 
### Sleeping Giant

By: RJ Lopez

Smashwords Edition 2

Copyright 2010 RJ Lopez

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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~~~~Acknowledgements~~~~

Without my family and friends this story wouldn't have been possible. I'd like to sincerely thank anyone who ever helped push me to write or inspired me for even a single line in the story. This is by far the longest work I've been committed to, and would like to thank everyone who was there as I worked my way through the story. I would especially like to thank Tanya Bechara for the amazing cover and for inspiring me to take the story in new directions. I'd also like to thank Dianne Allenberg for pushing me to finish my work and giving me the motivation I needed to make this story everything it could be.

**~~~~** _The City Sleeps_ **~~~~**

I didn't want it to come down to this. I don't understand how I could've let it get to this point. I tried so hard to climb out of these feelings. I try so hard...but I just can't get away from it.

I don't want this anymore. I've had too much. It's buried inside and I know it; but there's no cure for what's tearing it's way out of me. No quick fix for what's about to break down the dam...

A knock pulls me away from my thoughts. I look around my cramped apartment. Wrinkled clothing, battered used books, and empty food wrappers cover most of the floor. Nothing of any interest or meaning is in the apartment besides an old weathered laptop on the bed. The windows have never been washed and the light filtering through the grime takes on the dirty brown color as it washes into the living room. I look through the peephole and see the face of my next-door neighbor standing in the hallway. He knocks again loudly, nervously shuffling his feet as he looks down at them blankly. I sigh softly as I open the door.

He's a simpleton, the kind of person who is inherently good-natured about being utterly useless. His sickly sweet nature reminds me of a dog who never learned to go outside to pee because you felt too bad scolding him as a puppy. It's not really his fault he never learned any better but you still want to smack him when he wets the carpet.

"I've got a problem I need your opinion on. Can I come in?"

There's no 'hello' or even a 'hey' just right into 'I've got a problem'. For some reason he feels that our casual 'friendship' means I want to be drowned in his tears every time something goes wrong in his life...translation he swings by almost everyday. Even when I pretend that I'm not home I've heard him come by ten minutes later to knock again. It's pathetic. He drones on and on about his latest business partner, who's failed to do anything but rob him blind; and, how he thinks his "girlfriend" doesn't care about him anymore. The entire time I've known him he's failed to realize, I really don't care about his problems.

"Why can't I just find someone that doesn't want to steal from me? Between rebuilding the little that I'm ever able to save, and taking Sara out I'm barely getting by. I don't know how long I can keep things going at this rate."

I'm dying inside and fighting back the urge to jump onto him and scream in his face. The urge to grab him and beat some sense into him so strong, but do I do it? No. All I can do is shrug and motion for him to come inside. If I'm going to listen to this mindless babble I'm at least going to sit down for it. I learned a long time ago trying to brush him off only prolongs the torture. He plops down on my couch and the aging legs creak in protest. His fat form is barely contained by his wrinkled shirt, the buttons look as if they can burst off at any moment, and they're barely better than the shoes he has so casually propped on top of my table.

"Maybe you need to talk to a more successful publisher and convince him to invest in you. Show him some of the works you've got ready for press, and try to get some help putting it out there."

His face morphs from blank stupidity into pure bewilderment.

"What do you mean? I do everything my book about small business recommends. I've been to workshops and lectures and they all say I'm just a step away from hitting it big. All the consultants I've hired think I'm almost there."

"I'm just thinking that maybe, just maybe, sending out mailers and posting flyers aren't the best ways to find an honest partner. The book you read is an old 'how-to' book you found at the bottom of a box in a used bookstore. Maybe it's not the best thing to try and run your business by, and how successful are those people giving those talks you swear by."

The look on his face is almost worth the torture of having to put up with him. He's dumbfounded, completely and utterly floored. He's stupid enough to think this is a revolutionary idea, and doesn't realize he should be ashamed for not knowing this years ago. His face quickly turns back into a look of worry, he refuses to see a good idea and work with it. He has to be miserable.

"Right...maybe I'll look into that latter...but then I still have to deal with Sara..."

"One problem at a time. Go to your lawyer, get away from your partner, start looking for a real one. Deal with Sara later."

"But..."

Idiot.

"No Franklin, worry about your business so you can still be in a position to afford having a problem with Sara."

The logic is finally dawning on the pile of mush he calls a brain, and I can tell that he almost comprehends what I'm saying. You can almost see the light turning on behind the vodka-induced haze.

"Right"

I get up and open the door; I feel a chill from a blast of cold air sailing through the hallway window. He walks out, turning to wave to me like a child. I lean my head against the closed door and look down at the couch. It feels like time for a nap.

I lay down slowly, feeling exhausted from my experience with him. It takes so much out of me to let him walk through the door.

How can he be so content with his life? How can he not see how meaningless he really is? Can he really be so dense that he thinks his problems are normal? Does he think his failures and shortcomings are 'just the way it is,' the natural lay of the world?

He has know there's a better way to live than the way he's been trying. When he goes to meet other publishers, carefully counting the money in his wallet before he orders while they carelessly hand the waiter bills telling them to keep the change he has to see the difference. _He HAS to know_. How can he not see the problem when he has to decide between buying food for the day or a trinket for his whore "girlfriend".

None of his friends are any better than him, or they wouldn't be his friends. There has to be some way to show him how things really are. I must be able to do something to get him to stop bothering me.

What if I can't? What if his life's the same as everyone else's? What if he doesn't know how bad his life is, because there's just....just nothing better? The entire world's caught up in mediocrity and existing for no other reason than because it can?

No. That can't be true.

There are lives better than his. Mine certainly is. There are plenty of other happy people who've found success at what they do. They use their skills. They have purpose. They have meaning. Their lives have value and worth.

Those people have found someway to give their life meaning. They've taken potential and created something...something he can't. His publishing company destroys more than creates. He keeps all his authors locked in bitter obscurity because they don't realize he's a sinking ship. Poor students, recent graduates, uneducated novices who pour their soul into their works and sign with him because they don't know any better. Too excited by the prospect of sitting in a coffee shop and turning to the person to their right to inform them they're "a writer". He could have one of the world's modern classics buried away in a stack of novels he'll never read because he can't understand their message.

He's nothing. He just...is... but why? Why is he here if he serves no purpose? What right does he have to...to do...anything...or even to...to be here? Do I have the right to answer that?

Do I know better than the random collection of cells that gathered together decades ago to create him? Could his parents have taken one look at him fresh out of the womb, seen the obvious failure he'd become and just...thrown him away?

Should they have?

Mankind used to be sink or swim. Survive or be left out for the wolves. Would he have survived the Stone Age? Or would they have known better and rather than coddle him toss him into a lake.

It seems so obvious. Why waste the time and energy on something that obviously had no potential.

I stand. I'm excited. The energy is rapidly building in my chest and I can feel it spilling over into my little room. The room seems more claustrophobic than it had been before; it's almost oppressively small now as every wrapper and overturned book seems like a boulder.

He has no potential...he doesn't deserve anything...he's just a waste, a drain...there's no redeeming him...you can't save someone like him from himself...but there's no way to...no other way...he can't do anything himself, he can't change...someone else would have to...

I walk over to the window and face my reflection. I can see the people in the street, and can almost see them bending under the weight of his crimes. Their shoulders hunched forward from the weight of his burden, heads hanging low, oblivious to what's oppressing them.

You don't have a choice. You have to...

I look at my reflection excitedly. I can see it, the low glow burning within me, buried deep after so long, but beginning to show a small glint in my eyes.

_A...hero_ ...

I grab my jacket and rush for the door. I hurry down the stairs passing another tenant from down the hall and nod quickly as he avoids eye contact with me.

Down on the street I realize I picked the wrong time to leave. The cold air has turned frigid and it's about to rain. I have no umbrella, and the school down the road just got released. Masses of children are rushing past me to go back home and glue themselves to the T.V., desperate to surrender more of their brain cells to it.

The sight of their happy faces makes me sick inside.

I'm sick from the thought that Franklin's mediocrity is damning them to a bleaker future, sucking potential out of the world like black hole. Taking something someone could work so hard and slave over, only to be buried in a stack. A void their potential is sucked into, never to escape. I'm sick his existence hurts their chance for a better life, a better job, a better tomorrow, a better hour at home. Sick with myself for not dealing with him yet.

I have to...But can I?

Yes.

I have to...I must...

I'm past the school now...thankfully, and I'm close to my destination. I always end up here on these walks. The older warehouse district is just coming up into my view. I can see the workers scurrying to keep busy so they earn their minimum wage pay before they have to go stand in line at the soup kitchen in the middle of the district with the rest of their family.

The buildings have a calming effect on me. They're everything that is wrong with this city. Great big buildings with limitless possibilities for anything to happen inside, but in the end they're utterly worthless. Everyone who saw them stab into the sky must have stupidly thought "What great development, what progress!" but where's that progress now? Derelict buildings for the dregs of society to use as refuges from the snow and rain. Buildings with chipped paint and dirty broken windows stand next to freshly painted buildings. Neither holds anything of value inside, both are owned by the same fools who think they'll be valuable in the future, ignoring the fact they've been saying that for five years.

Here.

Yes. I'll bring him here. How?

His business.

Here? Not an office?

He's too stupid to notice.

And when he's here?

_Then do the deed. A gun?_ No, too easy to trace and hard to get. _A knife?_ No, I'm a hero not a mugger. _A bat, pipe?_ Too thuggish. _A rope?_ No, the fat fuck would take too long to strangle. _An axe?_ Too crude...

I'm taking the wrong approach to this. It can't leave any suspicion on me. It has to seem like an accident. I need to decide where, before how. It has to be perfect.

I glance around the warehouses standing before me, and realize I've wandered deeper into the district than I thought. My thoughts have taken me almost all the way into the heart of the urban decay; this is the place. It makes too much sense, it just feels...right. But where? The clouds are dark overhead and finally the cold rain begins to pour from them. I rush out of the street into the first open door way and look up at the fading sign above the door.

_Here_.

An abandoned warehouse an electronics company built to store their over-priced and unwanted creations.

The door's locked. I'll have to go around to the side and force my way in like a bum.

I walk to the side entrance, luckily someone has already done the work for me and the door is cracked open. I enter the main warehouse, careful to not touch anything with my hand, and see it. It's perfect, like walking into a church. The sound of the rain falling against the roof fills the whole building as if an audience of people applauding my decision. The light filtering in from the windows shifts slightly as I walk across the worn and weather cement floor slowly.

Leading to the manager's office is a long high stairwell. The stairs are made of cast iron; they're sharp and steep, probably from before the war. All I'd have to do is lead the drunk up to the office and push him down the stairs. If it's not enough he'll get dealt with by one of the pieces of wood laying on the floor from the crates the company never bothered to clean out before leaving.

I'll bring him here. I'll start to clear the brush in a forest of dead buildings and give it another chance at life. I have to be sure. This is a man's life...but how much is his life even worth? No. I'm sure of it, this is the only way. It makes perfect sense, it's so utilitarian, so basic and instinctive. When the world's at a turning point you can't let yourself be dragged down by the dead weight. If he doesn't add anything and only takes or hurts when so many people need help right, when they all need a chance he needs to be taken out of the equation. Why keep feeding the bear that's eventually going to eat you?

The world's at a crossroads. Every other day there's some new crises that puts us on the brink of destruction, and he does nothing to solve the problem. He only creates new ones. It's simple economics. When the world is at the brink the dead weight needs to be tossed over the side. Failed businesses that keep getting help, programs too inefficient to do anything but exist, and even people who just take and poison.

