Clank. Clank. Clank.
I keep my eye closed, rather than look at whoever is being such a bitch. This is annoying. Two fucking interruptions in a row. At least this time I wasn't sleeping, just enjoying the warmth of the sun and fantasizing about killing Sister Cunt. She's still in Ireland, but sometimes, I can still hear her voice, talking about how great God is and how he created sunshine and puppies and all that other fucking shit that children love, and think God is so great for creating. Never did she tell us of what else he created, like pain, and suffering, and liars, and bastards, and death, death, death...
Clank. Clank. Clank.
And whoever the fuck is doing that. He's intent on getting slaughtered, isn't he, whoever he is?
A laugh, snide and deep. Clank. Clank. Clank.
Why is he laughing, whoever it is? Is he getting some kind of perverse pleasure out of playing "Annoy the Psycho?"
More snickering. I'm going to kill this bitch. Clank. Clank. Clank. He's so fucking dead.
"Then kill me instead of just fantasizing about it. Or are you still trying to go back to your dreams of cutting up nuns?"
My eye snaps open. This must be who Crawford was talking about, the mind reader. He doesn't look like much more than a common male whore, his body thin and clad in pants that let you see his legs begin, they're so damn low, and a shirt that clings to him like a nun to her self-righteous virginity.
"That your business wear?" I ask, letting him figure out the unasked question. He's a mind reader; he'll get it. Fuck, I'd be worried if he didn't get it even without his little magic ability.
He smirks. I idly think that it's a much more pleasant smirk than that bitch Crawford's. This smirk is a lot more menacing. How nice.
"It used to be," he claims, interrupting my thoughts. "I wear a suit, now. As will you."
"Assassin?" I ask him, bored. I know the answer, and even if I didn't, I really don't care too fucking much.
"You hurt me!" he mockingly protests to my thoughts. His voice is very smug, as if he's in on some great joke that the rest of the world isn't qualified to get. He also has the hints of a German accent, which explains why, the damn pompous fucking asses they are. The only decent thing they've ever gotten around to doing is killing some of those British cunts over the years.
He laughs at that. "So, Farfarello. I think I will enjoy having a mind without reason around here. It makes me wonder how you got so interesting. No matter, I'll investigate that fucked-up little head of yours later. I have better things to do."
"You're lying. You have nothing better to do, here. Unless you enjoy Crawford's company so much."
He makes a slightly amused sound and leans against the bars, tapping against them to aggravate me. "You're no mind reader. How do you know I don't enjoy our illustrious leader's company?"
"Oh, so your dick is so small you can get it up his ass with that stick that's lodged in there?"
Snorting, he turns and back kicks at the bars. At least I know how to aggravate him. He seems pretty hung-up on sex. I'll remember this. But fuck, that kicking is irritating.
"Why do you think I do it?"
"Hmph. What's your name? Or can I feel free to call you 'Whore?'" I ask. I realize that there's really no need to care whether I piss this jerk wad off or not. He's not my superior, that much I can tell.
He kicks the bars once more, hard, and starts walking off. Right as he starts to turn to go into the alcove that hides the keypad to open the main door from my sight, he turns to look over his shoulder and smirk at me. "Rufen Sie mich Schuldich an. Obgleich Sie nicht aus weit sind, Irres," he says as he flips down his sunglasses and keys in the password.
"Call me Schuldich. Although you aren't far off, madman."
Schuldich. Debt. Guilt.
...A beautiful name. I wonder how well he suits it. For now, it's not important. I slump back into my warm sun.
Perhaps when he sees what made me this way, I can pry the same from him: find out how he became guilty.
If I can pull that information, I'll kill him. He is built to steal information, so if I can steal it from him, he's too fucking weak to live. I smirk. It might be nice to kill guilt-boy. I need some variety in the people I kill, after all. Priests and idiots taste bland. But him... he looked like his blood would be sweet, full of sex and sin. The way it should be.
On the other hand... I think it might hurt God more if I let him and the American live. Perhaps we'll kill "innocents." Their blood will hurt Him more than any whore's.
I close my eye. I have decided. They will live, until I am bored of them.
A memory, fleeting past me.
