Samuel_Tow

I went back to an old Mastermind of mine that I hadn't touched in probably a year, and I noticed that my planned build had a few issues I never got around to resolving at the time. Since I don't want to be guessing blind, I thought I'd ask you guys and go from there. In no particular order, they are:

Repulsion field: I may or may not have asked about this before, but this power seems to me to be a veritable sucker trap. The power's cost is bad enough, but it taking another 1.25 points of endurance per target affected, and with a tick speed of two per second, that's just evil. I did a little testing, and this can indeed keep certain powerful enemies perma-knocked down. The Wailer Overlord or whatever that thing is called would never even attempt to get up when I was near him with this one. However, with him and two queens, my entire endurance bar lasted me about 15 seconds doing NOTHING else. I have other toggles to run, other powers to use. Can anyone really justify THAT kind of cost and slot investment?

Protector Bots: Do these things need to be slotted for endurance reduction? I have no idea how they do it, but I've seen the Protector Bots drain themselves to almost nothing on multiple occasions. Thing is, that happens only sometimes, and at all other times, they're almost always almost completely full. What causes them to bottom out their endurance, and is it really worth slotting endurance reduction in them just for that?

Mastermind Attacks: I know the common wisdom on these. "Don't!" Despite this, I'm starting to develop what I can only describe as an attack chain. Pulse Rifle Blast, Pulse Rifle Burst, Photon Grenade, Force Bolt and Repulsion Bomb currently work as attacks (Force Bolt less so), and I'm actually looking at Mace Beam Volley. My chosen difficulty has LOTS of enemies, and it feels like it helps a little. Other than yelling at me, are there any reasons NOT to do this? The attacks' AoE damage isn't half bad.

Protector Bots, redux: My Protector Bots seem to do two things aside from attacking (which what they're slotted for) - heal and shield. I don't think I can slot them for both, so supposing I can only slot them for either, what should I go for? Shield seems like a good rule of thumb, but I'm not sure if I'm not already hitting the softcap just between their shields and mine. Heal seems like an interesting idea, and it's what I have them slotted for right now, since when things get bad, they tend to save otherwise doomed bots.

Web Envelope vs. Web Cocoon vs. Power Boost: In my build, I seem to have picked Web Envelope, probably to immobilize things inside the Assault Bot's Burn Patches, but I seem to have picked Power Boost over Web Envelope, and I'm not sure why that is. Is there ANY point to taking Power Boost on a Mastermind at all? Doesn't that just boost status effects, of which I have none? And what of Web Envelope? Should I trade something for that? Mace Beam Volley, perhaps? I don't know. Holds seem to be an interesting tool for a Mastermind, but... Not as useful as on something like a Blaster, since Masterminds just don't die as easily.

Protector Bots, addendum: This is more of a technical question, but here you go. I tended to slot my lieutenant-level henchmen with two accuracy enhancements, but that was back in SO levels fighting even con and +1 enemies. I am currently using Common Inventions and fighting enemies -1 to even con. That would put the Protector Bots' accuracy with one accuracy enhancement and supremacy active, at just over the 90% to-hit streakbreaker boundary. This means that, under controlled conditions, they should be hitting as well as I could want. Should I or should I not do this, considering that teaming will usually put me up against enemies +1 to +2 to me, under which conditions their to-hit will REALLY suffer?

That's about all I have to ask at the moment. I apologise for the disorganised presentation and for the massive list of questions, but I'm really in quite a bit of a quandary here.

Personally, I'd be in favour of this, provided there was a restriction on which powers you can take. If you take fire powers for your Scrapper and want to dual that with a Controller, that Controller can only ever have fire powers, too.

The reason I've suggested this before (and I have) is that I don't think JUST dual builds is enough to overcome specific limitations that ATs are built to face. I CAN make a more solo-friendly build on a Defender, but that build will never be as solo-friendly as even the most team-oriented Scrapper build (that still makes sense). The solution, as I see it, is to let me choose in real(ish) time. When I'm alone, I can play my Scrapper, and when I get a team, I hop over to the nearest trainer and I transform myself into a defender, changing not just my slotting, but the actual nature of my powers.

