to a gravestone marked Unknown. Im lost. He replied without hesitation, I dont know who I am or where I am. come with me, then, and Ill show you the truth. Not to sound ungratefulbut, how would you know the truth about me? You have no reason to trust me. People shouldnt even trust themselves. But I know who you are, and I know what you need. It must have been the authority in her voice, or maybe it was just blind trust, but he decided to let her take him. She led him to her mirror and stood him in front of it. Annoyed, he said I know what I look like. You dont have to rub it in. No you dont. But its okay, I didnt know what I looked like either. Until I looked at myself in this broken mirror. And realized that I wasnt looking at a broken mirror. I was looking at myself broken, in a mirror. It was all understood. There is nothing left to see. Everything that was to be seen is now broken or obsolete. Everything that was tainted with grey is now black. These people that are after the truth, they come in the dark and see without needing light. They creep in like burglars and steal the thing that you want to hide. They are rare, and you will only

experience a few in your life, so take advantage of them when you can. They do not necessarily come in the form of people, but ideas as well. Capture and hold onto them, whatever form they take. Lottie had the sense to. She also had the sense to kill her newfound friend. And so he went to where all imaginary friends go to die; a cerebral depository, with no realism of him left, just a memory. My next murder must be a real person. Her mother sat immobile on the couch, with a cold cup of tea on the side table, no doubt accompanied by a bottle of vodka hiding out on the floor next to her feet, out of view of her daughter. However, her daughter being a more intelligent spectator than the mothers drunken brain perceived, shrewdly, yet in her detached manner, spied the bottles constant presence near her mother. And so went her mother. Spiked with a toxic chemical, the somewhat harmless bottle of vodka had the evil intent of death. It looked like a suicide, they said. Only Lottie knew better. Her mother didnt have the guts to commit suicide, but her daughter had the guts to commit murder, luckily for both of them. Lottie thought of her mother as an old, useless, family pet that was so ill, it was inhumane not to put it down. As the medics were leaving, Lottie thought that if she were ever to die, that it better be by her own hand, and not by someone that hates her. The next phase of her condition manifested in the form of forgiveness. Or rather, an affectation of forgiveness. It involved the visitation of a certain jailbird. I came here to tell you about mothers funeral. I dont want to hear about it. Why would I? I wasnt there to help her. Do you really think I want guilt on top of more guilt? You shouldnt feel guilty about what happened to our dear mother. Perhaps in some way, if you really want me to point fingers, it was your fault. But it was partly my fault. What do you mean by that? It was a lovely funeral, you should be sorry to have missed it. Its strange how many people showed up, claiming to be her friends. If they really cared about her, where were they when she was alive? But enough of that speculation, I also came here to apologize. Im sorry for turning you in. I realize now that I shouldnt have done that. I should have just killed you when I had the chance. I cant do it now, my fingerprints would be all over a place like this. There are cameras everywhere. And besides, Im past wanting to kill you, because you already died. In prison, everything looks grey. In prison, its a never-ending journey to darkness. And with that, she left her brother to his fate. There was no saving him now, even if he gets a second chance. To Lottie, he wont get another chance nor does he deserve one. What she doesnt know yet is that in the same way her brother wont get another chance at life, nor will she. She wont get another chance at a so-called normal life. All she will ever have is pain and the need for detachment from it, and she will

come to find that she is nothing without it. It will become who she is, and causing others pain will be the only relief she will ever find. The front door is locked. Another fake family has moved into her mothers house. It was the house Lottie grew up in, but it holds no memories for her anymore. Poisoning her mother and getting cut and so much blood, those are hardly memories to remember. She lights a match that starts a flame that will kill everything, including this unsuspecting fake family. With no trace of remorse, she sits calmly on the grass atop the hill behind her house that is going up in flames, hearing the annoying ring of sirens, rushing to the scene, attempting to rescue whatever life is left, that are probably not even worth trying to save. Nonetheless, it is their job and they get paid good money for it, firefighters risk their own life to save someone elses. Who decided which life is worth continuing in this situation? The firefighter or the innocent family? What right did either of them have to live, or much less, die, she wondered.