Blood. Blood, everywhere. Blood, before I learned to love it. Blood, before I made it my mine; death, before it was my bitch. Everywhere, everywhere. Was this the last time it made me cry?
Mother. Father. Mary. The blood. God laughing. This sight - how many times would I see it in my mind? God... you fucking bastard. Why? Why must you mock me to this day?
Mother. Father. Mary. They loved you, and you repaid it by killing them, bloodily. God made the choice. God controls all, and he controlled a burglar into breaking in, into killing my family. My family...
Mother, standing before the stove, cooking us something that always smelled good, no matter what it was.
Father, walking into the door after work, his hands large and rough as he picks us up to hug us.
Mary, running home from school behind me, the rain soaking us while we ran, trying to escape its chill. I didn't know, then, that you couldn't run from the rain.
Mother, reading the Bible to us children before we slept. The story of Daniel in the lion's den my favorite, the story of Jesus resurrecting Jairus' daughter, Mary's.
Father, carving dolls for Mary, carving boats and cars for me, carving crucifixes for Mother and the church.
Mary, holding a kitten that some of the bullies from school had attacked. Mary, trying to nurse it back to health, not knowing that God didn't care how hard she tried.
Mother, praying herself. Mother, reciting the rosary. Mother, praying the Lord's Prayer. Mother, praying to St. Monica, patron of abused women. Mother, begging God for Father's forgiveness, begging for us to be delivered from the rage of Father's alcoholism. Mary and I, pretending we do not hear.
Father, holding a bottle in those hands. Father, who gave half our money to us, a quarter to the church, and a quarter to the booze. Father, hitting Mother in the hallway as she prayed. Father, praying himself at night, praying that Mother would learn that a man is the master of his castle, that the church would remember that, too.
Mary, receiving the tapestry. Mary, always better than me, even in my birth's shadow. Mary, covered in the tapestry.
All of them. Covered in blood. Blood I did not love. I loved them. And it was the last time I had loved anyone, and the last time I didn't love the blood.
And God watched over it all, and sent His servant into it, and she stood there, not caring where the burglar went, because her God didn't care, either.
God let the killer in, and He let him go. That's why He must pay, why I've devoted my life to making God hurt. Because if He goes unpunished, He'll keep on performing His crimes against His human pets. It doesn't matter to Him what happens to us poor fucks, even if we are made in His image. He doesn't care. He just doesn't give a fuck.
He once wrote in His mind warping waste of paper, "Judge not lest ye be judged." Yet, being the hypocrite He is, He exempted Himself from this little rule, judging people left and right while He gets no punishment for His sins.
No longer will He get away with it. I am His judge and jury.
And, more importantly, I am His torturer and executioner.
I'm hanging upside-down.
At first, I decide this has to be some sort of fucked-up dream I'm having. After all, when you're in a straitjacket, one of the most entertaining things you have in your pitiful little life is to sleep and, hopefully, dream. Unfortunately, this isn't the case this time. I actually am hanging upside-down.
Now that I've got it down that this is actually happening, I have to find out how the hell I got upside-down. I must have been drugged, that much is obvious. I'd wake up the minute someone fucking touched the door to my cell. They must have used gas or hit me with a dart or something equally silent.
Well, I'm hanging upside-down. So I might as well open my eye and see why. At first all I see is a wall, then Crawford enters my range of sight.
"Glad you could join us, Farfarello. We have some... experiments to perform." He presses his glasses up and smirks: an action that's amusing when seen upside down.
He does not seem amused with my laughter.
"Well, Farfarello, if you are done with your private joke..."
"Hmph. You're the one that hung me up. Let me down. I don't like it up here, you four-eyed bitch."
He smiles darkly, like he's quite happy to have that bit of information, which the fucker no doubt is. "I'll keep that in mind. But no, I won't let you down. We have things to make sure of."
I glare at him, showing all my fucking hatred for him through my one eye. I do NOT like being upside-down like this. I feel dizzy, I can't think straight, and I'm helpless. Which is why they have me like this, no doubt. And now that I let my hatred of it slip, they'll use it as a punishment... Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I'll worry about these cunts having a punishment for me later. Right now...
"What the hell are you talking about? 'Things to make sure of?' What does that mean?"