Let's give a very loose, direct example here, mixing and matching powers for the sake of argument. Suppose I take a Kinetic Melee/Energy Aura Scrapper and decide to dual this with an Energy Blast/Kinetics Defender. My Scrapper could be my offensive form, using my kinetic abilities to hurt people and my energy abilities to protect myself. Swapping over, I would be using my kinetic abilities to boost people's ability to move and enhance their strength, and my energy abilities to shove enemies around.

I realise what the inherent problems of this are. Not all sets have their equivalents, and this does add an extra 50 to everyone who already has one. But short of changing existing ATs to play in a completely different way, this is the only way I can think of to let all players play all ATs.

I realise this makes sense, but really - if anything should be sacrificed for the sake of engaging gameplay, running enemies should be around the top of the list. Altering Fear mechanics to make enemies cower instead of running away is probably one of the best things that could have happened to the game, and I seriously mean that. Running enemies are simply never, ever anything but downright irritating.

I could go with the idea of running enemies counting as defeated. Sure, let 'em run then. Their own fault for defeating themselves But I guarantee you that the day this is implemented, we'll all start levelling twice as fast. Or just DON'T let them run unless affected with an Avoid effect, and even then, make them run OUT OF what's causing them to avoid, NOT out of the fight, away from the area and clear across the map.

To be honest, I never understood why enemies treated Avoid effects like Afraid effects. If you suddenly find yourself standing in a patch of burning fire, you'll get the HELL out of it, sure. But will you start running like a chicken with your head cut off once you're out? Have enemies hit with Avoid effects move OUT of the effect, but NOT run any farther away. Interestingly, this should make avoid effects actually useful as a control method, since you could use larger avoid effects to herd enemies around.

Basically, the running away mechanic as we have it right now is half-*** and serves no purpose. Something needs to happen to it, even if turning it off has to be that thing.

I've always been in favour of this. People keep insisting that you can just use regular Teleport, but you can't, not really. It just doesn't feel as... Direct as Combat Teleport should. Regular Teleport has a 2+ second windup and a following I think four second hover time. This is just... Fat.

A Combat Teleport, as I envision it, would have an animation time of 0 (that's ZERO), a relatively small endurance cost on the order 5-10 points, and be limited to about 20-40 feet, on a recharge of, say, 1-2 seconds, possibly up to 5. No hover time. If you want to air-port, take the actual power Hover. Or Fly.

The point of this is to allow players to Nightcrawler their way around a battle, but without allowing them to use this for an actual travel power.

Well, I guess bringing this up enough times in "Get rid of knockback!" threads has finally paid off

I have no characters I've made prior to Going Rogue's announcement that are going to change sides. I might change my mind when I see the actual system, but I doubt it. I have one character who might have to go Vigilante down from hero, but he was created since I heard that was possible.

Beyond that, two heroes who can't exist right now are "some kind of hero/vigilante stalker" to fill the role of the protagonist of my latest story, as well as either an Axe Scrapper if those are ever made, or a heroic Axe Brute as a last resort.

I don't intend to touch any of my 50s, as they were all designed to fit their respective alignments.

Phase three: Penance

Suppose you suddenly woke up from a terrifying nightmare, woke up from a world turned on its head. A world of confusion, of shadows and horrors. A dream that saw you pulled out of your body, transformed into something revolting, something abhorrent. Transformed into something so hateful it sends chills down your spine to remember it. A hallucination where you commit unspeakable acts and think unthinkable thoughts. The experience would be horrible, devastating even, frightening to the point that you wake up screaming, bathed in sweat, your heart beating out of your chest as if it’s trying to dig its way out. Such horror that it sends you even forget where you were, or even your own name. But it’s only a dream, isn’t it? It’s only a nightmare, an illusion of fears that never were, of emotions that shouldn’t be.

