Good and Evil

Bunk, bunk, bunk, slam! This is me, coming home from school. I slam the door so hard, the whole house shakes. Just my luck, my mom is home!
“Alison, why are you slamming the door like this, is something wrong? Why aren’t you answering me? I asked you a question young lady! Do not make this face at me; I am not your mirror! Why are you treating me like I am your enemy? Don’t you go away I am not finished with you! All right young lady you are grounded! If you want to stay in your room, go and stay there!”
If I did not have enough problems already! I got my test this afternoon, only 16 out of a hundred. I do not know what to do about this f…ing Algebra! I try and try but I get nowhere. I study day and night, and on the day of the test my mind is blank. It’s just not fair! If I flunk anything my folks would not take me to Cancun on vacation this spring. I don’t have the five or ten thousand required to go on my own, unlike my dad, who can bring us to the hottest clubs and party places basically for free.  And I re-e-aly want to go there. Mom will find out sooner or later if I don’t get good grades; call the teachers or even come to school herself. To her, the most important part of me are my grades, the rest can go to hell.
To think the only person standing between me and Cancun is Mar. I h-a-t-e this bi-ach Mar, she’s nothing but a drug mule, but she gets way better grades than me. Without even using her own junk. It’s not fair at all. And it’s not like I can blackmail her or something, nobody will f…ing believe me! They will say: “No, not Mar, she’s such a good girl, model student, helps with about a thousand volunteer places, works, supports her ailing father, blah, blah, blah.” The girl is a drug mule and the biggest f…ing bi-ach that I ever met. I think I’ll go see her tonight.
*****
Tunk, tunk, tunk, splat! The severed head rolled down the steps of the dais and landed on the marble floor. I picked it up and let the blood flow from the wound. The body is already hanging upside-down and dripping blood into the special vats beneath the floor. The hardest part of the ritual was to cut his head off and activate the trap that opened the floor. Now it all looks just as it should: a headless body with its blood flowing in the hole on the floor and me, clutching its head by the hair. Now, turn right, go through the door, and down the steps. Click, click, click, go my boot heels against the cold marble steps. Year after year the staircases stay even, the walls stay silky-smooth and shiny and the outside wall gleaming like a mirror, impossible to climb. It is always the same, yet different every time I looked. Sometimes it feels like there are thousands of steps and I climb down, down, down, until it feels like I went past the center of the earth and am climbing up on the other side. And other times, like today, my feet barely skip the stairs; they are disappearing behind me faster than my heartbeat. Clutching the severed head, I hurry down the steps. Downstairs, my father is waiting for me.
*****
OBJECTIVE: Retrieve the Container containing a potentially deadly substance and employ it to destroy a known terrorist.
MISSION SPESIFICS: Commandeer a sailing vessel to reach the Container’s hiding place, aka. Island B. While securing the sailing vessel, be certain to take enough supplies, fresh water and weapons. When the Island B. is reached, find the initial location of the container, expose and remove it.
MISSION LOG: 0820 hours. Sailing vessel located.
This boat looks old, like it was made a hundred years ago or something. Man, it even feels old. This new “super immersion” game ROCKS!! Everything feels so real!
MISSION LOG: 0840 hours. Commence gathering supplies.
MISSION LOG: 0930 hours. Supplies gathered. Proceeding to Island B.
Way cool, there’s like a bunch of stuff lying around, food and such. This game is beyond cool. Like, I found about a ton of stuff, like gold coins and such. I’ve been here for ages and I don’t feel tired at all. And the best part, my new body is such a wicked fighter!
MISSION LOG: 1430 hours. Landed on the Island B. Proceeding to set up camp.
MISSION LOG: 1514 hours. Temporary camp set up. Initiating R&R sequence.           
It’s so great in this game. The grass feels soft, the sun is warm, the wind is nice and soft, and the food feels like the best meal I ever had, every time. Like when I finish the game it’s going to be like nothing I ever seen before. M says that at the end I’ll get an hour of bonus time with some of the hottest girls imaginable. The thirty second preview of them made me so horny I needed a bucket of ice, just to cool off. So, get to the castle, kill the bad guy and get screwed beyond my wildest dreams. Let’s pay that sucker a visit.
*****
It’s not like I’m a drug addict or anything like that. It’s just that I need more brain power, that’s all. And Mar makes “extra-strength brain stimulant,” about the only thing that helps me concentrate and remember stuff. But there are like, two big problems with this. One: I depend on it too much. I’ve been using it for about a year, and every time I stop, my grades plummet faster than humanly possible. Two: this shit is so expensive! Like, it costs two hundred bucks for a ten-day dose. And it’s cash only, can’t barter it, or give her a check or something. This f…ing bi-ach Mar knows I need the stuff, and charges me a fortune. I wish I had the guts to tell her to f..k off and tell the cops. But then she will tell them that I also brought that “stimulant” from her and sold it to kids. Yeah, and the ……. bi-ach can prove it, too. With pictures and such. Like, who would ever think that I sold some “test stimulant” to homeless kid eight months ago. At that time it was like forty bucks a dose. I needed the money, ‘cause Dad was going to check his “hidey-hole” and find bunch of cash missing. I didn’t need that much of the “pick-my-brain-up” as I do today, using it only on test days, and also the test stuff made my head hurt like crazy. But it was much cheaper than the good stuff; so I peddled it to some homeless punks. I told them it was some high-up crack, and for a time it gave them such a high. They, like, took three doses each. Then one of them started to puke, shake, scream, and then he just flopped down and didn’t move. I ran like hell.