"You recall when I said that Mr. Takatori desired your services as an assassin because you have a certain attribute, namely, the inability to feel pain? Well, we have to make sure your power is as it appears."
"So what are you saying? That you want to make sure I can't feel pain?"
"I knew you were more intelligent than you show." A slight insult, but I let it pass. It matters little if I'm insulted or not, only that I can insult God in return.
He continues. "Yes. We intend to see if you can withstand all pain, or if not, how much you can withstand. Before starting, I assume you did this to yourself?" He waves a hand in indication at my body.
"Yes, most of it," I answer, smiling almost lewdly. These are my scars. They are my marks as a warrior, a warrior against God. I am proud of them.
"Your eye included?"
Laughing, I shake my head at him. He's an idiot, if he has to ask that. "Of course, Mr. Crawford. Do you think someone else could have gotten so close? My eye is gone, and I took it out to pain God."
He nods, unimpressed, as if I were talking about what socks I was going to wear today. "As I thought," he murmurs.
"So how do you plan on testing me, Crawford?"
"Why, the conventional way." He starts out the door I can see out of the corner of my eye. "Torture."
I chuckle as I hear him call in some more of his eternal amount of faceless guards. Well, if they want to torture me... then I might as well enjoy it. Nothing physical can ever be like the pain in my own mind; the pain that God can actually give me. Any physical pain I give right to Him, and He cries as I laugh. So these men... these faceless men... they will help me. They aren't here to torture me; they're here to help me hurt Him.
One of guards in my small line of sight eyes me warily. In his hands, I notice, he's holding a sort of cow prod. Right now he almost looks like he's clutching it like my sister once did her stuffed kitten.
"Wh-what are you smiling at, Irishman?" he asks. I smile wider. He almost looks like he's going to wet himself.
"You're going to help me kill God. And for that, my nameless friend, I am grateful."
He looks like he's about to protest when I call him 'nameless.' Poor fuck, he probably thinks he actually is important here. Of course, no one is about to tell him otherwise, not even me. It's that cockiness that makes him nameless. You don't have a name until you realize your standing, even if it's on the bottom.
I keep on smirking. This is good. They all fear me. I can hear their breath, rapid in their chests. It would be fun to stop that rapidness and make it nothingness.
A guard behind me stops them from bolting like the little ponies they are. "He's perfectly restrained, men. There's nothing the psycho can do to you."
There's silence for a while as the men try to accept what their "leader" says. They don't seem to be taking to it too quickly.
"But boss," one out of my sight snivels, "I heard that he killed a man twice his size with just his teeth! I..."
"Shut up. He did kill a man with his teeth. But let me remind you that he's almost completely unable to move from where he is."
"Almost. That doesn't cut it. I'm going."
"Would you rather face the punishment Takatori would give you? He could lock you in here with this guy when he's not restrained if you run around like some idiot, not following orders."
Yes. Yes. Leave; don't go through with this. I'd like another victim. Maybe they'd let me have my straitjacket off for him, and then I could...
"Okay. But can we at least gag him? So he can't bite?" Fucking wimp. One threat and he caves in.
"No. We're here to test if he can't feel pain, and we don't want him hiding the pain if he feels it. Just stay back here. He can't turn around." I feel him hit me across the back heavily with something thin, like a branch. "Can you, crazy?"
I shrug as well as I can upside-down. It doesn't matter; I'm not expected to talk to these pissants. Apparently they think differently, as one of the others cuts a large slash down my arm. The blood drips down onto the wood, staining it forever, like God did to the human race. "Aren't you gonna answer?"
Laughing, I shake my head. "I don't have to answer you! You may be helping to destroy the Great Liar, but you're still worthless! You fucks are the most dispensable little shits I've ever seen. Once you're done here, your superiors might let me have one or two of you to play with. You know I killed your comrade. He cried! Like a little girl, he screamed for his mother! He screamed for GOD! He wept and then I..."
A sudden spraying in my face. Pepper spray. How... quaint. I laugh even louder. They think their little toys can hurt me? My eye starts watering on it's own, which shocks me at first. I wouldn't cry to get the fiery liquid out of my eye... God could weep all he wanted, but I wouldn't. Just as well that my eye has other ideas. I need it to see my prey, standing beside the man with the stun gun, spray in hand.