Now suppose you took one look at your own face in the mirror, and realised it’s all true. That this was no nightmare, no figment of your imagination. Because the face that stares back at you doesn’t feel like your own, doesn’t feel like it should be on the head of any man still alive. It looks normal, it looks human, but you know... You KNOW that it isn’t. The empty eyes, the vacant stare, the cold expression. That face, that one image, the source of so much pain, so much sorrow... So much evil. The face of a hideous monster in human flesh, of a thing that walks like a man and talks like a man, but it isn’t a man. It has no heart, it has no soul. It reacts to you, deceptively intelligently, but there is no feeling behind those evil eyes. It doesn’t see you as a person, as a life worth preserving. It sees you as food. You may see a face that is pleasant at first glance, but turn your back to it and the real monster reveals itself.

This face – my face – is the horror to which I awake every morning. Every time, I hope against all hope that it was all just a bad dream, that none of it ever happened, that none of it was real. But I know better than that. I know the truth. I am that monster. On the outside. On the inside. Throughout and thoroughly. Eva’s purity opened my eyes and awakened my senses. And when I looked at myself, I was shocked to my core. It’s all too easy to live in blissful ignorance, avoiding any hard questions, never looking at yourself with doubt as another would. You don’t realise what you become, and little by little, you get used to it. Evil takes root, but its corruption is slow, almost imperceptible. You always have excuses, always have explanations. But when you take a good, long, hard look at yourself in the cold light of day... You may not like what you see.

This is the terror I woke up to every single day I spent on Death Row, that same, heart-stopping panic. In the serenity of sleep, I could just about relax my senses, let go of my concerns and pretend none of my evils were real. But they always came back. Like fever dreams they washed over me, more hatred, more anger, more pain, more killing, more, more, more, until I would wake up, kicking and screaming just to save myself from my own sins. Then, a moment of peace. And then reality would hit me like a train, forcing my face right back down into the utter filth of my own actions. There is no escape from my past. There never will be.

Good.

A priest came to me the day before my execution was due. I know he meant well, but his words were hollow. His religion could do little for me. “Repent,” he said “and you will be forgiven.” How naive. I can’t ask for forgiveness for that which can never be forgiven. It’s a nice, comforting illusion that I can just apologise for my actions and everything will be fine and everyone will be happy. But that’s not how things work. Saying “I’m really, really sorry!” won’t bring back the dead. It won’t fix the hearts broken by loss and sorrow, it won’t restore the families torn apart by grief and tragedy. It won’t restore all those whom I have harmed. Excuses... Forgiveness... Nothing but words. Empty, useless words. A sly way out of total damnation, a fool’s hope of salvation even in the face of great sin.

But not for me. We all have to pay for our sins. There are no easy ways out, no cheap forgiveness, no second chances. No, we must all get what we deserve, and what I deserved at that particular time was to die for my crimes. In fact, I deserved so much worse, worse than the world of the living had to offer. But that was as much as they could do, and it would have to be enough.

I thought long and hard about the error of my ways as I awaited my death. There was much to contemplate. All of my hatred, all of my violence, all of my crimes... None of them made sense. I had build myself a world of mirrors, where all I looked upon always came back down to me. My wishes, my desires, my ambitions. It was Eva who cast the first stone, and with one fell swoop, my whole world shattered around me. And I have been picking up the pieces ever since. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to tell how it all fits together. But perhaps that is for the best. I don’t want to look at that horrible face ever again.

But times of contemplation must always come to an end, and my sentence cut mine short. I don’t remember much of that time. Just blurry faces, each of them filled with utter contempt for the pariah who’d been thrust upon them. And I can understand why they felt that way. I saw lots of anguish, lots of bitterness and lots of anger. All consequences of my putrid legacy. All faces, but one. Her face, my saviour, my Eva. Unlike all the others, her eyes were not filled with hatred, but... Pity? I don’t know anymore. She’d seen me for what I really was – the coward, the weakling. She knew I was empty, and she didn’t hate me for it. She felt sorry for the hell I had built for myself. And her I could never understand. Her kindness, her compassion, her presence her...

