I was sitting on my twin size bed trembling with powerful guilt. Since the beginning of the month I had killed a total of twenty people. No, I had murdered them. I could distinctly tell that my perpetual hunger was growing immensely and the thought scared me. I didn’t want to be a monster. I just was and there was nothing I could do about it. It was sickening watching myself become such a sociopathic-like animal. I was murdering children! I was killing mothers and fathers, the poor and the needy, the rich, the selfless, anyone-and I couldn’t force myself to stop. I just needed some way out. At this point, even death seemed sweet-bittersweet-but sweet all the same. I screamed into my pillow. Weren’t most 16-year old girls interested in unimportant, meaningless objects, not killing people for one thing! They obsessed over the next magazine or newest crush while I was stuck grieving over children I had murdered myself. Six year had passed since Carsius came to me. Those had been the worst six years of my life.

The worst part was the memories that came with the people I killed. Since the majority was made up of young adults, homeless people, dying patients that maybe had cancer or were about to die anyway, all of their burdens were loaded onto me. Everything they worried about, all the fights they ever had were all for me to worry about and fix. It was enough to make you go insane and possibly even put you in the nuthouse. For a split second, I thought that might not be a bad idea until I remembered I could still murder people even if I’m locked up. It was just so hard when I had to remember the pain they suffered during their last dying moments. That was literally torture. The suffering of the people I killed paled in comparison to my suffering. It seemed heartless to say, but it was true. My suffering was too great a burden for the average person to handle. I had simply grown up with it.

I made my way to the living room at a painfully slow speed, then turned into the kitchen. I looked at the clock; 2:34 a.m. I had insomnia since the day Carsius came and every night I couldn’t help looking out my window at the fearful world outside. I knew they all wondered who would be the next victim and hated myself for knowing I was their executioner, their death sentence. The night moon looked beautiful-it was full that night-and I secretly wished I could just shoot straight up there into the atmosphere and never return. The lack of oxygen and the possibility of my eyes popping out of my skull seemed less painful.

A memory flashed through my mind of a knife cutting through my skin. No, not my skin. That girl, Riley, I devoured two weeks ago; it was her skin. I grabbed the sharpest blade from the drawer of knives and tried to fight the urge to imitate her motions. I knew from the beginning, Riley’s life would take hold of me. Carsius had told me of his time with her and how she was still suffering. That’s why I had killed her, because I knew her pain. In the end, I couldn’t help myself and the knife sliced through my wrist. I stifled a scream as to not wake my parents and when I had finished my little session, I washed the knife in the sink and put it away. I smiled slightly, figuring I shouldn’t let my night be ruined by a little blood-shed. My dad walked into the kitchen and part of me wondered how long he had been standing there.

“Hey sweetie. Something wrong? Why aren’t you asleep?” I grabbed a glass out of the cabinet nearby.

“Just needed a glass of milk, Dad. What about you? You’re usually asleep by now.” He let a sigh escape his lips and looked at me.

“Bad dreams, that’s all. I’ve been having a lot lately.” He rubbed his eyes and when his hand moved a way I could tell he was exhausted. It must have been a pretty bad nightmare for him to not go back to sleep. But I took advantage of the rare moment between me and my dad where we connected. He wasn’t around much because of his job and usually got home late. He used to do everything with us and I always thought he was the best dad in the world, but he had slowly drifted away from the family.

“What was it about?” I actually was interested. It had been so long since I’d had any kind of dream-good or bad.

“It was very strange. Well, you know that weird epidemic that’s been going on with all the people just dying at random?” I fought the urge to just avoid the conversation and sneak back into my room. Instead I nodded to my dad and let him go on.

“All of last week, my nightmares were about that, except everyone knew for sure all these deaths were murders, instead of, ya know, everyone debating. Cause some people think it’s some kind of virus going around. Well anyway, I couldn’t tell who, but I knew it was someone in my family, someone close to me. At the end of every dream, all I can think of is how much I don’t want to die. Just this last night, I dreamed your mom died....and that somehow you were the one that murdered her.”

I stared speechless as my whole body tensed up. My knees felt weak and I hoped he didn’t notice the glass of water shaking in my trembling hands. But he did see my eyes widen and reassured me he knew that could never be true. Apparently, I was too sweet for that. We both went back to our rooms and went to bed for the night.
For the first time in years I went to bed exhausted and fell into a deep sleep. My worst pain started that night talking to my dad and from that day forward, I couldn’t get rid of my new habit-cutting. I never wore anything but long sleeves and I didn’t have any friends. My parents soon gave up trying to connect with me and by the time three months had passed all that was left for me was Carsius, my only companion. If he were to leave, I would be alone. Then again, if he left it would mean the game had ended. It would mean relief and maybe even a little prosperity. It was these things I longed for. It was that night with my dad that I realized what had to be done in order to end the pain. This realization was what I clung to for hope.