"You... you... BASTARD! He was my FRIEND. My FRIEND, damn you! And you... G'ah! Fuck you!" he screams, whipping the spray canister across my face.
"Heh. How novel, emotions in a torture session. I'll make sure to cry for you as I peel your skin off, inch by inch..."
The peon continues crying and whaling on me with the bottle, his feet, his hands... just trying to make me hurt. He only succeeds in making himself and God tired. I spit at him, and it lands on his shoe.
"Didn't you know what you were getting into, little boy?" I ask, even though he's obviously older than me, "You're here to see if I can feel pain. Don't you think it'd take a little more than your little taps?"
He growls, kicking me full-force in the face. I smile as I hear my nose crack loudly, the sound echoing off the room's walls. The blood has trouble defying gravity to come out of my nose, so my head feels full of fluid. It's an interesting situation, and it seems almost surreal as another guard yells at the one who broke my nose for "Performing this job in an unprofessional manner." As far as I'm concerned, I've decided this is the most fucked-up torture session of all time. All I can do is chuckle at these morons.
I feel something intensely hot press against my hand. A branding iron? Maybe they'll try harder than I thought.
"Stop laughing," the man wielding it says, his voice quiet. Of course, this just makes me even more amused.
"Why?"
"Because we're here to hurt you."
"That's where you're wrong, my friend. You're here to hurt God."
A crowbar, beating across my back. "Obsessed little kook, aren't you?"
"I must make Him hurt," I reply simply, because it is simple. That's all there is to it - I have to hurt God. Someone does.
There is a silence, as if they're just all having a little mental shrug. I know they don't understand, the poor delusional little bastards.
And so it begins, a night of torture for God, joy for me. Whips flaying my back into a bloody mess, needles pressed under fingernails, acid splattered on my arm, cuts ripping through to bone, salt rubbed into my wounds. None of it matters for me. I'm merely a conduit towards God here. The pain passes through me and unto Him. I snicker at that thought. These nameless ones have burnt my crotch a few times. I wonder if He can even feel that, the sexless creep.
This all lasts long into the night. The men, even though they were told I shouldn't be able to feel pain, seem confused that I don't. I guess it's a matter of seeing it for yourself; actually seeing a man who can't feel pain himself. I adore their confusion and fear, the way they strain just to hurt.
Late in the night, they're getting tired and sloppy. They keep on hitting me in the head, almost knocking me unconscious, which aggravates the boss. He shouts about how I'm supposed to be kept awake, "You never know when he could start to feel pain!" It's a stupid thing to think, at the least. I've been beaten for something like six hours straight, I'm not about to suddenly start cringing. They are re-opening wounds from earlier, which is a better approach, but still fucking futile.
By the seventh hour in, I'm just really damn bored. There's only so long you can be amused at God's weeping. After awhile he's just a bore and won't shut his fucking mouth. I'm thinking of just taking a nap to annoy these poor little bitches of Takatori, when the door opens. The light it brings into the dark room is almost blinding. When I open my eye again, I notice the pair of silhouettes blocking out some of the brightness. One talks to the other, who, after a bit of talking back, comes up to me. It's the whore German, Schuldich.
Smirking, he begins working on the straps on my legs. "Hm, a bit stuck on that fact, are we? Haven't gotten any in a while?"
I give him a glare, and he begins snickering. "Oh, you're a virgin, aren't you? How old are you, 18? And still haven't had a good fuck? Of course, it must be hard to find someone to screw when you're in a straitjacket and doped to the teeth."
He'd been working on my restraints since the beginning of our little conversation, and by now, I'm on the floor and free. I push him against the wall, pressing my hand against his pale throat to choke him. He shoves me off of him easily and grabs my wrists between his hands.
"Hit too close to home, did I?" he asks, those feral green eyes of his glinting.
"Shut up, whore. Sex doesn't matter to me. The only thing that matters is God's death."
The German cocks his head to the side a little, and I can feel him in my head again. It's an interesting feeling, like something just brushing across my mind. He blinks at me when he finds whatever he's looking for. "You're telling the truth. I think. In that fucked-up mess, I don't know if there is truth." I just grin, which makes him raise an eyebrow and just shrug at me. It irritates me to all hell that I don't frighten him, but at least I confuse him.
