The One Human Being I Didn't Dream of Killing

I’ve never been extremely impressed with the world that I live in. Most people were not as intelligent as me. They often took the easy way out instead of looking for a challenge. And many were so wrapped up in what society considered normal or beautiful that they lost a sense of themselves. I found their living meaningless because they weren’t really living. They were just pretending too.

            And so began my quest. I wanted to help people discover what it was like to truly live and at the same time I wanted to create art. But a different kind of art that highlighted human nature and was truly, one hundred percent beautiful. I could choose anyone and everyone I wanted. Unlike most, I didn’t have a type. The only thing that was important to me was that they be the ones who needed help the most. I would lure these people to my warehouse just on the edge of the city – which was quite grand and spectacular if material – and there I would show them what they had been missing.

            You see human beings are at their most beautiful when they are in a corner. When they are between life and death and must choose what to do. Its what changes them from these walking mannequins and shows that we, as a species, are mammals. And we can either be intelligent mammals and it is obvious as to why we are the superior race, or its strange to see how we have advanced as far as we have. If you call letting you’re life being ruled by technology advancement.

            I became obsessed with the human behavior. Studying it, exploring it, pushing it. Of course though, society didn’t see the beauty in this experiment. And thus, I was hunted down and placed in handcuffs. But shockingly, I wasn’t placed on trial. In fact, no one ever knew what I looked like. You see the police wanted what I knew. They wanted my expert opinion in human behavior. I was incredibly intelligent – as I’ve already told you – and my research had caused my value to surpass death. I had more of a brain that all those combined in law enforcement. And they need that brain.

            So, I was placed in a bureau called the BAU. There I worked with a special team who were my masters you would say. I was their little dog in the unit. Except I was smarter than them. The leader, SSA Robbie was someone who could read clues as though it were a second language and wouldn’t be budged on the fact that he considered me scum. There were four agents total and I was the one that made up five. After one of the agents transferred to a different division – it is hard to work in the BAU, we handle most of the toughest cases – a rookie detective was brought in.

            Her name was Eva Gillan. And she would be the woman who would challenge everything I thought about humanity.

            When she first walked onto the crime scene I was taken aback and wondered what in the hell the head honchos were thinking for bringing a teenage girl into such a rough environment. And then I found myself startled a second time when she talked to me and discussed things with me as though I were a fellow human. For the last five years that I had worked in the bureau, everyone had treated me for what I was. A dog. But this Gillan girl, she didn’t treat me as a dog. Just an unstable partner. I figured that she just hadn’t been briefed on who I was and when she found out, she would be like everyone else.

            But after six months, I realized that she wasn’t going to change. And so, I studied her. Just like I did with the other agents and other criminals, but Gillan was the most fascinating person I had met in so many years. She was one of the youngest recruits to join the bureau. Part of that was due to her intelligence and raw skill for detective and active work. The other part was due to her father being successful in the bureau and her stepfather being a particular part of disgusting human. And while she relied on her education, Gillan also wasn’t stupid enough to think that the world would be like her textbooks and so she also relied on her seniors and her own gut feelings.

            She had the open heart of a young girl, and the easy smile of someone innocent and untouched by cruelty. And yet, she also had the edge that could cut you if you got too close. Gillan had nerve and balls to follow a case, even if it was a maze that threatened most people’s sanity. She was some fantasy girl from a book and I became fascinated. And later, I discovered that she was the one human being I didn’t despise and dream of killing at night.

            And then came the case that changed it all. Twenty-six months, one week, and two days that Gillan had been assigned to the BAU. She had come to my apartment and we were talking about the future, about the possibilities of the world becoming even more technologically dependent than it already was and the consequences of that. An alert from our phones revealed that we were being called into the office, so we immediately went over and found ourselves slammed in the middle of a case that was focused on a mastermind serial killer. Like me.

            The man responsible was just as insane as I, and just as smart. I found myself irritated and wanting to take down this bastard before he took my spot on the mantle. But, he was smart in the fact that he was patient. He didn’t rush, didn’t grab too many victims, and those that he did grab were not so important that anyone in the media noticed. And so, after a few months of investigating, the bureau threw other cases at us so that we would move on. But I didn’t want to move on. This man was the first criminal to give me a run for my money. And that just wasn’t acceptable. Of course Gillan wanted to stay on the case because she was a perfectionist, it had to be tied up.

            And so, she turned to me and we worked on the case whenever we weren’t occupied with another. As soon as we learned his name – Dave Stone – things became complicated. He focused on us, or I should say, focused on Gillan. He attacked each member of the bureau and two were left dead in the aftermath, including SSA Robbie. Then he turned to Gillan’s family, whom she barely had time to get into protective custody. But instead of helping her catch this man, the top dogs instead wanted to place the blame of Gillan and punish her.

            Instead, she helped me break my collar and then we ran after Stone. When it came to the final stand off, it was fierce and intense and bloody. Fun, basically. Until that damn bastard managed to stun me with a blow to the head and ripping my own weapon from my hands. Before I could defend myself or even regain a sense of direction, he readied his sword – he had flare – to drive into my gut. I remember looking into his eyes and seeing my own staring back at me. But just as was about to eliminate me, there was another body there between us and the blade sank into someone else’s gut. Gillan’s. She had used herself as shield to protect me. As soon as the blade withdrew, bloodlust overwhelmed me and I somehow found myself killing Stone with my bare hands.

            Then I knelt down and took Gillan’s head and placed it on my lap, watching her body twitch as it struggled to somehow stop the bleeding and stay alive. But when I looked into her eyes, I saw that they were clear. There was no fear or pain reflected in those orbs, simply acceptance. I asked her why she did what she did and Gillan said that she weighed the odds and said that the loss of her mind wouldn’t nearly be as significant then if mine had been lost. For once though, I couldn’t agree with that. She was a human being who had the perfect combination of guts, brains, and heart. I would’ve argued, but she was dying and backup wouldn’t arrive in time to save her.

            She didn’t say it, and neither did I. But there were a couple other reasons she saved me. One, so that I could kill Stone as it was only right I did. And two, because in the time that we had come to know one another, we had come to care for each other. I viewed her as though she was my little sister, and she saw me as her big brother. And family protects one another. So, I held her hand and talked about my favorite books and quotes, expressing why they were my favorite as she took her final breath.

            I stand here now – almost a year after her death – staring down the barrel of a gun, held by a detective who had come in as a rookie as well to replace Gillan. She was nowhere near as good as her former. I found the cases that came afterwards pointless and often times not interesting, or not as thoroughly investigated as they should have been. In some cases, not investigated at all. The people around me were corrupt my their own prejudices, and the victims were the ones who suffered. I grew sick of trying to stick a round peg into a square hole, so instead I spun around a bit the hand that fed me.

            Gillan had awoken something in me, something I hadn’t realized until she was gone. I found that I wanted to protect this extremely flawed and ugly race, but there was a system standing in the way. It was system that Gillan had strived to better, and it was a system that had gotten her killed in the end.

            And now, it would kill me. Which is only right.

            I am a serial killer.