The girl, Shannon, she was my only hope. I had to find her again.

It had been three years since Shannon’s horrifying accident and things had gone way downhill. Her parents had gotten divorced and both were currently remarried. Her dad was messed up and in jail for something her mom still wouldn’t tell her. Whenever she asked her mom, she would walk away mumbling to herself about him being a pig and cursing his name. She had searched him on Google but it seemed like all the sites that had his name were restricted. Her mom had restricted her internet access so anything inappropriate couldn’t be viewed and it really made her wonder what her dad might have done. The last time she saw him, he seemed really nice. She missed him a lot now that he was gone and once in a while would join her step-mom in writing letters to him. She was a pretty little blonde but she was really shy and was just too skinny to be healthy. That much Shannon knew, and another weird thing was how often she used to come home with bruises. It had stopped a while ago, but she never did understand it.
Shannon currently sat in her 4th grade class bored and wished she could go outside to play in the flowers. Her mom and Ben didn't let her outside much because of her allergies but there were a select few times where she got the chance. Like when she would go to her grandpa's house during the summer before he died. He'd let her run in the flowers all she wanted until she started coughing and sneezing. Then he'd have to drag her back in. But things were different now. She had no freedom and after the incident, the remainder had been stripped away. Mom and Ben had been so worried about her safety that after her dad went to jail, it’s like their whole lives tensed up. Her mom was always tired now and yet put in all her effort to protect Shannon.
Then there’s Ben. He was extremely nice and fit into Shannon and her mom’s lifestyle in every way-when he was sober. When he wasn’t, her mom locked her in the bathroom and Shannon knew she was hoping her daughter couldn’t her glass breaking and hard objects colliding with flesh. The small whimpers that followed after about a half an hour. Her mom would let her out only after Ben was passed out on the couch. Those were the scariest times and part of me started to wonder if my mom’s and step-mom’s similar looking bruises had the same reason for being there.

Shannon tried to take her mind off her home life and concentrated on that event so long ago. Most 4th graders wouldn’t remember something as far back as kindergarten, but this event in her life stuck out like a sore thumb. She never told anyone she knew exactly who was doing this. Because of the incident, she could even somehow remember details from when she was a baby. Even as people were dying, she held back the information that could save lives. It was her own selfish desires that kept her from giving away the secret. Only because she valued her own.
Shannon’s fear was that if she told anyone Coast Rivers, a sixteen year old high school student, thirteen at the time, was the killer, she might come back for her, and what child isn’t afraid of death?

Shannon had worked hard to research anything about what happened to the other people who died because of Coast. She was pretty sure there were a few others who knew who it was, but they all had died. They only knew because in the last seconds before death, some creature appeared. She was pretty sure his name was Carsius because Coast had said that name before. Anyway, in those last seconds they could see what Carsius saw, hear what he heard. The thought crossed Shannon’s mind that maybe Coast didn’t know about the last little shred of knowledge each victim was given, so she just stayed quiet. Someday, she just hoped maybe people would stop dying.

The bell rang for class to be over and she stopped at her locker for her backpack on her way out to the bus. After turning on her music, she took her seat quietly right in the middle of the bus. The back and front were for defiant people. The middle was...safe. She took in the details of the bus ride and thought about which scenes passing by would make good pictures. She wanted to be a photographer someday so she paid attention to detail very closely. She took in the scenery knowing it might be her only glimpse at beauty before arriving home.

Then she saw her. It was Coast. Shannon ducked below the window and just hoped that Coast didn’t see her. She was in her car at the moment and she was laughing with a very handsome man in the passenger seat next to her. It finally clicked in her brain that it was Carsius. He didn’t seem to have aged a day. For the first time, Shannon realized he was kind of angelic looking. She just barely glimpsed above the window and Coast looked over and smiled at her. It was obvious a light bulb went off in her head because all the sudden it looked like her eyes were on the verge of popping out of her head. Shannon banged her head as she was trying to duck out of sight, but it was too late. She waited for Carsius to come. To squeeze her heart until once again it felt like she would explode as fire rushed through her. But it never came.