Light? I remember light, but is this... Death? My... Memory fails me here. I remember images, voices, I remember floating, but little of it makes sense. Is this what death feels like, or are those memories just the last death rattle of a poisoned brain? I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t think I was meant to know. And even if I were, it wouldn’t matter, because I didn’t go where I was supposed to go. I... I think I was supposed to move on to something... Something else. But I didn’t. I stayed behind. I listened to... To her voice. She prayed... Prayed for me. But why? No... It makes no sense. Why would she... Her words, her... Her eyes, I... I want to see them, I want to hear... No. I must stay. There is something else I must do. Something... Something important. It... I need to... I don’t understand...

Ugh... I don’t know what any of that means. I just know that I died, but... I also didn’t. I saw my body being pronounced death, carried away, even buried, but I was looking at it as if from above, from... From outside. I should have moved on. The... Feelings told me I should. But I didn’t. And I don’t know why. I felt like I wasn’t ready to leave yet, like there was something else to do. Something only I could do. Something so important that to do nothing would... Unthinkable? I’ve never been able to make sense of this. I died, but I stayed behind, a mere shadow of a man, a passing whisper in the wind.

I saw people. So many people. They walked about, following their daily lives, but they didn’t see me. They didn’t even see each other. I watched and I listened. And I understood what these were. They were the innocents, the ones whom I had hurt so badly, whom I had hunted like animals. Never before had I stopped to see them for what they truly are, never appreciated the... Majesty of their existence. They walked about free, happy, so very much at peace. Everything I’d missed in my own life, I saw that they had had all along. All the things I’d murdered in my jealously, all the happiness and all the love. They had these things, and for some reason I cannot describe, I was... Happy for them. They had what I couldn’t, and I... Enjoyed this fact. I didn’t want their happiness. No, I wanted them to keep it. I wanted to see them like this... Forever.

But then I saw other things. Evil things. Shadows crept around the corners, jumping about and always kept out of sight. There were people who walked like them and talked like them, but they weren’t like them. Evil people, with malice on their hearts and darkness in their eyes. They saw this happiness, and they hated it. They sought to destroy it, to burn it, and for what? Nothing. No reason, no justification. Only emptiness. Like me. And then I realised what these wraiths were. They were others like me, still alive, still breathing, but dead on the inside. They were the murderers, the torturers, the sadists. They were people who had given up their souls to the monsters from the darkness that lies in the far corners of our minds. I saw them, and in their eyes I saw myself. And it scared me, like I have never been scared before or since. For the first time, I saw my true self, and it was worse than I could have ever imagined.

Something broke in me that day. Maybe it was death that finally forced it, or maybe it was seeing the world through the purity of unlife that finally opened my eyes, but I changed. At the back of my mind, there had always been this nagging doubt. Maybe I’d made a mistake. Maybe I’d become too soft. Maybe I’d been right all along. Maybe this was all a test of my resolve, to see how far I would go, how many moral horizons I would cross. I hated myself for thinking this, but the thought was always there. Yet in that instant when I saw the world with new eyes, that thought disappeared. I did NOT want to be a monster. Maybe I’d never wanted it. Was I only fooling myself into thinking I did these things by choice? Addiction to hatred. Addiction to pain. These concepts began forming in my mind at that time, and they made sense. For the first time in a long while, things made sense.

The strange haze in my eyes that let me see the inner beings of the people I met had me enthralled. For a long time I did little else than float about the ether and just... Look at people. I saw all the things I’d missed. All the things I never knew I craved. The giggle of a young child, the wagging tail of a cute puppy, the passionate kiss of a couple in love, the warm embrace a mother gives her baby. Families, love, affection. Had I ever felt these things? I didn’t remember. But it didn’t matter to me. These people felt them, and that knowledge alone set my mind at ease. This is how things were. This is how things should always be. I’d done a lot of evil in my life, but it didn’t seem like I managed to break people. They survived, they recovered and life moved on. Good, it seemed, was far stronger than I’d ever given it credit for.