It's just a matter of time until everyone else sees the necessity of what I'm doing. Until they thank me for clearing the way.

I turn around and walk out of the building back towards my apartment. Nothing seems to be different. The street's still crowded, the sounds just as roaring, the rain just as cold, and the people rush by all the same; but that'll change soon. Soon they'll all be safe. I'll protect them.

He doesn't deserve to be here anymore. I'll do it. I'll do it now. The sooner the better, the quicker I can correct nature's mistake. He'll finally be doing something that will help the world. Even if it is only dying.

I'm at the dreary door of my building; there's a faint pulsing glow coming from the other side, seeping out towards me from the doorframe. The glow's just bright enough to be a different enough from the rest of the world, to stand out, but not enough to be completely cut off from it. So close but so distant.

As I walk up the stairs I hear him. He's mumbling drunkenly to the other tenants. Going room to room trying to talk coherently to anyone who'll listen. This would be the time if any. The moment is hot, and everyone would be glad to be rid of him. I may not even have to push him down the stairs; he's drunk enough to fall without a hand.

I smile widely at him as I ascend the final stair and step onto the landing.

"Franklin." I say loudly to him to get his attention away from the quiet student who lives on the floor.

He looks my way and smiles back drunkenly. The smell of the cheap vodka he poured down his throat races out toward me. I feel repulsed as it assaults my senses. This is right. What I'm about to do is right. The bastard is piss-face drunk only after having decided to fix his life. He tries to shuffle towards me but is stopped by his own lack of coordination.

"I'm so glad you're here! I need t-to talk to you about somethin' important. I went to go celebrate the new plan we came up with this mornin' with a lil' drink, and everything was fine until it fell a-apart."

"What happened?"

"I found Sara with another man...I-I don't think...I can't get her back this time...not a-again..."

This is it.

Hailey, the mousey student from down the hall he was bothering, looks at me gratefully with her doe eyes, and quickly closes her door, retreating back to her world of books and truths.

"You know I'm going to help however I can. I'm already a step ahead of you, I was out earlier thinking about your problems and came up with something really great."

"What! I knew you of all people would be able to do somethin'. W-What have you done?"

Pathetic. I see no open doors or shadows of nosy neighbors hiding behind their doors. It's time to set into motion the final act.

"I've found an investor. I couldn't stand by and let your world come apart. I made some calls of my own. But he has to meet with you now, before he leaves for a trip to the East."

He drunkenly looks at me with a bright grin. His face's brightened, the combination of a fool's hopes and the redness from drinking. There's something in his eyes that I can't identify. A fleeting look of insight that quickly dies, pulled down by the weight of the vodka down into oblivion.

"Then we go now."

I'm almost worried by this sudden clarity, and unexpected moment of sobriety. It's just a passing moment. He walks towards the stairs of the building and stumbles again, barely able to control himself as he walks down to the bottom door. The simpleton, if only he knew.

A fresh blast of cold air hits us as we leave the apartment building, and I begin to lead him to his final destination. He trails behind me slightly not able to keep up with me because of the vodka. I can see the breath leave his lips in the cold air as he labors to try and keep pace with me. We pass the schoolyard and there are still some children playing under the awning, waiting for their parents to make the drive to get them. He stops to at the gate of the school and looks at them smiling.

"One day...one of my own..."

If this fool ever had a child and passed on his genes, then that'd be all the proof I'd need to know there is no God.

I motion for him to follow me again, and we begin to see the rising roofs of the warehouses in the distance. The area is just as dirty and abandoned as it had been earlier, but that will change soon. When I free the world from him, he'll stop sucking the potential out of everything; and life will flood back into these battered buildings.

I see the door to the warehouse I had chosen. Still undisturbed from when I left last, but I can see the faintest glow coming from the doorframe, beckoning us to enter. The world's way of screaming out to me to carry out my plan and to save it. I can't let him walk out of this place...

"Are you sure this is the right place?"

Hurry. He's starting to sober.

I look back at him from the doorway, and see that he's stopped behind me. His speech is no longer slow or slurred, and he's looking at the building apprehensively.

"This is the address he gave me. You know I wouldn't lead you wrong."

"I know."

Poor bastard I almost feel bad for him. He didn't pick to have a wasted life...but I can't let him keep drowning the world...

The look of caution leaves his face, and I can almost feel him put himself into my hands as he steps forward. I turn away from him and walk into the warehouse. I hear his slow steps behind me and I point up to the manager's office.

"He must be waiting there for us."

I cross the warehouse floor, careful not to step on anything for fear of an unpleasant surprise waiting for me beneath the trash. I ascend the stairs, walking faster than he can, and I reach the top of the landing as he barely reaches the bottom of the staircase.

This is it. The moment I've been waiting for is seconds away. The world will be saved in a heartbeat, and I can barely control myself. The feeling of energy flowing through my body is cool and calming. The hard pounding of the rain on the metal roof has become a steady rhythm, matching the beat of my pounding heart. This is right. This is the sign, I'm meant to complete my plan.

I look down at him and see him holding the rail so he can walk up. Maybe he's not as sober as I had thought...

"Is he up there?"

"Yeah. Just waiting inside."

Fool.

He takes the last step onto the landing and I turn to face him. His eyes still can't focus completely, but it's enough to show he recognizes the office is barren and vacant.

"Where'd he go?"

"Idiot."

I can't wait anymore. I step towards him and push him with all my might. The look in his eyes is of pure bewilderment and his jaw drops in shock. His whole face screams of silent horror as he flails for the railing to catch himself, but all his hands find is nothingness.

He finally makes contact with the cold metal stairwell. The railing that he had reached for safety now finds him with cold cruelty. The side of his head makes a loud crack as it slams into the rail. He goes limp as he hits the bottom step and slides down to the floor.

I walk to the bottom of the steps and stand over his crumpled body. He's dead. There's no doubt. There's too much blood pouring from his body for him to have survived. I slowly kneel next to him, careful not to get his tainted blood on myself, and feel for a pulse. There is none. I look into his eyes, and there's no trace of life left in them. I've done it.

I stand up again and step over his body, walking towards the door of the warehouse. The handle of the door is glowing still, but leading outside now. I look around as I step onto the street and see nothing but the dirty panes of empty warehouses looking back at me. I walk past the schoolyard, and the final straggler is finally leaving as the sun begins to peak through the clearing rainclouds gracefully. I protected those kids future from him. Even now as they sit in front of the television and let it wash over them, I've given them a chance they don't know about yet. An opportunity to do something special when they finally become unplugged from the haze they live in and see the chance I've given them.

When I get to the apartment I see my door handle is still glowing, but the faint pulsing glow has become frenzied. I walk into the apartment and the energy still hasn't left me from earlier; it's filling the room around me and becoming oppressive again. I open the window and look down to see a pleasing sight of a laughing family walking down the street towards the park.

I did that. I made them smile and laugh. I look at the clock sitting on my desk. It's almost time for me to leave for my appointment. I walk into the bedroom and pull open the closet door to see my other attire hanging proudly in the closet. I pull on the button up shirt and slacks, and feel alien in them.

This isn't right. Something's still off. I rid the world from his stupidity...things should have changed. The energy I was feeling earlier has slowed to a steady pulse in my body. I feel charged but I still feel distant from the clothes I just put on. Maybe there just hasn't been enough time for his poison to filter out.

I stride out of the apartment and head away from the warehouse district. Instead I head toward the heart of the city, towards the university. Even though I know where I'm going you'd be able to tell you were getting closer to the school without realizing it. Newer apartments and chain stores are replacing the rundown apartment buildings and delis. Gourmet coffee houses, chic clothing stores, and trendy bars are replacing the dives and rundown buildings I live by. Even the rundown street is improving in character as the potholes and cracked sidewalks become replaced with freshly laid asphalt and cement.

The hustle of the students trying to get to their dorms from their last class has always intrigued me, even when I was a part of it. There's really not matter how special they make think they are they're really only taking one of the few options available to them.

They all run back to their rooms to sit, do work, and forget about the lecture they just left and "relax" with their friends. Even though those activities mainly consist of sitting around and chattering about mind numbingly unimportant details about each other that everyone ignores until it's their turn to speak. They're on cruise control and don't even realize it. Going through life without trying too hard, having just enough lucky and tough breaks to make them think they're actually living. These are the ones I have to wake up. I had to get rid of him for them. I had to make the light at the en of the tunnel cut through the haze of mediocrity they're so used to expecting.

They can go down the same path the idiot took and go through the motions of not failing out of school while they drink themselves to oblivion using their youth as excuse. If it was good enough for the movies and Hollywood stars why wouldn't it work in real life? Why wouldn't the vodka swigging, beer chugging kid who can barely remember his own name get the dream job and girl?

Even more amusing are the ones who see the descent into the rat race and try to escape by pouring themselves in endless activities to keep moving faster than their fall. If it got them through high school and the horrors of adolescence it must work in college. But when they emerge from their room the purpose is always the same regardless of whatever they're pretending to pay attention to, just some weak attempt to find themselves.

I couldn't stand it. The false pretenses that everyone lived under to make the situation bearable made me sick. I survived but then...I had to get out, there was no denying what could happen if I stayed. But even from a distance some appearances still have to be maintained.

I turn onto the street I was looking for, just off the main campus drag but still rundown enough to warrant being called a dive despite the astronomical rent the owners must charge. As I walk into the room the aromas of fresh Chinese food attack my stomach. I'm starving. My mind must have been ignoring my body while I was preoccupied earlier.

I walk over to the bright faces that are smiling at me and waving me over from a small table.

My friends...

I walk towards my seat at the table and smile at everyone. Handshakes and hugs all around, and a menu's handed to me as I take my seat. I glance at the faces around me, and listen to the idle chitchat I walked in on. The chatter flows from one subject to another, but the themes remain the same. Graduation's approaching and job offers are starting to come in; it's new and exciting but everyone's worried. They want the perks of working at a top firm but aren't ready to shed the shield of college life. Not quite ready to burst that bubble. I've always wondered at what moment do you realize you've sold out, and at what moment do just not care anymore. The job you took so you could move out of the low-end student housing and into an IKEA furnished studio apartment stops being that thing you do while your other friends are in class and becomes so much more.

Matt turns to ask my opinion on the paper our senile professor presented the day before.

"To be honest, I thought it was insightful to a point, but still meaningless. You can't apply what he said to world that we live in."

"I was talking to the new doctoral student, Simon Heller, and he thought it was a great idea that could be the stepping stone to a big change in the academic worlds view on the core of modern ethics and morality."

"I don't see how that even matters. The academic community's opinion is meaningless. No matter what they say, it'll just be buried as a footnote in the seventy-eighth edition of a random ethics textbook that no one reads. The response and the counter-response papers will all be tucked away into the vaults of university libraries, and never be seen again. At least not by anyone besides pretentious pricks like Simon Heller."

"Well he thought it doesn't have to be known by the public to have an effect, only by the policy makers. I mean that's why we all came to a top university isn't it?"

"If the public doesn't know, then what's the point? Perpetuating the elitism of the intellectuals? If it's not practical for bettering the world, then it's not necessary. It's that type of thinking that got us dragged into these endless wars that are draining the country and killing off our society."

"Well I don't know...he just..."

"He just was being another preacher who can't see that the world needs action, not another theory."

He could never do what I've done. His kind is why fools were able to drown the world in their stupidity for so long. He's educated enough to look down on the world, but not to save it. They all stood on their ivory pedestals for too long, locked away in their towers they've forgotten about the real world. What use is unlocking higher truths if you don't tell anyone the meaning of it all.

