He had disguised himself to look like a normal, average man, taking this poor woman in out of the night. I can't remember why she was wandering by herself, she didn't look homeless, but instead like a simple grandmother that had lost her way. He invited her to sleep in his bed with him, insisting it was large enough that their bodies wouldn't touch, and somehow he convinced her it was a practical, sensible idea. When they laid down to sleep, I curled up on the small cot at the foot of the man's bed, and tried to sleep, tried not to think about what was going to happen to the woman, what he was going to make me watch him do. When the woman woke, I woke, noticing that the man was nowhere around, and I knew she was headed for death when she slipped out of bed and grabbed a hooked prod from the fireplace. She knew something was wrong, that she was in a terrible place, that it was a mistake to've slept here. I followed her but couldn't speak, couldn't reach out and grab her to tell her I could help, that we could find a way out together. I couldn't do a thing but follow her, and then he appeared around the corner, just before the woman could reach the front door.There was that sudden frozen stillness of panic, that sinking feeling, ice in my veins as she swung the prod and he caught her arm with a cleaver.
Her screams were terrible as he twisted her arm around and shattered the bones apart while the cleaver slid through to the other side, mangling the limb completely. It didn't matter how much she struggled or how loud she screamed, he kept hacking perfect chunks out of her body, laughing and yelling joyously as he did. I could feel her blood spatter across my body, and I couldn't move, couldn't blink, had to watch him cleave her skull down the middle and chop from the side, making an anatomy grid out of her for a brief moment so I could see her brain, her sinuses, the tunnel of her throat, and so on. She gurgled and squealed, thrashing uselessly as he sliced her down to nothing, and he was smiling, throwing a hunk of greasy, bloody fat he'd cleaved off of her at me because he knew I couldn't move, couldn't dodge and avoid it, and I felt the slab hit me in the face and slide across it, falling to my shoulder and then down my front and finally slapping the floor. He told me to eat, holding a slice of her liver out to me. I've fought him in all of my nightmares, refused his coaxing, stayed strong, but now...now, I ate. I bit down into the slippery chunk of organ and swallowed. I woke up, fighting off the urge to vomit and cry.
He smells like a corpse dripping with formaldehyde, like sour infection. His voice is a whispery rasp with a faint German accent. He makes wet hissing sounds again and again, like he's keeping saliva at bay from leaking through his teeth. He can disguise himself to look completely normal, but when he's killing, when he speaks to me, he's this, only more horrible because my abilities fall short of really showing just how awful he is. He always wears white.
It was suggested that I should draw him, that maybe pulling him into the waking world would stop the nightmares. I guess I'll have to wait and see.
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