But then things started going... Wrong. Things happened that shouldn’t have happened. Shadows crept into the light, and the miles on people’s faces disappeared, to be replaced with expressions of pain and agony. The dark-hearted people saw others’ happiness, and they were filled with hate. They wanted to destroy it, to crush it, to dominate over those happier than them, because they couldn’t stand to think of anyone’s life being more perfect than their own. I knew that dark feeling all too well. It brought memories of unthinkable acts, of unimaginable cruelty. Memories that that hurt me in a way I’d almost forgotten. But for the first time in my life, memories paled in comparison to what I saw with my very own eyes. Crimes and travesties, just like I had committed. They happened in front of me, and there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t intervene. I was nothing but a shadow – insubstantial and powerless.

Satisfaction turned to horror as an idyllic world was slowly being destroyed by evil which rooted deep inside the hearts of men. My own sins, played out before me in way I had never seen them before. Actions of great horror that I never wanted to see again, but I couldn’t run from them. Everywhere I turned, evil followed me. My evil. My sins. My punishment. It was as if an intelligent force was showing me these things, showing me the world as I made it. Taking my head and forcing it into the very same filth I had left behind. Forcing me to face my own repugnance. And it was devastating.

It’s an odd feeling being dead. You can only watch and listen. I tried to scream, but nothing came out. I tried to struggle, but I had no body to struggle with. I tried to look away, but the picture followed me. More horror, more killing, more violence, always more, always worse, always encroaching upon me and there was nothing I could do to stop it. This was my own personal hell, my own nightmare that I had chosen to stay with. This hell I had built by myself. This hell is what I truly deserved. As horrible as it was, at least I could take some solace in the knowledge that justice had been done.

But what was my purpose here? Wasn’t there something I had to do? I’d almost forgotten about these old visions, until horror finally struck closer to home. I’d seen many people die in many gruesome way, but I didn’t know any of them. They were strangers to me, and though I felt for them, I didn’t know them. In fact, I grew to know their killers far better. The same few sick, disgusting souls who prowled the streets, looking for the most beautiful thing to crush and destroy. These hateful, spiteful creatures who fed on the misery of others. The more I saw them, the less I identified with them. I had had faced my own justice. I had paid for my sins. But they still roamed free. One in particular, the man who called himself Jason, bothered me the most. This cruel demon took pleasure in torturing his victims. He fed on their screams of agony. He made parents choose which child he murdered first, he made husbands watch as he murdered their wives. This disgusting creature did not deserve to live. But what could I do?

I writhed in helplessness until Jason did something unthinkable. I followed him as he prowled the streets until I realised where he was heading. That familiar house, that familiar feeling. This was Eva’s home. And in this moment, I knew what he meant to do. And it scared me to my very essence. No. No! NO! I knew in my heart the horror he would inflict upon her. I saw him as he cut down her father. John was a brave man with a big heart, and that thing murdered him like he was nothing. But it wasn’t the father he was after. No, his prize was far more pure. I hoped against all hope that Eva would have the same effect on him as she had on me, but the death of her father scared even her. There was nothing she could do to save herself. That monster pinned her against a wall and prepared to deliver the final blow.

It was then that time seemed to freeze, and as if from all directions I heard my own voice, screaming with all its might. “NO!!!” I reached my hand for Jason’s shoulder, and I felt his coat. A voice spoke into my mind. “If you interfere in the world of the living, you give up your place in heaven.” I didn’t care. I couldn’t care less if doing this sent me into the pits of hell. I could not... Would not let this happen. My fingers gripped him with ungodly strength, and my rage exploded as I threw him clear across the room. How this happened, I will never know. But I intervened. In the moment of truth, I was able to reach through reality itself and save her. Save my Eva. All the horror, all the pain, all the anger I had felt for Jason, it seemed, had forced me to manifest physically into the world of the living once again.

