PROJECT MORTUUS : Love's End

Chapter 17: Murderer's Fate

Michael stumbled into the woods, and his head felt heavy. As he stumbled along, he could feel himself fading. His head had been cloudy for weeks, and he would constantly slip into terrifying dream worlds. 

"Who am I?" He mumbled, one hand on his head and the other on the tree for balance. Michael knew something was wrong. This couldn't be who he was. He wasn't a killer, and yet memories of bloody murders filled his empty, fog-filled mind. 

Every time he looked in a mirror, all he saw was a stranger staring back through hollow eyes. He couldn't recognize himself, and sometimes, he couldn't remember where he was. Some days, he would blackout in the mirror only to see a devilish grin dripping with blood on the face that he once knew to be himself. A face that now cackled and ridiculed him for everything he's done. 

As he rested his hand on the tree, his vision blurred, and everything felt like it was spinning. All around him, voices screamed and taunted him. He knew what was about to happen.

"YOU'RE NOTHING!!" They screamed, "KILLER!! MURDERER!! MURDERER!!" 

The voices seemed to call from every direction at once. "Who are you??" Michael screamed out with tears streaming from his eyes, his body slowly losing strength. 

His vision blackened, and he woke again at home, but not exactly his home. He was in another dream world. Instead, withered roses seemed to claim the land, scaling the walls and trees. These horror scapes were never the same, but one thing about them always was that there were withered roses that grew upon nasty slithering vines. 

Michael ran inside the house, and nothing but pitch blackness surrounded him. Slowly, things began materializing from the ground: hallways that seemed endless and rooms so silent that any ordinary man would be driven insane by the ceaseless beating of his own heart. 

Michael ran down the hall in a hazy stumble, the roses and vines creeping behind him like snakes chasing their prey. He ran faster, but the roses kept gaining, the hallway twisting and turning into itself and curving him into the same place. No matter where he ran, he couldn't escape it. The voices still followed him and laughed like demons in his face. 

Each corner seemed like nothing but another hell. He was running but never going anywhere. "Help! Please, someone!" He called, but the only answer was that of laughing. Loud, mocking laughter that would haunt you for the rest of your life if you ever heard it. 

As he slowed down, the walls began to close in, and every exit faded into the disgusting wallpaper. Rising up like great waves, the walls crashed down onto him. He knew this part all too well. He just hoped it wasn't a child this time. 

Michael screamed an unearthly scream as he woke in a cold sweat, his hand tightly clenching a buck's head. Its head had been severed from its body, and he was holding it by the antlers. His hand was dripping with burning blood. 

Michael broke down in sobs at the sight of the carnage, "I'm a monster... What... What have I become!?" 

Michael looked around him, shaking with fear at the sights before him. It wasn't just one buck he had killed. Bits of deer were strewn all around him in a blood shower. He'd killed a whole herd of deer. 

There was a leg hanging from a tree branch and a heart dangling from the throat of a young doe. It was a massacre and a very violent one, too. All this death was done by his hands, hands that at one point were sore from carrying a laughing little girl, but now he was afraid to be near her for fear of hurting her. 

There was so much blood around him that it looked like rust had rained down from the sky. Yet somehow, Michael was untouched—that's how it always was. And because of that, he feared himself. 

He stumbled back to his house and locked himself in his room. He climbed into bed and lay in the dark. The room was torn apart, and the mirror was shattered. As he lay there, Michael felt as though vines were crawling up his legs and arms. 

Michael felt like he was going insane; he'd cut his arms and legs till they bled as he tried tearing away at the slithering feeling under his skin. He'd shoved his dresser onto its side and slashed away its wooden frame, trying to kill that diabolical laughter. His nails were raw and bloody from his constant scratching as he desperately cried out and screamed for laughter to cease its endless mockery. 

It was a feeling he was used to by now. He yearned for the days when the physical hallucinations were the worst part. Now, his mind was a prison of creational dangers, a prison that locked him away to torment while the outside became more rotten and maggot-filled with each passing hour. 

Meanwhile, back at the lab where this "monster" was created, Mordecai was pacing anxiously. "How can I get the money?" He pondered. 

If he didn't find a solution soon, Ventura would kill him. Even if he did, Ventura might kill him. He was rumored to be the leader of an even more powerful and much more dangerous organization. 

The organization was so secretive that it was only known as D.R.E.A.D., which was accurate. D.R.E.A.D. was indeed a thing to dread. 

"How could we mess up this much, Alex?" Mordecai asked a picture of his old friend, Peter's father. "We just wanted to help people." He sighed and put the picture back down. Then he tottered towards his computer, the caliper making its creaky noise. 

If Mordecai knew the extent of what he had done, he could fix it. But destiny was already in the making, and now everyone's fates were sealed. The world would soon see the evil that man's hatred could make.