"At some point all great actions were just an idea. Everything was an idea locked in someone's head about what could be done. Getting validation from the academic community lets you take the next step forward to acting."

"What step? To be published in an obscure journal that no one has heard of, let alone read? How does that accomplish anything for the world? The world needed to be saved and all Cooper did was spit out an idea that was doomed to fail because the world won't even know it exists."

My friend Steve, an engineering major, who I'm surprised to see away from his girlfriend for the night, interrupts Matt as he begins to respond.

"Well you're both in luck. I invited Simon to eat with us tonight, and he just walked in the door. At least now he can defend himself from you."

I turn around and there he is. The typical pseudo-intellectual graduate student walks towards our table with a stupid picture perfect grin frozen onto his face. He's got the perfectly tussled hair that probably took half an hour to do so it'd look like he spent no time on it. The alternative square thick rimmed glasses placed perfectly on his face. It all makes me want to break his nose.

I had heard about him before I had been at this table. He's the perfect person to uphold the mantle of the elitism and stay self-righteous the whole time he's doing it. The clean-cut asshole that's done everything he could so he'd be considered better than everyone else, except for actually doing anything better then someone else.

I could have been this bastard. I would have been...

I look up at him and realize how much I despise what he is. The world could have been better off so much sooner if his kind had gotten off their pompous asses and done something besides talk. They're next in line to step onto the ivory pedestals, but they change nothing when they finally ascent to the top.

I start right into him as he sits down in the chair opposite of me.

"So Simon, we were just talking about you and your opinion about Cooper's ethics paper."

He looks at me with a confident smirk on his face, but his eyes betray his surprise for a fleeting moment. The bastard quickly loses the surprised look, and smugly glances around the table before looking back at me. Letting his audience focus their attention on him before he graces us with a response.

"Well I think it was a fascinating article, and could really be a step towards redefining the academic community's current train of thought."

"But what would that accomplish? All you would be doing is sharing a theory with other intellectuals who won't share this idea with the public because they won't think they could handle redefining their ideas on ethics. That's if they even admit to the fact they even have their own ethical codes."

"Well it'd be a step towards educating the leaders of the masses."

WASP prick.

"The masses don't need to be educated? Society as a whole isn't worthy of improvement, only your select few are?"

"Well they are the only ones who will really understand what needs to be done. They'll take the steps forward that have to be taken to improve the lifestyle of the masses. Look at the philosophers of the past, Nietzsche didn't write for his next-door neighbors. "

"You think people can't see for themselves that there are problems. They don't know the world needs improvement? Why do you think we have a democracy?"

"Since the masses are the ones who are causing the erosion of this world, why should we let them know anything? They're lucky enough that the enlightened even bother to try and fix the messes they make. Professor Cooper isn't obligated to spend his time researching for hours on end, and I'm not obligated to be there with him buried in the archives; but, we still did it, and they should be grateful for it. As for democracy, don't even pretend to be that naïve. We both damn well know how the system works, and we should be glad the rest of the country hasn't caught on yet."

Jackass.

"You mean the world is being led by a select educated few, but problems only exist because everyone under them ruins their plans? You know that's not true. What he needs to do is go make a new theory on ethics that that cuts to the core of the ethics of the everyday man and the real world; and then the two of you can graciously bestow this knowledge on the masses. Millions of lives are determined by a single man who had been chosen by a handful of people, because that select few doesn't think the people know what they want in their lives. The world is out of balance and needs to be saved from the grip of autocracy."

The waiter walks up the table, and nervously interrupts to take our orders. We must be getting loud if a career waiter like him is shifting his weight trying to get out of our way quickly.

The whole idea that only a certain few deserve to have the world saved for them is why people like that drunk were able to pollute the world. Why bother trying to show them light, if they would scurry away back to the darkness? The world deserved to be saved from that harsh a fate. The world isn't just a pulpit for the few to stand from while looking down at the rest of humanity.

It shouldn't have been up to me to save the world. After so many years there should have been someone before me. But no, the selfish bastards stayed up on their mountain choosing to not do anything but watch.

"Look lets be honest now. When has educating the common man ever done anything positive? Teach the slaves to read in America and a civil war breaks out, give the Russian peasants a limited constitution and within two years every legitimate leader is dead or in a Siberian labor camp, or let women leave the kitchen to enter the workforce and the family unit has failed. It just doesn't work, the masses have proven themselves too irresponsible."

Ignorant ass.

"Are you listening to yourself talk? Really think about what you just said. You're trying to argue that giving knowledge and power to the everyday man brings upon society's downfall. Where do you think innovation and creation comes from?"

"The truth of the matter is, there are certain rules by which we must abide by if we want the world we live in to keep working. And if anyone should listen to themselves talk that'd be you. What makes you so special just because you can connect the dots between a few generalizations?"

The waiter bringing the food over to the table cuts off my rebuttal. I look at the food, back at him, and I'm about to respond to him when I feel a hand touch my elbow.

I look over and see Sonia shaking her head at me. Maybe this isn't the time and place to be debating this particular topic. I offer a weak smile and turn back to the plate of rice and beer in front of me, careful not to look back at Simon.

The conversation is wandering again between the latest reports of the terrors of the East, and the tragedies at home. There's an unending stream of horror stories pouring from the latest news broadcast, and everyone is appalled but the atrocities of the day, but not enough to stop talking about them. I'm glad to be away from all this mindless chatter now. It's the same conversation over and over again. Everyone knows how the others are going to react before they even start talking, feigning interest until it's their turn to say something.

Simon's preaching again about the slow de-evolution of our society and they're all nodding silently, reveling in horror at a brilliant mind's predictions. Silently standing by again as they let him remount his fucking pedestal.

**

Uniformed police officers mill around the blood soaked body lying in front of them on the warehouse floor. Two men dressed in dark rumpled suits walk across the warehouse floor towards the door to the outside. Both are aged with hard and weathered faces, they walk with the slow confident stride of veterans untouched by the sight they're leaving behind. They step out onto street and light cigarettes before leaning against their dark sedan. The sun is starting to rise in the distance but can't pierce past the early morning fog from the bay and towering roofs of the warehouses.

"What do you think Peter? Wandering drunk who had an accident?"

"If it was just a bum yeah, but something's off. Business card says he's owner of a publishing company. What's he doing in this part of town alone?"

"We both smelled enough vodka on him to know he had to be trashed. The autopsy will probably end up showing he was pretty well liquored up. He could have just been slumming it, been kicked out of wherever he was, and had an accident while wandering alone. Who knows maybe he was interested in the building if he's got a company."

"Something about this seems off John. What's a publisher doing this far in the warehouse district that liquored up? Even if he's slumming it he's not going to fit in at a working class bar around here. Where's the real estate agent if he was looking at the building? He came from somewhere, but what was he even doing here."

"Fine, but we're off the clock in an hour. We shoulda been late on this and let the next pair of on calls pick it up. Lets go get some coffee while we write some of the report up, and deal with this tomorrow when we hear back from the coroner."

The two detectives throw their cigarettes on the ground as they get into the car and slowly edge out onto the street as they pull away from the warehouse.

**

Fuck. My head hurts. I look around to see where I am; I'm back in my apartment. Last night became a blur after more and more drinks arrived at the table. Sonia wouldn't let me start my argument again, no matter how pompous the asshole was acting, so I kept drinking. At least Steve got sick of his preaching too, and stood up against his bullshit, but that suck up Matt just kept cutting him down for Simon. You could even tell he enjoyed being the puppet master, smirking as Matt did his dirty work, prodding him just when things had almost calmed down.

I get up and stretch my tired and aching body. I try to think back to what happened after we left the restaurant. The haze of the alcohol still hasn't left me, and my thinking is slow and muddy.

What did I do after we finished dinner? When did I even leave? Why does my body hurt so much? What did I do? My memory remains murky and unhelpful as I try to piece the night back together, all I can see are flashes of faces arguing and drinking.

I shake my head, walk to the shower, and turn it on. The water is cold but warming as I test the temperature against my hand, the perfect hangover remedy. I strip and enter the shower, letting the warmth overcome my sore muscles. I really don't know why my arms hurt so much.

Does it really matter why I feel sore? I probably just did something stupid while drunkenly wandering back home. I can't think of anything I did after walking out of the restaurant.

Fuck it. Not like it matters, I probably just fell. Today's an important day. The first day in a whole new world, today things are going to be different.

**

The two detectives are standing on the edge of an embankment, watching divers struggle to free a body from the reeds trapping it partially submerged in the water of the river. The divers are struggling as the current is running strong and refuses to help while they untangle the reeds. The divers finally free the body from the reeds and pull it out onto the waiting coroner's gurney.

The detectives walk to the body and retrieve the wallet from the man's pants. Peter scribbles the information from his ID in his notepad before putting the wallet back with the body. He nods to the waiting men, and they load the body into the back of the van to head toward the city morgue.

Peter takes off his gloves, and looks over at his partner. He studies him for a moment before turning towards their parked car and slowly heading off towards it. John looks at Peter walking away and starts to follow him to the car, both ignore the barrage of questions being called out from the reporters and news crews standing behind the nearby caution tape.

Both men open their door to the car, but neither gets in. John looks over at Peter who's leaning on the driver side, lighting a cigarette. He motions towards Peter for the pack and Peter tosses it across the roof of the car to him. He pulls one out and lights it with a lighter from his pocket. Peter takes a long slow pull while looking out at the river, before he turns back to John.

"Well?"

"Well I think we shoulda turned off our phones during that coffee. An hour left and we pick up two dead fucks because Captain America here has to keep his fucking phone on. We'll know more soon. He looked like he'd been worked over, but forensics said the rain last night washed away anything that'd show he'd even been dropped in the river here."

"Let's go talk to the publisher's neighbors before we head back in for medical reports on him and the floater."

"Our shift ending means nothing?"

"Not when the lieutenant tells us to make at least some prelims with OT approved to get us started before it goes cold."

"Fine. You know these vultures got here pretty fast. I wonder if all the news channels keep vans on call for when we pull bodies out of the river."

"Probably. Nothing stops the tv channel from flicking like "Body Pulled From River". They've probably got more photos of the body than we do. It's morbid but you know people love to see it all. They'll cringe and turn their heads but you know out of the corner of their eye they're trying to see something."

"Vultures."

The two toss their cigarettes on the ground before getting into the car. Peter guides the car out onto the street, away from the crowd of people standing at the scene and heads westbound towards the university.

**

\--God I hope he's okay. He wouldn't share my cab...I should have made him...he was so drunk last night...please let him have made it home...--

I can barely move. Showering was a bad idea. It felt so good for the twenty minutes I was in there, but now that I'm back on the bed it all just hurts that much more. Maybe I should take another shower so the pain goes away. I shouldn't, it'll just hurt more when I get back out. Maybe I'll take a pain killer and then shower again so when I'm done the medicine will have taken over.

What the fuck did I do last night? My hand's scraped and swollen, and my shoulder's on fire. What did I fall on?

What time is it? Shit. I missed work. At least now I have time to shower again and make this goddamn pain go away. Then I can go back to bed...but it'd be such a waste of this new day...oh well. The idiot's gone and not coming back anytime soon. I'll have time to enjoy the fruit of my labor.

A gentle knock on the door distracts me from my thoughts. I pull a pair of pants on from the floor and grab a clean shirt from the closet.

"Hold on."

I walk over to the door and undo the lock. I open the door and see Sonia standing in the hallway with a relieved look on her face.

\--Thank you.--

Why is she here...she shouldn't be this close...

"Hi."

"Hi..."

I shouldn't have opened the door without looking. Maybe if I just stand here and don't talk she'll leave and not see my mess of a life.