But as the deed was done and as relief washed over my body, I faded into the ether once again. I watched as Eva picked herself up and tried to come to terms with the situation. She cried, she screamed, she cursed... But she was alive. Jason, on the other hand, hadn’t been as lucky. Colliding head-first with a brick wall had snapped his neck like a wishbone. And I wasn’t sorry for him. That’s better than he deserved. After all that he’d done, after everyone he’d killed, after all this, I regretted giving him a quick death.

Days passed, and I watched as Eva recovered from her loss. She still had a mother, and she had relatives who loved her. Though her loss was great, she could still had her life ahead of her. I spent so long just watching her, happy that she was alive, when I realised I was no longer forced to watch mankind’s depravity and cruelty. It was as if a curse was lifted. As if I was free. I felt as though my work was done and I could simply leave now. Perhaps it had all been a test after all? Had I passed? I wanted to think so.

But I didn’t leave. As much as I enjoyed watching Eva live her life, my mind was always being drawn back towards the darkness, back towards the evil that lived in men’s heart’s. Jason was only one man, but there were others. I could smell them. I knew that putrid smell of death and decay far too well. It was only a matter of time until someone tried to harm Eva again. And what of the others? Countless innocents still walked about the world. Who would protect them? The police obviously couldn’t. They didn’t have the resources to identify the killers and abusers. But I knew. I could sense the stench of the monsters even from the afterlife.

Evil men will always threaten the innocents. Someone needs to protect them, someone needs to stand up for everything that’s good in this world. Someone needs to fight for justice. And as long as I have the ability to do so, then I will. I don’t belong in heaven. I don’t want to go there. I belong here, in this world, making a stand against the very evil I helped create. I must brave my own personal hell, relive my own personal nightmare every day. If that’s what it takes, then that’s what it takes. But I will NOT let another innocent get hurt!

So where does that leave my quest for understanding? Unfortunately, it seems it brings me right back to square one. I remember all of the things I’ve done, all of the filth, all of the horror I have brought into this world. It makes me sick to my stomach to remember it. But I still don’t understand what could have possessed me to do these things. However... Upon reflection, perhaps I don’t need to understand. What difference does it make, at the end of the day, if I was just born crazy, if I was evil to the core, or if I was simply confused? I cannot ask for forgiveness, I will not hope for redemption. I paid for my crimes with my life, and very likely with my soul, as well. I am exactly where I deserve to be. How I got here is no longer important.

An apology won’t bring back the dead, but doing the right thing just might prevent others from joining them. I can never hope to undo my own sins, but as long as I’m already damned, I should at least try to do what I can to prevent further damage. All my life, I’ve looked for something worth fighting for. This is it.

OK, I'm an idiot. I posted the same chapter twice... You could have told me, guys

Anyway, I've edited the above post to feature the correct chapter, and I'm done with the final one, so I'm afraid I'll have to infodump the whole thing. I apologise for the technical difficulties.

Death and Taxes should be complete with this chapter, so let me know what you think. Please let me know

April Fools Day, the one day when I don't want to so much as speak with other people. I know I might come off like a bitter old man, but of all the holidays and special occasions out there, April Fools has got to be by far the worst one.

Phase two: Death

The truly sinister thing about malice is that it leaves you empty on the inside. No matter how much evil you do, no matter how many people you hurt, no matter how far you go, it never feels like enough. There must always be more. More suffering, more domination, more satiating this destructive hunger for what I can only describe as pure evil. Nothing is ever enough, because it is only a pathetic, deluded mind that believes it can be satiated in this way. But the truth is that the more people you hurt, the more of yourself you lose to that familiar madness.

