Life is simply a game. It's played by both you and me. Yet we are not equals, no one is. You make decisions and with every decision comes a response. Based on that response you make an action. With every action there is another response. We take our responses and create a strategy. This strategy becomes our pattern. But here and there someone comes to break that pattern. That is when we are most exposed. Whether it be love, fear, or anger; we create an emotion towards this event or person. I am that person. Some people love me, they don't know what I'm capable of. Some people fear me. Some people are angered by what I do. All in all everyone creates an opinion that plays a part in the game.
I once felt love and happiness. But that was all ripped apart when the love of my life was killed by a drunk driver. Ever since then I've been on a warpath. I no longer work, I sleep during the day, and I eat the bare minimum to stay sustained. I sold our house to live in a one bedroom apartment. It is nice though, I keep it clean. But it is barely furnished with only my office, my record player, and a bed in the living room for sleeping. I go out late at night. In search of people. To create ideas, to see who will play a part in my game. I go in search of places where these people like to hangout at. Clubs, bars, casinos, the like. In them I find druggies, street whores, rappists, and people genuinely ungrateful and above all cruel.
The thing is, I'm not cruel. I don't thrive on the innocent. I take a basic idea, think it through, find a subject, and put them through a trial. If they succeed they get away. If they don't, they die. I found much solace in the Saw movies, seeing the character of John Kramer do his work. His craft being so detailed. He too is just a person playing a game. He isn't some demonic being that can't be stopped or killed. He plays on the edge of what is good and what is bad. That's merely all I do. I know what I do is complicated, people don't want anyone to die. But sometimes things just exist that we can not stop. Things we don't want to exist must go on and prosper. So that the balance of life is restored.
I laid in my bed staring at the ceiling. The fan was going and a cool breeze was blowing over my face. It was hot in my apartment. The muggy air from outside was being brought in. I turned and looked at a photo of me and my wife. It had been our fifth anniversary and we were on a beach in Mexico. I put the photo down and got up, turning to my kitchen to get a cool glass of water. It felt refreshing and sent a sense of coolness through my body. I looked into the mirror and stared myself in the eyes. I wiped my face and hung my head low. Thinking about what events would later take place.
I grabbed my coat and headed out the door. I got in my car and took a drive to a local bar I knew that was about five minutes away. Just enough time to clear my head and listen to some music. Once I arrived I parked and walked to the door. It was busy today, then again it was a friday night. The parking lot was getting full and some people were still arriving. I walked in and found a place to sit, the bar was full but there was an empty corner booth. I grabbed a tonic water from the bartender then sat down.
I peered across the bar room and kept my head low. Watching people go on about their lives. Some were laughing, just talking, and the alcoholics kept the drinks pouring. I decided to order something to eat while I wait. Just a plate of fries. The cook brought them over to me with a thing of ketchup. I pushed the fries away and set them in symmetrical order. One on top of eachother and two in a line. Then I carefully squeezed the ketchup on the plate away from the fries making sure none splattered. I ate them one by one and dipped them carefully in the ketchup, eating the fry in one as to not double dip.
As I was eating I noticed a man get into an argument with a woman. He had grabbed her ass when she was walking passed and she went to push him away. He took her wrist and pulled her in closer. A group of people separated the two and the guy got kicked out. It was time to play the game.
I finished my last two fries after watching this event unfold and walked outside. I saw the man still there yelling at the bar on his way to his truck. I followed as if the car next to his was mine. On the opposite side he was on I slashed both tires swiftly. I then turned and walked down the sidewalk to my own car as he was pulling out to leave. I followed behind him. After a block or two his tires had bursted and he lost control crashing into a tree. I stopped my car and got out, walking upto to the driver door. He was knocked out but I bashed open the window and stabbed him with a tranquilizer. Enough tranquilizer to knock out a guerilla. I opened the door and pulled him out, carrying him to my trunk. I shut the door and drove to a warehouse I owned in the middle of nowhere.
Once at the warehouse I took his body and laid him flat on a metal table. I grabbed a drill and drilled between his achilles and foot. Then into his hands. I grabbed a set of homemade cuffs that would insert into the holes with the chains attached to the side of the walls where a crank would keep them stiff and him in place. I pried open his mouth with an old fashioned dentists tool, and then turned on the heat to 110 degrees in the warehouse. That was also when I grabbed a small mobile furnace I built that would melt metal. I led a pipe into his mouth where the metal would begin to melt into his mouth and down his throat when started. I would set the timer and he would have fifteen minutes to escape.
With everything in place I cut off the lights leaving only one in place right above him. It was getting hotter in the warehouse now. I sat in a corner and enjoyed some classical music while I waited. Clair De Lune on repeat. He laid there, peacefully asleep with his chest rising and falling without any acknowledgment of what he was about to go through. A true test of human nature.
To speed up the process now that everything was in place I injected him with a small dose of adrenaline. He began to wake up quickly and I walked back into the dark. He woke up and began to try and scream. He was thrashing and trying to escape but he was strapped down good and only caused himself more pain and began to bleed heavily. I could just barely make out what he was saying. I turned on the lights and walked closer to him. "You've made a bad decision. So now you're going to play a game. Before you is something I've crafted. You have fifteen minutes to escape. Once I set the timer the machine will slowly begin to heat up. At exactly fifteen minutes it will begin pouring molten metal into your mouth and down your throat. Starting now."
His eyes shot open and he began screaming again. Throwing his hands in my direction then crying from the pain as he does so. He was shaking his head violently trying to get the device off his mouth but he couldn't as it was clamped into his skin. He shook violently and pulled on everything but screamed in agony, He tired out and glared at me as he cried. I pointed towards the timer to make a statement of his waste of time. "If you want to escape, make a sacrifice." He tried spitting at me and shook his head even more. "You're wasting your time." I said to him.
He began pulling from his hands which ripped apart the skin and shot blood all over himself and floor. If he wasn't going to die from the game he was going to bleed out. He laid there catching his breath and I could hear him go to tear his hands free as hard as he could. He screamed with agony and through it you could hear the breaking of bone and ripping of flesh and blood poured from his hands and wrist. He began to cry and looked at his hands. He could finally move his arms and tried to take the device off his mouth but his hands were useless. "You have five minutes left to go." I said. His mouth and face were splattered with blood as he slapped his hands to his mouth, each hand was split in half.
He kept looking at me and then his feet. I walked in front of his feet. "If you simply made a better decision you wouldn't be in this position." I said. He only laid his head back and cried. "We are what we do unto others, you are simply an object." I said. Watching his agony didn't give me pleasure. But it was something that was meant to be done to teach a lesson. I sat there thinking of how much worse he could be. That gave me solace, the fact he's probably done worse. Will do worse. But not now.
I poured water down his mouth, "you thirsty?" I said to him. He began choking and turned his head to spit it out. "You have one minute left. What are you going to do, you've made one sacrifice. It's time for the final one. He began screaming as loudly as he could, like a battle cry, then pulled on his feet as hard as he could. Tearing apart the flesh and leaving his inner ankle exposed. His achilles was now torn and he was free. I stopped the clock and moved the trap. "Congratulations, you've won the game." He was about to pass out, I took off the device from his mouth. I looked around and saw what I've done. He is now a new person. "You can now start life over, be someone worthy. Treat people right." I said to him as I walked out. It was now becoming morning. I opened the door and as I went to shut it I looked at him one last time. "Game over."