"Can I come in?"

Can't catch a break.

"Uhhh...I was just on my way out. Did you need anything important?"

\--He's running again.--

"I wanted to talk to you about last night. I don't understand why you had to go after Simon that way."

"Oh. I didn't know I wasn't allowed to voice my opinion, especially when the guy is sitting across the table from me and looking at me."

"Well maybe he was looking at you because he realized what a hypocrite you are. You're a graduate student at a major university harping on how useless the academic community is. While you're sitting at a table of future professionals and academics!"

"Those people are nothing like me! They could never do anything of any importance if they keep looking at the world like some fucking puzzle they have to solve. How's Steve going to build a building if he stares at his calculator all day and never goes out to a site and realizes the area he's building in never gets sunlight and an all glass building will lead to everyone jumping out the fucking window with depression?"

"Are you listening to yourself? You sound absolutely ridiculous right now."

"It makes perfect sense. I defy you to prove my logic wrong. How will Matt be a successful therapist if he keeps sucking onto every idea some guy in a book writes two thousand miles away if he ignores his patients' actual needs. What'll happen if he doesn't throw the book out the window every once in a while? How's he supposed to help anyone if he can't see past the textbook diagnosis and look at the patient as a person. How's he going to get a teacher motivated again by prescribing anti-depressants?"

"You're always talking about the real world and unlocking potential, but what are you doing to help? You're at the same parties, lectures, and dinners sitting with the rest of us useless academics. What makes you so much better?"

"Something you can't understand. Something you've never been able to see. I've got a lot to do today. You need to go. I've got potential to unlock."

She nods her head in understanding, but I can tell that she's hurt. I walk out the door to the stairway and watch her walk down towards the street. I'm about to call out and tell her that it was nice to see her, tell her anything to make her not worry, when the sound of a door opening distracts me.

I glance over to see the student I saved from the drunkard yesterday. She gives me an awkward smile, before glancing down at the floor as she quickly walks past me in Sonia's wake. I turn around to go back into my apartment, and hear her scurry down the stairs towards the door so she can go to class. I walk past her door to mine, and see a low glow coming from inside her apartment as I step into my own. I blink quickly and the glow fades away.

I don't understand how she can be so anxious to learn ideas and virtues from tomes almost as old as the bones of their long past writers. What's to be gained now from studying the works of Socrates and countless other dead philosophers? Why focus so much on the past when there's so much to do to prepare for tomorrow? I almost wish she had been there while I talked to Sonia.

I lie back down on the couch, and start to stare off at the ceiling, losing myself in my thoughts again.

What's there to be gained from her? She's just as bad as that fucking prick from last night. What's worse though, is that she'll never admit to her role like he does. Under the veil of the subculture and the protection of liberal watchdogs, she'll do as much damage as the very people she supposedly opposes.

She'll protest the corruption of our leaders, and all the while stand against the reform minded lobbyists, claiming they're just another tool for the minority to become as corrupt as the majority. She'll look at the moral decline of our society, and instead of trying to join productive public awareness groups fighting against world hunger or AIDS she'll say their funding needs to be sent to fund a committee against over extending funds. The worst that she will do, is wail that higher education is becoming stagnant and claim students lack the drive to stand for what they believe in, all the while entering into a professorship to preach the same principles she learned thirty years prior and fail anyone who disagrees with her preaching.

Is the left any better than the right, simply because it's the left? Do the blows to society do less damage coming from the minority rather than the majority? Should she be able to uphold this veil?

Is that why there's been no change yet? Is my work not done yet?

I should have been able to tell if my work was done. I shouldn't have felt pain this morning when I woke up. If I had freed the world, then I should have freed it from pain. Does her hypocrisy need to be torn away?

Fuck. It has to be. I can't protect them from idiocy and let them be victim to her lies.

Hailey has to be dealt with. I can't let her pull the world down into her lies and hypocrisy. He did his damage far too long, I won't let her begin hers. I have to finish what I've begun.

But will it ever end? It has to. There can't be a never-ending supply of these people. I'll finish my work when I've freed the world from her. I have to save the world from what she'll become. What would the point of having killed that stupid drunk, if I leave her?

"She has to go."

A sudden loud knock as I pronounce these fateful words surprises me for an instant. I turn and look at the door. Who could be here now? There's no one...

I walk to the door and look through the peephole to see two men standing in the doorway. Both are weathered and older, though one looks bored while he leans on the wall, and the other is looking intently at the door as if he can see through it and is looking at me.

**

The door opens to reveal the two detectives standing on the other side. Both study him for a moment, as they size up who they are dealing with. The man standing on the opposite side of the doorway is completely average. His height and build aren't special in anyway. His face is the same as a thousand others; his features are unremarkable to either detective. There are no distinguishing marks on his face, no recognizable eyes, and his hair is of a plain and average sort not styled in some unique fashion. Even his clothing is typical of what a student is expected to have on, a pair of jeans and an old faded t-shirt that isn't of the vintage variety, just weathered from wear.

Peter looks over at John who takes a step towards the door with his badge raised in his hand.

"Are you Mr. Miller?"

He takes a step back away from John's advance while nodding his head slowly.

"Yes, what's this about?"

"Mr. Miller, I'm Detective Peter Wintergreen and this is my partner John Hale. We'd like to talk to you about your neighbor Franklin Merriman."

At the mention of Franklin's name Miller takes another step backwards into his apartment. He nods, and pauses for another split-second before turning around motioning for the two detectives to follow him inside.

Fuck. What do they know?

There couldn't have been any mistakes...I've never made any... _it was perfect_ ...it had to be...

The two detectives follow him into the apartment and close the door. Peter pulls out his notepad as they sit on the couch Miller motions towards. He takes a seat in a chair pulled next to the couch.

"I just saw him yesterday, he came by to my apartment to talk for a little while. Is there something wrong with him?"

"What did you two talk about?"

"Well I'd like to know why I'm being questioned before I say anything else. Do I need a lawyer? Is Frank okay?"

Peter starts respond to Miller, when John raises his hand to and cuts him off quickly.

"Yesterday at some point after you saw him, Mr. Merriman died while in the warehouse district. We're just here to try and figure out what happened to him. If you feel for some reason that you'd like a lawyer for your statement then that would be fine and we can set up an appointment downtown."

Shit. That was suspicious. I'm done. Finished. Over. They'll know I've done it. But they haven't arrested me. They must be after something else.

But what else could they be...no...they couldn't still be looking...

No. They must know l had to do what I did. I can't be caught yet, I was meant to do this. All the signs were there to do what I had to, and now they're there for Hailey. I have to be careful.

Miller leans back in his chair, looking more relaxed than he had a moment before.

"No. No. I just wasn't sure what had happened with Franklin, and wasn't sure what I should say. How did he die?'

"We're not really able to talk about that right now, we're just trying to build a timeline as to why he was at the warehouse and then go from there."

"What time was it when he came by, and what did you two talk about when Mr. Merriman came by your apartment?"

"Well it was about two o'clock in the afternoon. He was drunk, and wanted to complain about his girlfriend Sara and his publishing company."

"Was it unusual for him to be drinking already?"

"No. Not to speak ill of the dead, but Franklin had a weakness for the bottle."

"What was he complaining about in regards to his girlfriend and business?"

"Same thing as he always complained about to me. He had an issue with how he cared about his girlfriend more than she cared about him, and his partner in the company was stealing from him."

"Do you know his partner?"

"No. Franklin found him by putting up flyers and ads around town."

"You say that as if you have a problem with it."

"Well I don't think someone should try to make their livelihood with someone they found through a random posting. There should be more professionalism to it. I mean really, who thinks they're going to do fantastic in the business world if they run their company like that? We talked for a little while longer, and I told him I thought he needed to find a new partner and had to sue his current one. He said he'd think about it, and left. He had only been in my apartment for about half an hour."

"Did you see him again that day?"

Careful. I have to be careful. This is the most important part of the story. If only they knew. If only they really knew who they were really questioning. They wouldn't be asking any more questions about that simpleton. They'd be trying to learn from me. They'd be taking notes about me and not the idiot.

But what if they don't realize who I am? What if they really are here to try and connect me to his death? Could that be? Could they be trying to stop me from finishing?

Would they do that?

_They would_.

That must be it. They must be questioning me to stop me from finishing my work. They're just a part of this system that's holding the world down. They must be the reason the jackass' kind was able to last this long! It explains so much.

How did I never realize this? It wasn't inaction, or the lack of someone like me; it was these fools who protected him. I wasn't the first, there must have been others, but their kind must have stopped our work. They have to realize what they're doing by letting his kind thrive for so long.

They have to go. That waste of life couldn't have survived for so long if their kind hadn't been protecting him. Even if they hadn't really known what they were doing, ignorance is no excuse. Wintergreen would have known. He must have realized, he seems too aware not to have seen it all for what it really was. I can see it in his eyes, he knows.

I have to deal with their kind. After Hailey, after I rid the world of her hypocrisy and lies, I'll punish her protectors. I'll make them pay for the damage they did to the world by standing in my predecessors' way...

The silence is filling the room, as Miller doesn't respond to Peter's question. The two detectives glance at each other as Miller sits, unmoving in the chair staring blankly at them.

"Mr. Miller...Mr. Miller..."

Miller snaps to attention. His gaze shifts from the two men on his couch, quickly darting around the room. He shakes his head and rubs his face before focusing his gaze on the detectives.

"Did you see Mr. Merriman again that day?"

"Uhhh...yeah sorry. It was almost five o'clock. He was still drunk and I figured he'd been drinking since he left me before. He was bothering Hailey, a student from down the hall, when I got back from a quick errand. They stopped talking and I took him for a walk to sober up and talk more about his problems."

"Where'd you go?"

"We just walked around the neighborhood for a little bit. He wasn't listening to me, and kept complaining about everything instead of trying to do something constructive. He was so drunk, I couldn't put up with it. I told him I had to be somewhere and left him by the school up the road."

"Where'd you go?"

"I had to go into the city toward the campus to meet some friends for dinner."

John stands up and Peter puts his notebook away. The three men walk to the door, and John opens it to leave. He turns to shake Miller's hand before stepping out into the hallway.

"Well thank you for your time."

Peter turns to face Miller again, studying him while he reaches into his pocket. He pulls a card out and hands it to him.

"Call if you remember anything else about Mr. Merriman's day."

"Of course. I wish I could be of more help, Franklin deserved a lot more out of life than this."

\--He's hiding something.--

I walk out the door with the detectives, giving them a fake smile when they look back as they start to descend the stairs.

I should kill them. A hard push down the stairs, just like the imbecile earlier. Take their guns, walk up stairs, and just end the bitch too.

Swaggering down the stairs because they think they've rattled me. I'll show them. They'll pay soon enough. I'll be sure to make them suffer when my business with Hailey is done.

I turn away from the staircase and look at Hailey's door. The glow is still coming faintly from beneath her door. The signs are still there despite the interruption. I have to come up with a plan for her soon, before these bastards interrupt my work.

I have to plan for them; I won't have much time after Hailey. I can't let them stop me from my labors. They'll have to try to stop me; it's their job to protect her kind.

I glance down at my watch as I walk back into my own apartment.

Shit...they made me miss office hours. I'll never get to talk to Conner about my paper. I'll have to send him a message now.

Where the fuck is my laptop.

**

"Something's off with him John."

The two detectives are sitting in their car, waiting for traffic to part to pull out onto the street.

"I know Peter. Something's not right with him, but do you really think he killed this guy?"

Traffic is clear now, but Peter still doesn't pull out. He looks out the window at the street before he turns to face John.