It started with mind games for me. Dominating other people, controlling them, breaking their spirits and breaking their will. But the longer it went on, the more extreme my cravings became. Like an addiction, the old evils were no longer evil enough. Newer, worse evils had to be invented, and in time they too became too tame. It was a spiralling descent into madness that had no happy end attached to it. Not for me, not for my family, not for anyone I came into contact with. I kept telling myself that I was the master, that they were my slaves, that I ruled over them. But that wasn’t the case at all. I was a slave to my own seething madness, feeding it with still more violence and still more suffering. And it would never be enough.

Everything I touched turned putrid. Every life I affected broke apart. Every little lie, every little act, every little trick, everything I did just made things worse for everyone around me. It was as if I was cursed, but it was no curse as such. It was my own fault, my own malice that did it. As time went on, I began to loath beautiful things, to despise good, happy lives. I had never been truly happy, truly at peace in mine, and it made me jealous to see other people happy in theirs.

There are some things in this world that most hold as unthinkable. Things that, not only should they never be done, but must also never even be considered. A person’s life built up over fifty years gone in an instant. A beloved, doted daughter kidnapped. An innocent child harmed. A good, faithful pet, trusting in its owners, betrayed, hurt... Killed. These are the sort of things that even cynical bastards would be repulsed by, and these are the kind of things that grew to attract me. Malice and destruction, but not merely wanton, not merely targeting anything at random. No, what I went after was evil targeting the very heart of what was good, innocent and pure.

And it makes me sick to recall these feelings these... Cravings. Why? How is it possible for a human being, no matter how disturbed, to feel this way? How is it possible for me to feel this? It disturbs me to think about it now, it chills me to the bone, yet I felt this? Why? It makes no sense! It makes no sense... Few things do anymore. Few things ever did. My whole life feels like a daydream, like I was a spectator, looking through the eyes of someone else, someone horrible, someone unforgivable. Someone who is now dead. Figuratively and literally. These don’t feel like my memories at all.

But responsibility must go to those responsible, and the responsibility for all the horror I have caused is mine and mine alone. I must suffer the consequences and I must pay for my mistakes. Justice must be served. There is no redemption for monsters like me, nor should there be. It would sicken me to think that such things could EVER be forgiven. That is why I must never forget. Even if time makes the memories fade, even if she makes it feel like it was all just an unreal dream, I must never forget. This burden is mine to bear, and I have to bear it, myself. I must remember, and remember I will.

Following Buddy’s death, my family began falling apart. My father, once a successful businessman building a career, settled into a dead-end job and shut himself inside his study. He didn’t feel like playing with me, he didn’t feel like speaking with people, he didn’t feel like doing anything at all. I can’t blame him. He loved that dog like his own child, and to see... That happen to him. It was devastating. To be honest, I think he eventually suspected it was my fault, which just served to hurt him even further. My mother was always worried about him, and my father’s dark mood eventually affected her, as well. And my neighbours didn’t fare any better. Their children were scarred for life by what they’d done, and I didn’t exactly leave them alone afterwards, and their problems brought their own families down into a depressing state of worry.

And all of that was my fault and my fault alone. The one poison seed in a perfect world. It showed me how fragile good things were, how much they relied on the goodness of others to sustain them. It showed me how easy it was for good things to break, and that temptation would only grow and set roots into my black heart. It would fester and eat at me, until I was left as nothing more than a pathetic, hollow shell. I hope and pray that this kind of hell is what awaits all evil in the end, because it is a fittingly horrible fate.

As my little world crumbled around me, I lost interest. I needed to see new people, so I moved on to college, to study criminology, of all things. It opened my eyes to a whole new way to feed my obsession with suffering and control. My little games with my classmates were no longer enough for me. Broken friendships, scorned girlfriends, stressed-out dropouts... Those had become child’s play. Knowing how the systems of forensics, which weren’t quite as advanced at the time, worked allowed me to start thinking big. To start thinking about murder. How that step got taken, I still don’t fully understand. Perhaps it was a wild whim that made me do it, but I wondered if I couldn’t commit the perfect, unsolvable murder. After all, that would be ultimate harm to something good, would it not?