Silhouette number two, who was talking to the faceless ones, comes up to us. It's Crawford, of course. He wouldn't abandon his fun little experiment.
"You appear to have passed this test, Farfarello. I apologize if it bored you, but the men seemed to be enjoying themselves so much. And I trust that you enjoyed giving your God some pain.
"I've made all the arrangements. You are now an official employee of Takatori Rejii. You will, of course, have regular pay and benefits, but I don't see where you would care about such things."
I snort at that. Of course I don't care about pay. What the hell would a fucking madman buy? Even if I wanted any material crap, I doubt I'd be freed that often, and in the chance I was, where would I put all that shit? I'm living in a padded room.
"What may interest you is that you have complete immunity to any crimes you commit while under the employment of Mr. Takatori. However," he continues, gesturing randomly with his left hand, "Don't think you can get away with everything. We will judge you. And I hear that you don't like being upside down." He smiles cruelly, and turns to leave. His glasses catch the bright glare of the outside hall as he turns to look back at Schuldich. "Clean him up and return him to his room. That will be all."
Looking back at Schuldich, I have to laugh. He's pissed. When he notices me laughing, he half-heartedly kicks me in the shin. "Oh, be quiet. At least be less of a dickwad then the great Mr. Crawford."
Shaking my head, I keep laughing. I mean, this guy is sulking like some fucking little kid. "It's not like you had a hot date tonight or anything."
"How do you know I don't?"
"Because no one wants genital herpes these days."
He kicks me again, harder this time. I still don't flinch. "Fuck, how do I get a guy who feels no pain to shut the fuck up?"
"I don't know, I've never tried."
He snorts at me, looking down upon me from his slight height advantage. It's obvious he's trying to make himself look tall, something easily seen through. He should know that, if he's such a fucking expert on the human mind. I know he can hear (or feel or whatever the fuck he calls it) my thoughts, but he doesn't acknowledge them. Instead, he grabs my wrist hard enough to bruise, which barely registers to me. Pain, or what should cause it, has become even more boring since I've come here.
Then he does something that is actually interesting. He starts to read my mind... but it isn't a fucking thing like he has up until now, the soft brush across my consciousness. This is hard, penetrating, weakening. It's powerful, like he's scraping through my brain with some claws or some shit like that. It's my turn to be really fucking pissed now, as I realize that I'm falling to the floor, shaking. I don't want to be. Farfarello has never been weak! Jei was. Jei was, and that's why the sniveling little cunt is dead now. But Farfello isn't, and I shouldn't fucking be falling to the fucking floor! Damn you God... you'll pay even more for this. I can't keep thinking that for long, though. He presses harder with his mental claws, digging for what he wants to see. I want to block him. I want him gone. He can't see it all, he can't... I don't know what I have to hide, but it seems like there's something, something best left unfound...
I continue shivering on the ground as he retreats, wrenching out of my mind viciously. After all that. After all the pain others and I have inflicted on my body, it's just a damn frolic through my mind that tears me down, even for only a moment. I glare up at him, but I know it's lacking in any power.
Smirking down at me, he speaks. "Now I am tall, Jei."
I struggle up. It's a fucking stupid thing to do; it just makes me look even weaker. "I am not Jei! I am Farfarello! I killed that little whiner. He's DEAD! Fucking DEAD!"
He laughs. It's such a mocking sound, and I hate it now. I've realized that I've been defeated, that he is my superior in some way. At least he deserves it more than the American shit. That thought makes him smile.
"What an interesting mind you have. I don't know when I'll go through it again... It leaves me rather dizzy, you know. Even I start to question what's real when I slop through that mess. But I must say that it's entertaining. Especially since you have no defenses."
"You cunt..." I jump up, my equilibrium found again. I go to attack, and manage in scratching a gash across his cheek. He slaps me across the face, not to hurt, but to knock my balance off again. He succeeds. Grabbing me close as I start to stumble, he does a strange mockery of a smile. It looks more like a dog bearing its teeth.
"Come on, madman. Our dear Bradley did say to clean you up."
And, with that, he handcuffs my wrists together and drags me off. I don't struggle. There's no need to.
I'm insane, but not so fucking much as to cross the alpha dog.