"Maybe. He's the last person we know of to be with him alive. Maybe he's the partner that was trying to rob Franklin, and that whole bleeding heart story is just some cover. Franklin confronts him over the business, and Miller decides he can't get caught with his hand in the cookie jar."

"So he makes up some story to get Franklin out in the Warehouse district, then he kills him? He doesn't seem the type. Too spacey. Not enough nerve."

"Maybe, we've seen weirder. But I don't know yet, I think this kid's just some punk. We need to get down to the morgue and find out about the guy pulled from the river."

Peter pulls the car out into traffic, and heads away from Miller's building. He glances back at it in the rearview mirror and see's him walking out of the building. Despite the full afternoon sun in the sky, all the surrounding buildings seem to cast their shadow on him as he strolls by.

\--You lying son of a bitch. You're done and you don't even know it yet. --

**~~~~** _World on Fire_ **~~~~**

How am I to do it?

The drunk was easy, he gave himself to me, but it's harder with her. She never talks to anyone, and never goes anywhere besides class.

I'm sitting at my desk scribbling notes in my notepad. I know what I have to do, I know why, but I don't know how.

That's always the real question. How?

Having all the determination in the world, having the drive and the will to do anything doesn't mean shit if you don't know how. Maybe that's what set me apart. Maybe other people did have these thoughts. Others who didn't get stopped by the likes of Peter and John, maybe they stopped themselves. They just couldn't figure out how to do it. They couldn't find the next step.

I'll do it though. I have to. I was meant to.

That hypocritical bitch will burn in hell for what she's going to do. I'll make her pay for...

Shit.

I stand up when I see a steady stream of water dripping down from my ceiling onto the floor. A small pool's already collected around the base of my bed, the pipe must have started to leak when those bastard detectives came.

I hate this hellhole of an apartment. The bastard landlord's as useless as the idiot alcoholic. He'll never fix this before it goes through my floor and starts to ruin the apartment below me too. It'd make too much sense to stop the problem before it gets worse.

"Fucking deathtrap."

That bitch never leaves here except for class. I'll send her straight to hell with a preview of what's to come. I'll burn this piece of shit building down and make sure she goes with it.

But how do I do it? And this is too obvious...they'll know it was me. There wouldn't be any doubt. They'd have to and then they'd have to act on it.

But what if that's what I need? If John and Peter are so preoccupied wondering how to catch me, then they'll set themselves up for me. They'll spend more and more time trying to watch me, trying to catch me, trying to be around me; and, they'll undo themselves with their own web.

How do you kill two detectives though? It won't be as simple as with the others. It'll have to be done quickly, and it will have to be soon after her. I can't give them too much time...

Time...damn. I'm going to be late for my meeting with Davis...I have to hurry or he might leave.

I put on my jacket and sling my bag over my shoulder as I rush towards the door. I see the faint glow pulsing from Hailey's door as run past it to the stairs. I'm tempted to set the building on fire on my way out. But no it's too sloppy and those bastard detectives might still be around.

\--Fuck. The one-day I don't need him to be late.--

I walk into the dimly lit bar and see Davis sitting at the bar, nursing a drink he must have been sipping on for the ten minutes I've kept him waiting. The low glow of the lamps on the wall behind the bar are barely enough light to see his face. His face looks calm, but his eyes look hardened and worried.

"Hi Mill."

"Hey. Sorry to keep you waiting, what did you need to talk to me about?"

He glances around the bar looking at the motley collection of people spread across the room before looking back to his drink. He quickly downs it and rises from his seat motioning for me to follow him as he puts his jacket on. He motions to the bartender who passes him the bill as he gives me a familiar nod. From the amount he leaves on the counter Davis had to have been here earlier or is more upset than I thought.

"We need to take a walk."

I rise from my seat and follow him out the door of the bar and into the street. We cross during a break in traffic to the park without a word and he begins to look around nervously as we begin to slowly stroll along the path towards the fountain in the center.

"I'm in trouble."

"I can tell. What's going on?"

"I need to get out of town. I fucked up bad today, and I need to leave as soon as I can. I called you as soon as I figured out what to do and I need a favor."

"What's got you spooked?"

"I did something...I did something bad Mill... I gotta get out of town before I get arrested."

"Wait. What the fuck did you do?"

"Things got out of control Mill. I don't know how everything got so fucked up. I went over to talk to Anthony. He was fucked out of his mind when I got there. He went ballistic when I tried to talk some sense into him. I don't know what happened, it all went so fast."

"Wait what were you doing at that coke freak's place in the first place?"

"We were talking about some money I owed him. I told him I was short and then he lost it. I don't know what happened but the next thing I know he's after me with a fucking butcher knife. We were talking in the kitchen and he just grabbed the knife off the counter and tried to stab me. He was so bombed out that he just fell over when I started to wrestle with him. And then it just went bad man. I fucking lost it. I stabbed him with the knife."

"Christ...what'd he do?"

Fucking Shelly came in to see what was wrong. She saw me stabbing him on the floor, and I don't know what came over me. I just went after her...Mill...I hurt her...I hurt our friends...and then I ran...I was just standing there when it hit me what I had done and I just fucking ran."

"Why are you telling me this..."

"I need help...I need to get out of town... I need a friend Mill...I need someone to front me some more cash so I can leave."

"Why'd you tell me all this...you could have just asked to borrow some money..."

"I had to tell someone Mill...do you know what it feels like? I killed today...one of my friends...it feels so...cold...so...alien..."

The shadows of the trees leave his face for a second and I can see him better than I could in the bar. His face isn't calm anymore and you can see the stress building in him. I look at his eyes and see nothing; they're sad and empty of life. I'd be doing him a favor to kill him and save him from this hell.

"Come with me to my apartment. I have some cash there I can give it to you, but that's pretty much all I got."

The wave of relief at hearing this is obvious as he lets out a loud sigh of relief, but his eyes betray him. They're still dull and filled with sadness. He's weak, he's no savior, he's not me.

I can't shake the feeling that he's still holding something back from me as we walk towards my apartment. He's nervous, rightfully so, but he's not looking over his shoulder or at the passing cars. He's scared of something.

We walk up the front stairs of my building and as I slide my key into the lock, he pauses at the bottom. I turn around to look at him and see something new in his eyes. He looks determined but still worried.

"What's wrong?"

"I'll never be able to lose this feeling Mill...I'll always have this guilt, and I'm already tired of it weighing me down."

"What do you mean...you messed up but there's nothing you can do now. He was a fucking cokehead; you did the world a service. Why do you think I'm helping you?"

"No Mill...you don't get it...I thought you'd understand...I hurt someone...I hurt them bad...I can still see myself hitting him...again...and again...and again...I didn't know it was in me...I saw something...something alongside myself that I just don't want to see again."

"You didn't do anything wrong..."

"How can you say that? Can't you see it Mill? Look at me, don't you see it? I'm marked...I'm fucking marked by it. One moment, just one moment, and now my life is gone. There's nothing I can do to get it back, and there's no way to undo it."

"Just last week you were the one sitting on the bar stool next to me talking about how he was a waste of life, and now you're mourning the bastard. He sold drugs to kids, and we both know he beat Shelly when he felt like it. He was a miserable excuse of a human being, and now we're better off without him. If you can't see that then you're as blind as the rest of them."

I turn away from him and unlock the door. I begin to walk through the doorway when I turn back around at the sound of his hollow and pained voice. His face is paler than it had been before, his eyes are glazed and dull, his spirit has already left him.

"I can never change things back now...it'll never be the same again..."

"You're not telling me everything. Don't try and say you are, I can tell that even now it's half-truths. If you're going to try and get me involved in this without the whole story then you can go find someone else to help you."

"Shelly was pregnant Mill. A baby man! There's no way that kid wasn't hurt...there's no way I didn't...no way..."

"Then you did two good things. You killed someone who didn't do anything besides fill the world with his filth, and you saved a child from having to bear him being it's father. You saved that child. You saved it."

"A kid Mill...it hadn't done anything...I knew you were gone man...but I didn't know you were that far down..."

"Don't be stupid. Just come upstairs and get what you came for. It'll turn out fine. No one in this city will care about a drug dealer and his whore."

"I've listened to you say a lot of stuff over the years man, and I always thought you were a little crazy. I mean it made sense, and you were my friend. I never turned away even when I should have, but...not anymore man. They weren't some random fucking scumbags. They were people. They were our friends. If you can't see that man...then...then you're a lot worse off than I had thought."

He turns away from me with a nod and heads back towards the heart of the city. His walk is slow but steadier than it had been before. His head isn't lowered towards the ground anymore, and he's picking up speed as he walks toward downtown.

"Weakling."

I turn and walk back into my building, heading up the creaking stairs only to pause at my door. The glow is still coming from under her door, pulsing faster than it had been before.

I must.

I open the door to see the welcome sight of my couch. I lie down on it and try to calm my mind; I have to focus. I have to think.

How could he go that far...it never was that bad before...how...there's no other way...I can't be like him...I can't keep running from everything they did anymore...I won't be like them...I won't sink like him...

A series of soft knocks on the door pull me away from my new train of thought.

What now? Doesn't the world understand I need space? I need time.

I walk to the door and pull it open quickly, and realize that my day is about to get a lot worse. Sonia is standing at the door and she looks upset. Her face and body language are calm, but her eyes betray her. She's hurt.

"Hi..."

"You lied."

This is going to be fun.

"I didn't lie. The police came and I couldn't leave. I had to talk to them. What were you doing, watching me?"

"You're pushing away. Wait, what? The police?"

"My neighbor had an accident and they wanted to ask some questions"

"Why?"

" Why? Because that's what they do when someone has an accident."

"Why are you pushing me away?"

"I have my reasons. It doesn't really matter if you know what they are. All that matters is that I have them."

"Love me."

"No."

"Why not."

I step out of the doorway into the hall with her. I can see the glow from Hailey's door in the corner of my eye, the light's stronger than before.

"Because I have my reasons."

Why can't she just leave me alone? Why did she have to come and pick a fight? This is exactly what I don't need right now. The other saviors had to have been derailed by people like her. They don't understand. They just don't understand that the world is cruel and harsh. It needs to be put back into order, and I'm going to do it. Why can't she see that? Why couldn't she just leave things the way they were.

I won't let her lead me away from what I have to do. I have to do it...she doesn't understand...they have to be scourged...

"Say them."

"Look, I'm flattered that you still want to be with me. But it isn't going to work. I think I proved that fact when I cheated on you. I wasn't interested in being with you then and not now. Just get over it. Let go."

"Liar."

Perceptive but naïve.

"I didn't love you then, and I don't love you now. You just don't understand enough about the world. It's not that you didn't know; you just won't see the truth for what it is. It's too much."

"Brutal. But wrong."

No it's not, or you wouldn't be here now.

I let her stand in silence in the hallway. The glow from Hailey's door has remained bright through this entire ordeal. I can't let her stop me. I have to save the world from the bitch's lies. I have to make the world pure again. She can't stop me.

"You need to go."

She looks at me and nods her head slowly. She turns away from the door, and I watch her walk down the stairs, a faint glowing trail left behind from her footsteps. She turns to look back at me, watching me stand at the door while she leaves, and I turn away and slam the door as I walk back into my living room.

So much to do, and so little time to get it all done. I'm not going to let her stop me. There's no way I'll be taken off course now. Not when I'm so close. Now that she's gone I've got to get working.

I can hear Hailey's opening and slamming shut. I peek through the peephole and see her struggling to drag a laundry basket behind her to the stairwell. My hand grasps the handle to my door and I can feel the heat radiating off it now. I open the door as Hailey begins to pull her laundry down the stairs; I can't fight the smile forming on my lips as I look at her trudging toward the basement.