So, when Mar told me that her stuff is going to be a hundred bucks a dose and I told her to go to hell, she showed me the pictures. Of me and those bum punks. With one of them dead. And I paid through the nose. Now, she can basically do what she f…ing wants with me, ‘cause she got me in a stronger chokehold than I got her. The drugs she can get rid of, like, super fast, but the photos can go straight to the cops, who have a file on this dead kid. Mar told me all this so I wouldn’t even try going to the cops first. And I believed her. Mar may look like a skinny shrimp with black hair down to the waist, but she can be downright ruthless.  Some of the more popular kids tried to send goons to her, to scare her a bit. Mar came back and the goons did not. She had some pictures that she showed them and that was it. Nobody tried to f..k with her ever again. What was in the photos? Nobody knows, but it is sure as hell was something bad.
                                                 *****
MISSION LOG: 1630 hours. R&R ended. Extracting the map. Proceeding to the first location marked: Oak.
This oak is gigantic. It’s enormous. It’s like, the biggest single tree I ever seen. Now what the old hag said, the one that gave me directions, it goes like this: “Under the big Oak on an Island of Bu… Buy…” danm it, can’t even pronounce this stuff, “there is an Iron Chest buried under the Oak, in the Chest is a Hare, in the Hare there is a Duck, in the Duck there is an Egg, in the Egg there is a Needle, and in the Needle there is Death of Kac… Kasc…” oh, screw it; I can’t pronounce his name either. Basically in the needle is the death of the terrorist dude. And when I off him, it’s hot girl time. What I got to do is dig up the chest, kill the hare and the duck, and get the egg. Easy.
MISSION LOG: 1700 hours. Oak located. Comparing the surrounding area with the map. The burial site found. Proceeding to extract the Container.
MISSION LOG: 1730 hours. Container extracted.
MISSION LOG: 1735 hours. Removing hare from within. Breaking its neck. Gutting it.
MISSION LOG: 1745 hours. Removing bird from within. Breaking its neck. Gutting it.
MISSION LOG: 1755 hours. Removing the container from within.
Eyeww! Gross, gross, gross. I never want to touch meat again!
MISSION LOG: 1845 hours. With the container secured return to the shore and locate the sailing vessel. Sailing vessel located.
MISSION LOG: 1850 hours. Casting off.
Finally! The last leg of the journey. Getting to the castle and killing the sucker! And then girls! A whole hour with girls! I can’t wait!
*****
I reached the end of the stairs. Before going to see my father, I checked out my laboratory. The experiment from before is coming along nicely. I never expected her to have so much bile. I hope it will be enough for at least twice as much potion as before. She certainly lasted longer than I thought, almost a year.
Now I hooked up more tubes to her and set the timer. When the bile is extracted she will have her brain extracted through her nose and turned upside-down. And a spell, so her heart will continue beating until every drop of blood is removed from her body. Ah, such labor, just to get a couple of ingredients.
Today’s intruder is emptying nicely. I better put him in “time-freeze,” a zombie is “a good thing” to have around.
All right, the work is done for now, I’ll go to father’s study. Before exiting, I grabbed one of the jugs, and filled it with blood from the vat underneath the intruder’s corpse. 
*****
Ok. I got out of the house, taking the two hundred with me. I was so pissed off at Mom that I left a note among the lines of: f..k off, both of you, I’m dead-tired of you, I’m going away to Vegas. Yeah, let them worry a little, especially if they find it. And if they do, it serves them right, there was no need to go through my stuff.
After I’m done with Mar, I can sneak of to Richi and get it on with him.
Oh, yeah! I wish Mar would be a bit more polite this time and would not keep me waiting as long. It’s like she can’t even tell time.
*****
“Come in.”
“Finally, I thought you were going to keep me waiting outside forever, Mar.”
“I told you I do not like to be called that.”
“Then what do you like to be called? M, Marry-quite-contrary, or maybe ‘The Holly Mother of Christ.’”
“My name is nothing to be joked about.”
“Yeah, well Ma-ri-ah is boring, Mar suits you much better.”
“If you can’t pronounce my name right, at least don’t butcher it. It’s Mar’-ya.”
“Like, whatever. Since when are you such a prune, drug-dealer?”
“Shut up and mind the steps, it’s dark.”
*****
MISSION OBJECTIVE: To locate the terrorist’s hideout. When located, get inside. Find the terrorist. Destroy him using the located devise. Enjoy R&R.