The formula changes. She is stuck in a hole, and that is that. There is no redemption nor is there further decay. She is nothing. We all wish to be something, even if it is a criminal. With nothing left to define ourselves with, we become lost little sheep. When will she be back in the herd, she wonders. The herds of non-conformists that cling to their identity, not realizing that they are all just the same idiotic person as the idiot that accidentally bumps into you at the grocery store, being so unaware of his surroundings that he mistakes you for empty space. These so-called unique people are just there to fill empty space, while bumping into each other, all of them feeling that empty space and people are completely arbitrary things. Empty space and a body are interchangeable, and they are indifferent to them both. And this is how she became a criminal. Her blood is everywhere, red mixed with more red. His blood was shed before hers, but somehow her blood dominates all. How is this possible. There is no more reasoning left in her mind. It seems she kills without purpose, without reason. Who will be next, she wonders. This fucker. Who does he think he is. Is it that thing in his hand, that thing that gives him all the power. But its just a shortcut, a cheat. Anyone can point and shoot. But best of all, this will look like self-defense. An innocent little girl getting raped by a guy with a gun. What choice does she have, with a guy with a gun? A guy with his pants down to his ankles, his sad genitalia barely vital enough to do any damage. The blood in this scene wont be mine, thats for sure. It will be his. His guts, his bones, his brain, his blood. If this wasnt so poetic, it would be ruthless and I would be a monster. She would be the monster. Out comes the knife, out comes the blood machine, the knife that combines with her to form a machine. I am a machine now, a futile, but powerful object, nothing more than an object. Who can blame her for what she does if she is simply a machine? She was created to this purpose, whoever created her is the one to be held accountable for her actions, so dont look at me. Her creator is a mysterious god. Not an all-powerful, all-knowing god, but a god nonetheless. This strange god even has a name. It is Satan. He has a real name too, of course, but thats irrelevant. Satan is what he goes by. And where else would this Satan dwell but on the internet. It was the image that drew her in. It was mesmerizing, yet so simple. A red cross on a black background is not the most enticing image, but she nonetheless felt connected to this person through it. Whoever this person is. A person that goes by the name of Satan, how uncreative and too pointedly

morbid. Hes probably just a weird night crawler that wears nothing but black. He probably lives in a basement, amongst others of his kind. Or even more likely, he is a loner and has no one. Only his internet fantasies, that provide some comfort to his empty existence. It was this empty existence that drew her in. It was the simple image of the cross that spoke of this emptiness, of wanting more but coming up with nothing but futile attempts at meaning. They were left empty handed, and it was this that brought them together. It became all too real. The orderly complications of the mind and the infallible resistance of reality all results in one thing. She watched as her hand, as if it was a foreign object that somehow attached itself to her, slowly brought the knife up to his throat and suddenly she was drenched in his red liquid. Her face, her arms, her naked chest, her seemingly robotic hand, everything was stained. She wanted to melt, to disappear into a pile of nothingness, to go back to the place she came from before she was born. She wanted to be primordial ooze, and never evolve into anything more than that. She finally blinked and dropped the knife into the pool of blood at her feet, and ran. It results in fleeing, escaping the newfound reality, though its not as simple as it sounds. He made me do this. And so did she. How could she do this to me, to us? I guess its partly my fault, for not resisting her before, for not killing her like I should have. I was too busy doing other things. Like killing mother and putting brother in jail and meeting sociopaths, and becoming one. It isnt like I had a choice. He made me do this. Im on drugs. Thats what this is. He slipped something into my food and drugged me without my even knowing it. Thats why Im like this. Its not me thats evil, its the drugs talking. She confronted him. Not the most terrifying confrontation for him, being a god and all, but she felt empowered by her courage and what a mistake it was. He crashed down on her like the vengeful god of the Old Testament. How much time did she have left, she wondered. How much time before all went dark, how long before she closed her eyes, her eyelids so heavy that she could never open them again. How much time before she couldn't lift a finger to sustain herself, to drink water from her glass, to eat food from her hands. She knew it can't be much longer. Her god has left her, and she is alone. But what she doesn't yet know, is that there are other forces. There are things other than her mind. These outside forces are just as random and desolate as her brain cells, causing both chaos and patterns. (Hope is not lost. Just hold on and things will get better. Bide your time, and you'll see. It will be worth the wait). Lottie, however, had the sense to push those thoughts away, for they were never really her thoughts. They were the thoughts of others who came before her, who somehow found a way out. A way out of this mess, those lucky bastards. But she also had the sense to withhold envy of them. Them, the socalled lucky ones. The ones who have escaped reality in their tiny brains, them, who have tricked their minds, them, who are nothing but liars. They deceive with their handshakes and innocent eyes, thwarting any truth from making its entrance. They are poisonous to the unrelenting honesty that she possesses.