The number of creaking steps is rapidly dwindling as I come closer to her as she fumbles with the key to the basement laundry room. She still hasn't noticed me standing behind her as her hands reaches out into the darkness searching for the lights at the top of the stairs. I can't control myself as I step forward and give her a hard shove down the stairs into the darkness. The stairs aren't as effective as the ones in the warehouse as I can hear her moaning from the small landing. My small grin is now a beaming smile as I flip the light switch easily and look at her on the landing. I grab a pair of shirts from her laundry basket and begin to slowly descend the stairs to stand over her.

"I'm glad you're still awake. We're not done yet bitch."

**

"I just left his apartment...No he's not ok. Something's going on with him, something big...You need to see him...I don't know why you two are like how you are but it doesn't matter. You were always there for each other and you need to call him...No not soon, when I hang up. You promise? Okay. Thank you Alex, he needs this."

**

Peter and John sit in a booth in a small diner. Two files are laid on the well-worn table between them, one spread out in front of John, the other sitting to the side of the table. John looks up from the report to see Peter leaning back against the fading blue vinyl booth his arms spread out casually, but his gaze is intently focused on John.

"Everything points to him being murdered John."

"Maybe. There wasn't anything missing from his body. He still had his watch and wallet when we pulled him from the river, what would be the motive. Everything we know makes it seem like he was a popular kid. A prick to some people but nothing out the usual or over the top."

"The report shows it wasn't random. The fractures and bruises he had were from being beaten maliciously, not from being in the river. Someone didn't like him."

"What's the report say about Franklin?"

"Peter...we have an actual murder case here. If anything we're behind in our investigation, we need to focus on that."

"Look if we have the report here, why not look at it?"

"Why can't you accept him just being a drunk? What's so special about this guy? You think it's impossible for someone who has a cheating girlfriend, failing business, and no friends to get drunk and have an accident?"

"Because his neighbor doesn't add up. He's hiding something and I want to know what he does."

John looks away toward the parking lot, he taps his fingers against the unopened file, shaking his head before sliding it to Peter. He flips the folder open with a loud sigh and starts to skim through the first few pages before looking back up.

"You're a prick John."

"What's it say?"

"There's no way he was drunk."

"What..."

"Blood alcohol was only .04 at time of death. No drugs present in his system. Maybe a little buzzed, but I doubt it. From what we've heard about his drinking problem he had to have been aware of where he was. Someone who's downing a bottle a day doesn't even stutter from a .04, they're too busy looking for the next drink."

"It coulda been an accident still."

"You know it wasn't."

The waitress comes to the table, lifting a mug in one hand and a pot of coffee in the other. She smiles without looking up at the two while she sets the faded mug down and begins to pour into John's half empty cup he slides over. She sets the pot down and looks up at him still smiling lightly.

"You boys going to want anything with those coffees? Johnny you want the usual?"

John grins at the waitress while glancing at her dull red and white "Judy" name tag pinned to her pale green uniform, "I'm good for now, but you can give me some sugar till then."

The waitress rolls her bright blue eyes at John and shakes her head in amusement. As she turns to grab a bowl full of sugar cubes John calls out, "Hey I just changed my mind, I wouldn't mind some cinnamon buns while you're at it."

She looks back at John with an amused grin now on her face. "I've told you this before and I'm gonna tell you this again, this ain't that kind of diner."

Sheepishly grinning John shrugs at Judy as she starts to back away toward another customer at the counter "Hey, in this town you never know..."

John reaches for the sugar cubes in the bowl set in front of him as he glances back at Judy who is handing the other customer their order. He takes a slow sip of his coffee and sighs as he glances around looking at the other occupants of the diner. He sees an elderly couple sitting in a booth on the far side of the diner quietly eating their breakfast, a father and his young son no older than six sit in the booth closest to him talking about the coming days activities, and finally his gaze comes to rest on the final occupant sitting at the far end of the counter. The man's slowly glancing through a copy of the newspaper's sports section, its contents spread across a small section of the counter a cup of coffee sitting next to him, partially covered by the paper as if forgotten.

John looks back at Peter who has silently sipped his coffee as he watched his partner's banter with the waitress. John nods toward the man sitting alone at the counter.

"You see that guy? I arrested him once when I was still on patrol; he's a wife beater, drunk, and small-time thug. That bulge in his jacket's probably a bottle and it's even money that his coffee's Irish. There are a few warehouses like the one Merriman died in a few blocks from here. That guy has worked his way half way through a paper this early in the morning. He's not exactly the reading the type. If I had to guess he's a scumbag on his way to do something illegal. He finishes that coffee and brown bags the rest of the bottle in his jacket you think he couldn't wander into one of those warehouses and have an accident? Would you care as much as you do about the guy in this file?"

"There's something wrong with his neighbor. He knows something, he's not right."

"I just told you a wife beating-alcoholic sitting ten feet away from us, someone who's probably going to commit a violent crime soon. You're sitting there worried about punk kid and a drunk who, lets be honest, probably woulda tripped in front of a bus drunk anyways if this wasn't an accident. There are bad people all around us Peter. We can't stop them all."

"We can't but I'm not going to let him go. Even when we were interviewing him he was spacing out. He's in his own little world John, and I think he let some of it bleed into ours."

**

I have to do this. If I don't then she'll stop me from finishing my work, and I'll fall again. It's my test.

I stand at the sound of the knock, and walk over. This is it. It has to be this way.

I open the door and there she is.

"Hi."

"Hi...come in."

I move away from the door and walk over to the chair. She moves to the couch and sits down on the edge closest to me.

"Why'd you have me come over?"

"I needed to talk to you. I have to explain things to you. There's so much you don't know that you deserve to."

"Tell me then. Tell me what's wrong."

"As long as we've known each other, I've only lied to you about one thing."

"I don't care. I just want to know why you push me away."

"It's always been for your own good that I pushed."

"Tell me the truth now."

"I did it. Alex and I did it."

"What? What did you do?"

"Your sister and Paige..."

"What'd you do to Liz..."

"I'm so sorry Sonia. I never wanted you to know, but I feel like you should know the truth now."

"What does my sister have to do with us?"

"I don't know what happened. I really don't. We were all together, and then something happened...something changed..."

"No. My sister never...she never even hung out with you...what are you saying.."

"I know the truth. I'm not a monster. I'm making things right now."

"What have you done?"

"She had to die Sonia. She was trying to keep me from my work. I have to clear away the decay."

She's repulsed from me the moment the words leave my lips. I can see her recoil as it all finally registers. She tries to get up to run away, but I tackle her before she can reach the door.

"Don't you understand Sonia? They were hurting everyone. They all were."

I can see the silent tears streaming down her cheeks as I look down at her. I can see myself in her eyes; I can see my glory.

"What've you done..."

"They were drowning the world. I'm keeping them for everyone. Your sister was a whore Sonia. She was trying to take your place; she was trying to lead me away from what I had to do. I couldn't figure out why I had to kill them both until the past few days. She was trying to keep me from what I had to do. And she had to pay for that. Just like you."

"I've never done anything but love you..."

"Don't lie to me Sonia. I know you don't love me. I know you don't care. You're just like your sister, trying to stop me from doing my work. But you can't. I've stopped your kind before, and I'm going to again."

"No...you're good I know you are...tell me it's all a lie...Why are you lying like this...Why are you doing this!"

I move to get off her and stand over her. She doesn't even bother to try and fight or to run anymore. I see her gaze shift from me to the open doorway to my room. I turn to see what she's staring at, and see it. Hailey's bound body is laying on the floor in her view from her spot on the floor. Her eyes move from Hailey back to me. They're already dead inside. I'll be doing the bitch a favor.

"I thought...I trusted you..."

"I'm doing something no one's ever done before. I'm saving the world Sonia. I'm really saving it."

**

The street's filled with the sounds of sirens and yelling voices. Peter and John stand next to their car watching the crime technicians milling around body lying on the cathedral steps. The dark stain of blood is slowly seeping along the stone steps forming small pools before dropping to the next step. The technicians look as if they're in some sort of odd dance going up and down the steps carefully moving around the newly formed pools as they snap photos.

"You know it was him."

"You can't blame every random body that shows up on him. Don't give him that much credit."

"Simon Heller was a graduate student at the same university. We never asked his major, but I'm sure they knew each other. Franklin Merriman was his neighbor. The phone call about the bodies in the apartment and the body here...we may not know about them for awhile, but it's all connected. It's too disturbed and random to not be. He might have been the one to call it in."

The sound of John's phone ringing interrupts the two. He turns away from Peter and sits back in the car. Peter nods to the lone priest standing at the doorway to the cathedral who is watching the scene. The inside of the church is glowing gently from the candles freshly lit for the man on the steps. He quickly crosses himself as he gets back into the car, turning to face John as he hangs up the phone.

**

"I loved you, but things changed...you had to have been able to tell...and I do still love you but it's different now...please don't do this."

I'm sitting in the chair now and she's tied up next to Hailey on the floor. She looks so innocent and out of place, but I know the truth. She may look like an angel as she lays on the floor but I know what she's trying to do.

"I tried to keep things the same after I dealt with your sister. I wanted you at my side and you just kept thinking about your junkie sister. You just kept running back to that asshole."

"We grew up together. What was I supposed to do turn away a friend? He knew my sister as long as he knew me. We were grieving, and you were too cold and needy when I had my own problems."

"A friend? Simon was horrible to you and your sister. He acted like you didn't exist until he needed something from you. And you kept forgiving him, always taking his side. Any mistake I made you couldn't find forgiveness in your heart for, but he could treat you like the scum on his shoe and be perfect."

"I saw you two differently...I went through so many different things with him than with you. I do love you, but it's different from how I loved him. I always thought he'd be in my life, but you were so close, so needy but still so distant. It was different, but I never stopped caring about you."

"I trusted you with everything. I knew the whole time about the others. I always knew in my heart but I took it all until it broke out. And your sister was there to pay for her sins and yours."

"You hurt her because I stopped loving you the way you wanted me to?"

"I hurt her because she didn't know how to keep her fucking mouth shut. She was just like you, a distraction that was just pulling me down like an anchor so I couldn't do the work I had to. Trying to weasel her way in, trying to pull me into her bullshit life."

"She always liked you...she didn't do anything wrong..."

"I would have done anything for you, and you chose someone else over me. I gave you everything. All you did was throw it away and keep me down when I could have been doing so much more. And despite everything, all the times you broke my heart and all the times you weren't there when I needed you, I still love you. That's my own fault."

"You know I care about you..."

"You weren't there to show it the night before. I left to take care of my friends and you betrayed me. You promised you would come and be with me. You knew that I needed you, and you fucking ignored me."

"I meant to come...I swear I did...but you left and then..."

"You gave into the same weaknesses you're trying to drown me in. My heart broke while I sat on your steps for an hour in the rain. You set me free that night to walk this narrow road. I was reborn when I realized my mission when I was with your sister."

"Because of me? All this because of one night? You hurt her because of me?"

I stand from the chair and pick up the knife on the table as I walk over to her. I give her one last sad smile before cutting the bonds on her feet. I open the door and glance back to see the tears streaming from her face as I pull the lighter from my pants and hold the flame next to the trail of gas I had laid to the doorframe.

"I hurt her because she was trying to drown me. You set me free. Run. I won't stop you. I forgive you."

_Balance_.