Wow, this castle is gigantic; this is, like the LOTR stuff. A big black hunk of castle, with drawbridge and everything. Ok, I’m going in.
MISSION LOG: DISABLED BY USER.
Finally, I can get rid of this dumb military junk. Ok, I’m going in.
Wow! The castle is huge, even bigger up-close! Let’s go look for the center of it. I think that’s where the throne room is supposed to be. And that creep is definitely gonna be there.
*****
The steps were creaking and moaning under my feet, the only light bulb swayed back-and-forth, lighting the basement.  There was a long corridor that ended somewhere in the dark, the light bulb never got enough power to light the whole basement; barely had enough power to light the stairs. Along the corridor there were two doors, one across from the other. It always seemed weird to me that in such a crappy house, the basement doors were made of inch-thick wood, with a bunch of iron bolts and five locks each. They were set in solid frames, but the walls were regular sheetrock and plaster. Weird!
Mar went behind the door on her right, and closed it. After about five minutes she returned with the Zip-lock bag and in it, ten dark-green disks the size of a quarters. The dose.
“There has been a price increase. Ten day’s worth now costs three hundred dollars.”
“Three hundred f…ing bucks! Are you out of your mind?! You …. …… ……. bi-ach! Go …. yourself!  Ohhh… What can I get for two hundred?”
“Six and two thirds of a dose, rounding off to full six doses. The money please.”
I handed her my two hundred and Mar returned to her lab, but she forgot to close the door. I went right in after her, hoping to get more, or steal it or something. Strong-arm it out of her, maybe. When the heavy wooden door stopped blocking my view, I saw the blackout curtain covering the entrance. And when I walked in I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“Un-freaking-believable!  Mar, what the f…ing hell is this?”
*****
Finally I’m at the center of the castle. On the throne there is some old guy with an iron crown on. He’s so old and rusty; a good poke is enough to send him on his way.
“What are you doing here, young man? Do you come like all the others, to kill me?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Why would you want to do this? Have I done you an injustice, harmed you in any way? Why would you want to orphan my people?”
“Like, dude, why are you so freaked out, it’s just a game. I get to knock you off, then I get, like, bonus points and treasure. And a hot girl.”
“Don’t you know that I am invincible?”
“Sure I know, old man. That’s why I got your death right here.”
I crush the egg in my fist and break the needle. The old man screams and crumbles to dust. I feel sort of disappointed, and then somebody calls my name.
“Hey there Richi.”
“M, what the hell are you doing here?”
I see M, standing near the throne, her black braids swinging in the light breeze. I notice how much she looks like the dude I just offed, same skeletal thinness, same pointy face.
“So, Richi, you would kill a man, just to get gold and an hour alone with some “chick”. Don’t you know that this is bad?”
“M, what the hell is your problem?”
“No problem at all. Something about this game you should have already figured out: it’s real. And you just killed a man for real. So don’t be surprised if you are paid in kind.”
Then I see a big shining sword blocking out everything in my view. The last thing I remember is the unbearable pain, and then finally blackness.
*****
It was like a slaughterhouse in there, complete with corpses and vats of blood. Mar, standing in the mist of it all cutting open some guy. He is still twitching and trying to scream through his gag. Then I see an upside-down corpse dangling from the ceiling, and on the table is the head. I open my mouth and stammer it out: “R-r-r-ichi?!”
Mar turns to me and says: “Nice of you to join me, Alison. Please stay right where you are.”
I tried to run, but I could not move at all. I felt like I’m frozen in place.
And then the door slammed shut and was bolted all on its own.
                                       **************************
“Hello, father. You look wonderful this evening.”
“And a good evening to you, my little Mar’ya.  How was your day?”
“Rather uneventful. Richi finished his ‘quest’ today. He failed like all the others. It is strange; you show them all the evidence that something is not true and they continue to cling to their old misconceptions.”
“You mean when you showed that boy that the land he walked on was bountiful, its people were happy and prosperous, yet he wanted to get rid of its ruler nevertheless?”
“Yes, father. Also, Alison came by today. And I finally caught her sneaking in my lab. I wasted enough ingredients on her; I hope she can return the favor.”
“Yes, I see. Completely uneventful.”
I took out two glasses and filled them with fresh blood from my jug, offering one to my father, and taking one myself.
“Cheers!”
“Cheers!”
“Today’s flavor is especially sweet. Great work, my dear.”
“Thank you father. I did my best.”
We finished the drink, and I turned to go back up the stairs.
“Good night, father.”
“Good night, Mar’ya.”
*****
My name is Mar’ya. I’ve been called many things: vampire, un-dead, monster. However, none of them are true.  I am Eshenti, standing on an evolutionary ladder so above regular humans, as humans are above chimps. People continue to judge my actions based on their own little morality code. And yet they break it every time they need to, and sometimes when they don’t. The biggest difference between humans and me is that they kill for pleasure and from boredom, but I kill only for food. And nevertheless humans think me evil. They spill blood for fun, and I only do it to eat; yet they think I’m a monster.