Lying on his bed, in his four-by-four cell, Dave looked at the ceiling blankly.
Even a chicken who is about to be slaughtered, panics and runs amok before the butcher cuts its head off. So why the hell am I not able to feel anything?
He had understood long ago that his emotionless trait would create a lot of trouble in the future. And if he is not wrong, then he is in this cell because he has been emotionless most of his life.
Dave cannot feel happiness, sadness, empathy, or any sort of emotion. Basically, he was like a robot, looking at the world with his logical gaze. But the good thing was, very early on in his life he found out that he cannot live as he was, in this society.
It all started with him not crying when the pet dog of their whole orphanage died. Even the teenagers of the orphanage cried that day, but he remained silent. Even stoic. His nonchalant behavior made him receive tons of stares and contempt.
No one dared to bully him or hurt him, since he was the golden child of the orphanage, he was a prodigy. But those stares made him realize that if he wanted to live peacefully, he would have to show some emotion. Otherwise, he might not be able to survive in this society.
Hearing the knock on his cell door, he sighed with relief.
"And here I thought you guys forgot about me," he said while pushing himself up. He faced the wall with his hands in the air. The guards came in, armed in full body gear. They cuffed his legs and arms. Made him sit in a wheelchair, cuffed him to the wheelchair as well, and it was then they brought him out of the cell.
As Dave came out, he was greeted by the warden of the prison, Trevor Philips, a balding white old man, with an angry face, "Ready to meet your maker Davey?"
"Ready sir," he said. Usually, it was in his public code of conduct to always smile in anyone's company, but he figured that he was about to die in a few minutes. He can now leave the facade behind.
"Let go boys," the warden said and the guards started pushing him.
"So what took you guys so long? The delay made me think that the government decided to hand me a pardon,"
The warden chuckled, "You are a serial killer Davey. Your vigilantism took the lives of 259 people that we know of. There was no way in hell that you were getting a pardon,"
"You know the guys that I killed are all criminals, right? I mean I am like Batman, minus the bat suit and no killing rule," It was true, he might not be a billionaire, but he was a multi-millionaire. His intellect and Masters from MIT helped him to make cool stuff for himself and for the world. And he was very deadly when it came to Muay Thai as well.
The warden passed him a smile, "My wife is alive because of the charitable foundation that you established Dave. No one would forget what good things you did with your money. But that doesn't mean that you can roam around killing criminals and taking the law into your own hands. There is law and order for that,"
The poor lad, he truly believes in the justice system, he thought. As a member of the elite society of the world, he knew better. He knew, exactly to whom the justice system served.
"Sure buddy," he said with sarcasm, making the warden roll his eyes.
They traveled the whole way in silence. They soon reached the execution room, where Dave would be executed via electric chair, and he was looking forward to it.
The guards uncuffed him and made him sit on the special chair. Before him was a tinted glass, which he knew for sure was two-way glass. He was sure that behind the glass was a swarm of journalists, his lawyer, and maybe the family members of the people that he killed, maybe.
32 years old, and being executed. He thought. I wonder, if I got sent back in time like some of the novels that I read, would I have taken the good route? The monster in me, could that had not born, if I had taken the good route?
Dave was a self-made man. Got his master's when he was just 16, and since then he only moved up the ladder of the world. And this is how the world knew him, the multi-millionaire tech genius who changed the way that communication networks worked.
From what he had heard around, most people believe that he had done all those bad things because of some moral compass. People think that he was acting as a vigilante, whose purpose was to make this world a better place. But no one knew the truth, he never revealed it to anyone. Because it was far worse than anyone could imagine.
His first kill was his dorm neighbor during the time he was pursuing his master. That guy was annoying as hell. That man used to vomit on his door, throw loud parties, and always tried to bully him into doing his assignments. Dave never faltered even once in front of bullying, but something broke in him one day when that man crossed the lines and destroyed his laptop. The same laptop that contained his work of the past 3 years.
He killed the man and butchered him like a pig.
When the police came for the investigation, for the first time in his life he felt an emotion. He felt fear. Although he had planned the murder in such a way, that no blame could be thrown at him. Still, he felt fear, he thought that he would get caught. But when the police returned empty-handed and closed the case, the thrill that he got from the ordeal became intoxicating for him.
That emotion filled his body with ecstasy. He liked the thrill to such an extent, that he became one of the most notorious serial killers. He didnt do it for money, with his intelligence money just rolled in. It was just a matter of thrill.
Countless times he tried satisfying his thrill with other activities and tried a lot of things. But hunting down human beings, and getting away with it was the best. He was 20 when he realized that he could not live without that thrill, so he decided to target only the criminals. That way, if he were to get caught, at least his life work wouldn't go to waste. He could spin off his real story as an act of vigilantism.
No one had seen his real face, he never dared to show it to anyone. And he would die like that.
I wonder whether my lack of emotion was the reason that I became like this. I wonder if I did have emotions.. How could that would have changed my destiny? He thought as the executioner made him wear the hat that would deliver the shock.
Oh, how the fuck did they manage to do that? He thought when he didnt feel any wet sponge on his head, below the hat.
Usually when executing someone with a wet sponge, the person being executed doesn't suffer a lot. Seeing that there was no sponge on his head, he gave in. He accepted his faith.
The current was turned on, and he suffered. He felt that his whole body was burning from the inside out, but he endured it. This was his punishment, and he would gladly accept it.