She looks at me from the floor, and I see the faint hint of hope awaken in her eyes as she stares at me. She stands slowly and looks from Hailey to me and I slowly shake my head to her, the glimmer of hope extinguished again. She looks at the ground as she runs out of the apartment brushing past me in the doorway. The flame just barely catches as I close the door, the rush of the gas igniting covering the sound of her sobs coming from in front of me as I walk towards the stairwell.

\--Forgive me.--

**~~~~** _In Fear and Faith_ **~~~~**

I walk down the pier towards the man standing at the far end. The cool sea breeze feels good to my face, and the smell of the fresh salt air is energizing. I walk next to him and look out at the ocean with him. The sound of the waves beating against the old wooden dock and the creak of the aging planks under us fills the silence between us before he turns to look at me. He's changed. He's aged for the worse. Anything of the sharp exterior that I knew him to have has worn away now.

"What are you doing here Alex?"

"We needed to talk."

"Why?"

"Sonia called me."

"She had your number?"

"She's always had a way to find me."

"You weren't far then. I just saw her."

"I was around."

"You plan on stopping by, or are you just here because she told you to be."

He turns away from me and looks back out at the ocean, he glances around and watches a father and his young son pack up their fishing equipment and toss their trash into bags from a local diner.

"I told you I'd come back."

"You shouldn't have."

"Sonia thinks otherwise. I wouldn't have called you if she hadn't sounded so concerned on the phone. She hasn't called me in months and the first word I hear is about you."

"She's naïve, and doesn't know the truth. You should have known to stay away."

"She said you're losing your grip."

"I'm not. She's just stupid."

"I already know you've lost your grip but I can't let you do anything stupid again."

"I haven't lost my grip on anything. I'm more under control than ever before. Why are you really here?"

"I'm here because I heard you needed me."

"Since when have I needed you? You've been gone a long time, but it's always been the other way around."

"I had to leave."

"I know. I told you to go."

"I was leaving regardless of what you said. I had to change my life because of you."

"You choose to change. You can't run from what you did. You're as much a part of it as I am."

"I'm not a monster like you. I may not have stopped you but I didn't do what you did. That was your choice, not mine."

"We both did what we had to."

"I heard on the radio that they found Davis' body in front of the cathedral downtown. Did you have to do that?"

"I didn't do anything to him besides tell him what he already knew. He did that to himself. Not my fault he couldn't handle it."

"You mean he couldn't handle being like you? You piece of shit you destroyed another one of our friends for no fucking good reason."

"There's always a reason. Even if you can't see it."

**

"That was Bill from the station. The kid doesn't have a record, but he called the campus to see if there were any violations on file."

"And...?"

"Housing probation for underage drinking, but there were notes on the file. Same night that he was picked up for drunk and disorderly, two girls from his dorm disappeared. He and his roommate were the last to be seen with them on their way to a party, but only the two of them came back. Next week, his roommate withdraws and leaves the city. The girls were never found. The university sent him to alcohol counseling, an awareness seminar, and a small fine. "

"What now? This was too much. He'd have to know we'd look at him over Merriman. We'd have to at least look for a record, and we'd find out about what happened at the university."

"He doesn't have a record. He had a note in a housing file about a case no one's looking into anymore, because no one could get anywhere."

"Tough fucking luck for him then."

"Joe said the file had a note from when the campus police looked into him. He had a thing with one of the girl's sister. Not to speak ill of the dead but apparently the sister who died was a party girl who had a big mouth. Rumors of some drug use that were never confirmed. Maybe she says something the wrong the night and he snaps while they're both on something. Her friend tries to help and things go from bad to worse. I don't know. There's more to this kid than we thought."

**

The pier is empty except for the two men standing at the end. The fading sun is being replaced by the low white glow of the aging lights flickering on the pier.

"Does Sonia know why you left?"

"You really need an to answer that?"

"I didn't think so. You're no better than the rest of them."

"You killed them both."

"You helped."

"I didn't do what you did to them."

"You took your turn with them both."

"I didn't butcher those girls. What I did was wrong but I could have lived with it more than with what you did."

"Did it matter? Don't pretend to be a saint. We both knew they weren't going to walk out of that room when Liz started to open her fucking mouth."

"What you did to those girls is unforgivable. I got messed up and scored with a girl who had a little too much to drink. You're going to burn in hell for what you did."

"And you won't? You stepped to the side. It's not like you didn't have the chance to try and stop me. What'd you do? You shot up crying in the corner while I did what I had to."

"I was wrong for not stopping you that night. Ever since that night I've been trying to make up for what happened. I've been clean ever since."

"They threatened everything we were up to that point. Those whores wanted to drag us down."

"Don't lie to me you sick piece of shit. I came here from home because I was alone. You knew I wasn't happy and couldn't have stayed there. I finally was finding myself when you fucking ruined it all. You knew what they wanted to do that night after the party."

"I didn't put the needle in your arm. You gave into that little whore and let her do it for you. And then when they wouldn't keep their mouth shut and bragged about how they were going to show everyone what we did that night. You made your own decision to join in. And don't try to convince me that you were actually enjoying that little charade of a life you were trying to make yourself believe in."

"Are you kidding me? Do you even remember what really happened in that room anymore? Or have you had to come up with another bullshit rationalization to get past the fact that you're a sick fuck."

"I'm changing Alex. I'm setting things right."

"You want to help the world? Do it a favor and jump in front of a fucking bus. You fucking lost it that night and I was too bombed out to do anything to stop you. You can think what you want, and live in your own little world, but I know for a fact those girls did nothing to deserve what you did to them."

I start to lightly chuckle and my eyes move away for a moment. I glance at the glowing horizon; the sun is burning against the water, the final rays searing a low deep red against the dark blue sea and purple skyline. I smile lightly as my eyes dart back to his as I slowly walk closer to him.

"I lied to you Alex. I lied. I knew Sonia could find you, I always knew. I just wasn't ready till now."

He turns towards me and grips me by my shirt collar. His pale blue eyes are staring into mine, and I can see my own reflection in them. He's been lying to himself again, trying to convince himself that he's finding life again but his eyes are as dead as Franklin's were. I can see the tension building in his face.

"Tell me what you've done."

"She cried just like her sister did."

"Don't fucking lie to me."

"She wasn't as dumb as I had first thought, definitely not as dumb as Liz and that little tramp you fucked. I don't even remember her name anymore."

"If you hurt her your life is over."

"When I opened the door, she knew. She could tell."

He thinks I did to her what I did to her sister. He still thinks I'm a monster. Why can't he see me for what I really am? Can't he feel the changes? Why can't he see past the lies and realize what I've done? I have to have changed something by now. There's no way it could go unnoticed this long...

He's one of them. He turned his back on his destiny...he turned his back on the work we were meant to do.

I can feel the blow before it even lands. The blood pours from my nose and the pain is instant. My eyes tear and my vision is blurred, but all I can do is smile.

"Tell me what you did."

"She came to my apartment. It was so easy, I just called her and she came over. Simple as that. And then I ravaged her. I raped her again, and again, and again. It was an all day affair Alex, why do you think I called you so late."

I feel the pain in my nose flare again as he hits me again. I feel myself sink to the floor from the pain as he kicks me in the ribs. The ice in his eyes has cracked and I can see the sadness pouring out of them, I can see the traces of his weakness on his cheeks.

"You'll hurt more than you ever made them."

"You can't do this to me. Don't you understand Alex? Can't you see? Of all people you can't see it? I was saving the world. I was making a new path. And that bitch was trying to stop me. She thought she knew the real me. That she could save me. Well I showed her the real me. I showed it to her as I made her scream. I showed it to her just like I showed her sister, when I stabbed her in the heart."

I can feel the pain. His foot is connecting with my body again, and I can't move to stop it. I can hear the low cracks from each blow, and feel the slight give in my chest. I laugh looking up at him as he stands over me. The pain in my chest is throbbing already but he can't hurt me. He can't stop me from what I was born to do.

"Don't you get it yet Alex? You're dead. You're going to burn in hell with all of them. Nothing you can do will matter. I thought you were strong like me, but you aren't. You are nothing. You mean nothing."

"What have you done besides make everyone hurt? I don't care what your fucked up mind thought would happen, but nothings changed. You haven't done anything. Nothing. You're nothing. Just like back at home. You don't matter."

I feel myself inwardly smiling as I lunge towards him as he approaches to kick me again. I can see the hate in his eyes start to waiver into fear as his leg starts to descend. The knife in my hand tears into him, and my smile breaks free at the sound of his scream.

I recoil from the blow to my chest, but I stagger back up off the ground. My movements feel slow and sluggish, but I can still feel the energy I had when I first stepped onto the pier. The charge I got as I passed through the glowing entrance gate is still strong.

There's nothing but fear in his eyes as I press the knife into his chest. I stab deep. Each blow makes more and more of the life pour out of him. I look into his dulling eyes as he slowly sinks onto his back. The sadness and fear are gone from his face; all that's left is defeat as the life slowly seeps out of him onto the pier.

"You could have helped me Alex. You should have been there with me. But you were too weak, you should have been able to take up the burden I'm carrying now but you ran away. You made all those people suffer because of your weakness Alex...you have to pay for your selfishness."

"Fuck your bullshit speeches. Do it if you're gonna fuckin do it."

I stand over his body and reach down to his side. I was right. My hand grips the handle of gun he brought along for our meeting. If his will had been as strong as mine he'd be the one standing over my body, not the other way around.

"You could have done so much. Everyone fucking loved you even though you were always moping like a bitch. You could have opened so many eyes if you had just tried. They would have listened to you."

I pull out the lighter I got for today's events from my pocket, and hold it over his body. The flame flickers in the wind for a moment, and then I drop it onto his chest. The flame is dormant for a second, a flash in time before it catches on his shirt.

**

The two detectives are leaning against their car in front of the smoking ashes of the apartment building. Even though the building is gone and the embers are still glowing the burnt out building still seems to suck the light from the streetlights into it. Peter is looking down at a folder in his hands, while John smokes a cigarette eyeing the ruined building.

"How many were hurt in the fire?"

"Fire fighter's say there was just the body in Miller's apartment, but I doubt she was killed by the fire. The examiner thinks it was probably arson but they need to look tomorrow to confirm."

"Who do you think she was?"

"We may never know. This doesn't seem like the kind of building that'd have a landlord that kept track of tenants, just deposits. The landlord still hasn't even gotten back to us about Merriman."

"What do you think she did that set him off?"

"She was someone who deserved to die. That's all you two really need to know."

The voice comes from the behind the two men, and they turn to see Miller standing in the street with a gun pointed at them. Neither face reveals too much shock at the sight of him in front of them. Alex's blood still stains his clothing, his body's shaking with energy but the gun remains steadily pointed at them.

"You haven't been subtle lately. Finally done with the theatrics? You let a girl run away, let her call in about the one in your room, and you left Alex burning on the pier."

"You figured that out fast."

"Dock workers saw the flames and were able to put the fire out as soon as you left."

"At least they were smart enough to not try and stop me from leaving."

"They never even saw you. You must've ran fast after you dropped the lighter on him."

"I wasn't running...I had to be sure I was here in time for you two."

"If you kill two cops you're not walking away from this. When they find you they may let you live till they stick the needle in your arm but you'll sure as fuck not be able to walk."

"I don't need to. You'll pay just like the rest."

John snorts and throws his cigarette at Miller's feet.

"And what "sins" have we done."

"Trying to stop someone like me from his work Hale. And the sin is even worse for you Wintergreen. You knew what I was trying to do better than he did, and you still tried to stop me."

"I knew you were the one who murdered Franklin you piece of shit. I'm just sorry it took Simon Heller's death to prove it."

"Simon's death? I didn't do anything to him, though he certainly would have been purged just the same when I had the time."

"We looked at his credit card bill. Checked with the restaurant you and your friends ate with him at. The waiter recognized your description as being there with him that night. He also remembers how drunk you were before you left right behind him. You killed him unprovoked, even by your own twisted logic."

"My state of mind doesn't matter, and my logic isn't twisted. I know you can see it. I would have rid the world of his arrogant grand standing eventually. He would have let Franklin's kind drag us all under. He would have stood by like an arrogant prick while we all suffered. He had potential, he could have done something to change things and he did nothing. You two did nothing."

"God what the fuck is wrong with you kid. What do you think you are? You're no savior. You're a murderer. You argue with someone over dinner, and then you throw him in the river, but it's okay because you said so? You don't even remember killing him, how can you ever justify yourself. You bashed his head in. What did those two girls in school do to deserve to die? Know you? Is that enough?"

"He would have been dealt with. If I had been sober I would have still killed him. Being drunk only made me not remember what must have been a very satisfying moment seeing his lifeless body hit the water. Those two girls were not innocent. They were whores who tried to distract me and pull me into their bullshit lives. If they didn't get me they would have gotten someone else. They would have sucked the potential out of someone great if I let them carry on."

"Just because you think you're special doesn't give you license to start killing people. Do you really think you're the first person to ever think there's something wrong with the world? That we've never walked into a room where someone thought they knew better than us, even when they didn't? Should we have pulled our guns and shot them? Or should we have told them no, proven to them what we believe and what we know."

"You let them pull the world into their lies, and perpetuate this hell of an existence. You could have done something to stop them all. If you know so fucking much why didn't you stop it? Why didn't you do something to stop their mediocrity, to stop the words and actually do something to save us from the void?"

"You make it out to sound like cities are burning to the ground everyday that you don't do something. Just because you can make a few generalizations that make sense to you and a few other people around a table doesn't mean you're the next Jesus."

"How could you stand back and let them destroy everything with their lies? They were a cancer, and I cut them out of it. My work was inevitable. Someone had to see things the way I do eventually. Someone would have had to do what I've done."

"You just don't get it kid. Sure Franklin didn't amount to much or publish anything astounding from his no-name authors. But what's wrong with that? What's wrong with being like everyone else? You really think he trapped people and held them back from success? Most of those people wouldn't have even gotten their foot in the door at a real publishing house but he gave them a chance. Maybe a small one, but it was still a chance. If that's not potential then I don't know what is."

The gun waivers slightly in his hands as he listens to Peter talk, shifting his weight slightly between his feet. He looks at the ground quickly before raising his stare to meet Peter's.

"It's my job to know. Not yours."

The first shot is deafening and strikes John in the chest. The next comes quickly, and soon is followed again, and again, and again.

**

I can still see him kneeling down, life slipping through his fingers, pouring onto the pavement. There was nothing anyone could do. What had happened had happened and it was too late now to undo it all.

For the briefest of moments the city held its breath. No passing cars, no howling dogs, no sounds of the world. If only for a second there was nothing but him. I couldn't make myself look away; I was trapped by the siren's call of his last breath. Who knows maybe Miller was right and I did understand, maybe that's why I couldn't look away from my friend as he died.

What happened next is just a blur. The gun turned on me. Round after round flying toward me. I fell to the ground next to John. The cool breeze fought against the burning sensation burrowing holes into my chest.

I saw him. His eyes. You could see so much in them. I could feel them burning holes into my chest like bullets as he watched me. I heard words but I couldn't understand them. I was lost in the searing pain. I could feel his eyes stabbing into me pouring everything that was burning inside him into me. I wanted to see the cold glint of a killer but there was only fire.

And then like that it was over. Life went from slow motion to normal. For everything he thought, he never could have expected to have what happened happen.

They had come up behind him while he was ranting at us. He never noticed them, neither did I. Just a bunch of kids, on their way to meet a friend so they could do God knows what. They attacked him without hesitation, and he never would have expected it, no one would have. The expression on his face as he went down told me everything.

The glow in his eyes flared for just a moment, and then as his body hit the ground the embers in his eyes exploded and became dull and dead. For all his preaching about destiny and will, neither were enough. It's fitting I guess, that his heart betrayed him in the end. Fitting the deepest corner of his heart was still afraid, and a heart attack killed him.

I was told while still recovering in the hospital, all they found in the wreckage of his apartment were tattered copies of the thesis he had begun to write. The only thing that had been able to survive this own fall:

...it all goes back to the first night that I realized I didn't care anymore. I reached the point where I just didn't give a shit if they liked me or if I had their respect. It made me feel so strong to take that away from them. I always knew I was special. I knew that almost everyone thought that about themselves especially at my age, but they didn't have what I did.

There's a feeling today, that there is something wrong with the world, but it's not just in the obvious problems. It's not in the President no one believes in. It's not in the radicals who fill the streets of the world with innocent blood. It's not the increase of temperature that is slowly drowning our world with water from the ice caps. The problem as close as I can figure, is there's something innately wrong with how we live. Not as a society, but how we live as individuals.

I don't mean that we need to watch movies that sicken us by showing what the hamburger we just ate does to our organs, but I mean we need to learn the story of own lives and how we lost ourselves to the world. But the problem with the answer is there has been no one to shout the solution from the rooftops down into our cities that burn throughout the night, or at least there hasn't been someone worth listening to How are you supposed to know which best selling author has the right diet, which scientist is right about cancer, which way of doing things is the best. There are too many voices that can al be heard.

But that's why I am here. That's why I am special. I will be listened to. I'll do what the others cannot. The faiths of the world have perverted the teachings of Mohammed and Jesus. Their work of hasn't been continued, and I have to finish what they started. The thing that set those men and me apart from the rest, was our insight into the depths of man. Being able to solve calculus equations won't save man from his self-destructive habits; I need to be able to understand what's in their hearts, what's in their minds.

I tried to study how the other great men found their platform to touch the world. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't unlock their secret. I couldn't understand what set them apart from even such a special person like myself. And then everything changed. I realized their world has been flat. They lived when only five voices were screaming from the mountain, not the five million I had to compete with. But now I know how to escape from quicksand, now I know that I need to silence the other voices...

**~~~~** _Writing On the Walls_ **~~~~**

When everything was said and done I spent awhile in the hospital. The doctor had pity on me and let me stay a week longer than I really had to; but I couldn't bring myself to leave even though my body was done healing.

I pulled into the driveway of the aging house he had grown up in, and was taken back by it. It didn't match his apartment in the city at all, I guess I should have expected that. A picturesque suburban home, complete with the perfectly manicured bright green grass in front of the nondescript tan house with its' white picket fence. The interior was a scene out of a magazine picture shoot. Immaculate with perfectly stained hardwood floors, pristine stacks of china, and modernly timeless furniture. I met his mother, father, aunts, uncles, friends, even people he went to high school with and never said a single word to. They told me the same things they told the rest of the detectives, profilers, and journalists, but his mother showed something she had made for me. She knew I would have to come eventually.

"He was a writer. He had never finished anything, but he kept it all. Stacks of notebooks lined a single bookshelf, filled with half finished stories and ideas. When he left, I had been in his room cleaning and found a small folder with whatever he had finished."

"May I see it?"

She handed me a small notebook in a bag, and as I scanned the poorly scrawled table contents I could tell what I'd find inside. He had talent but wasn't anything amazing. What struck me the most was how sad he was. Even reading the titles as time went on and he matured every word seemed heavy. It was as if they were as willing to sink from existence as their author was. Somewhere along the line even the text seemed to lose faith in the world around him.

"He never felt at home here. He didn't make that a secret. It's part of the reason I didn't try to keep him here for school. It broke my heart to see his face change as he walked through the front door. It was like coming home took the life out of him."

"Did he ever talk about it with you?"

"No. But it was obvious that he wasn't happy. Some of the notes I read connected all the dots for me. He wasn't even happy at school. I think he was tired of being alone. He knew so many people, but he knew he didn't mean as much to them as they did to him."

"How popular was he around here?"

"Depends on what you mean by popular. He knew almost everyone, and they'd at least know who he was or recognize him. But he didn't have that many people that really became his friends. It was so hard for him to deal with always being left out unless they needed a favor. He'd sit on his phone messaging five people at once, helping with what they needed; but they'd never invite him along. He had his tells, and I would always know when it was bothering him."

"What'd he do when they'd ignore him?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all. He liked it when they ignored him, because it was easier than when they used him. He'd tell them to have a good night and to have fun, but then he'd just sit there staring at his wall or at a picture until the next message came through asking for directions to somewhere he wasn't invited to. He'd just sit there looking for something that I don't think he ever found."

"Did he ever get tired of it and have an incident?"

"No. He'd have his nights where he'd stay up late writing. But a mother always knows. He was too open. He'd let anyone get close to him and then bend over backwards for them, but he never got anything for it. I used to hope that he'd find someone he could be close with, someone who'd do as much for him as he'd do for them. I had always hoped my boy would be ok."

"I'm sorry. I wish he found something that could have kept him from..."

"I know, but now I don't think anything could have really helped him."

In the back pages of the folder his mother copied for me I found his story. The pages were just a thin veil for his own life, and as the story progressed you could see the changes in his personality. The book was smart, quick, and made sense; but when you sat back and realized what you had just been nodding your head to you felt disgusted with yourself. It was as if his life was one big accident you couldn't look away from until you realized what you were doing and glance around in shame to see if anyone caught you looking. When I finished the story I felt I understood him better, like I could take one step closer to figuring out why it all happened, and then I shuddered at the thought of being that one step closer to him.

We learned the man who had killed himself on the cathedral steps was a childhood friend. The two had gone to the university together and had fallen out of touch according to all their friends; but the cell phone bills and a bartender at a local bar told otherwise. We found a journal in the files of his computer, marking their slow decline into alcoholism, drug abuse, and all other forms of hell a person could torturously amuse themselves with.

On days Davis would meet with Miller he would put down the main points of their drunken debates and ponderings. From what the bartender said about their drinking sessions, I'm amazed he'd be able to remember the arguments his friend was spouting. I'd read his notes and the arguments he'd come up with to reject Miller's perverted logic, but I couldn't understand why he went back every week for more.

I had left Miller's house wondering how someone who could see the problems of the world so clearly could go so off track. But Davis' notes showed someone else entirely. He knew about what his two friends had done to those girls that night. He had wandered after them and watched the change in Miller as he let himself become more vicious as it went on. He had written about going to the police but he was too loyal a friend, and too scared about having done nothing to help the girls to turn them in. There was nothing for him to do but stand there and listen to Miller debate about tearing apart the little good left in the world. He had watched the longing turn to indifference, and the indifference turn into hate. There was no way to stop him without burying himself for having stood aside for so long. He couldn't do anything but watch.

I tried to visit the parents of the girl's who were murdered. When I got to the porch of the girl named Liz I couldn't get any farther than the front door. Her mother opened the door and just stared at me through the screen before closing the door again. I hadn't even said a single word explaining who I was or why I was there, but she knew. There was no other reason for me to be there. Even if she didn't know who I was, maybe she could tell, maybe she could just see that he had touched me. I didn't even bother to go to the other house.

In the end Liz probably paid the price for reminding him of himself at the wrong moment. She probably made him realize he wasn't as special as he thought he was. I don't know if I'll know what really happened the first night he killed, I don't know if he really did either. I'll probably never know what brought it out of him again. God help us if there are more like him out there. More people who think just like him, people who think they're a bigger than they really are. People who cross the line they weren't meant to so they can rise above everyone again. Sleeping giants I hope no one awakens.