I picked my target and... No. No, I can’t. I can’t talk about this it... How is that even possible? This isn’t me. It can’t have been me. I... I don’t want to remember this. I don’t want to think about it. Please, God, don’t... I don’t want this. This isn’t me. This isn’t... I never wanted... I should never have wanted this. I... No... No. Maybe I shouldn’t remember. Maybe... Maybe I should just forget these things. Maybe I... I must remember. This... This... If I could change one thing about my life, I would wish that I were never born. Everything I’ve done in my life has been utter, wretched evil that has no business existing on this Earth. Why couldn’t someone have killed me earlier? People die for stupid reasons all the time. Why couldn’t I have die in a car accident, or been stabbed by a mugger, or hell, just slipped in my bathroom and cracked my head on the tiles? What manner of sadistic fate permitted a monster like me to exist when good people died to random chance all the time? No...

I murdered the kindest, most caring person I knew at the time. Those qualities are precisely why I selected her. Miss Jenny Richardson, my philosophy professor. Everybody liked her, even the problem kids. She was a good listener, she helped everyone she could, and she was pretty, too. Of all the people at the university, she was the only one who suspected I was rotten. I’d crafted myself a perfect facade of believability that all the other teachers bought without question, but Miss Richardson saw right through it. I don’t think she realised the full extent of my madness, but she knew enough to be concerned. She tried to help me at first, but it was pretty obvious I was beyond any sort of help. So she knew to be on her guard around me. But apparently, that wasn’t enough.

It’s pretty easy to spike someone’s drink, especially when you’re offering it as an apology for being a jerk. I guess hoping for the best in people was her charm, and she truly believed I wanted to apologise. Once again, hope and good nature led people into a grisly fate. I... You know what? NO! No, I will not describe what happened afterwards. I don’t care if I have to remember. I don’t care if I need to suffer for my mistakes. Some things should NOT be said. Some things should NOT even be thought about. Certain things NEED to be unthinkable, and the things I did to this poor woman are completely, utterly unthinkable. Suffice it to say they were very, very, VERY bad. The word “murder” will have to suffice.

God damn it! How is this even possible? How could I have done something like that? Ever since I crossed over, I’ve seen a lot of bad people doing really bad things, and a lot of the time I hate them for it. I despise them for what they are and for what they represent. I want to back them in a corner and beat the living daylight out of them. I want to hurt the bastards so bad, I want them know what their victims feel, to show them the kind of terror they are causing. That is what I feel about myself right now. I hate that person who committed that crime. I hate him with a passion. If I could, I would hurt him. Bad. Make him suffer, make him regret ever being born! God! But I guess we all get our just desserts, don’t we? Because this is precisely what happened to me. In the end, I was trapped in my own personal hell, reliving all the pain I had caused as though it had been caused upon me. And that’s still better than I deserve.

They found Miss Richardson’s body the next morning. Let’s just leave it at that. Everyone was appalled, as well they should be. They condemned this heinous crime, but they had no-one to punish. A police investigation found no leads. I’d planned everything too perfectly. But my madness spiralled ever downwards, and just knowing I did this wasn’t enough. I wanted other people to know, so I sent an anonymous letter to police, just to taunt them, just like a little arrogant punk. The still couldn’t find me, but I’d found my new game – a cat and mouse chase with the local police, and eventually with the FBI.

I don’t know what screw got loose in my head, but I enjoyed this “game.” Obviously, more victims would be needed to keep the hunt going, which is where my madness transformed from basically malicious to pure, unadulterated evil. A serial killer was born. That’s... Everything up to that point kind of makes sense, horrible as it is. I don’t understand these feelings, and I don’t understand how a human being could feel them, but I can see the cold, logical progression from one event to the other. But this? This makes no sense. What kind of a sick monster decides to become a serial killer just for the sake of toying with people’s emotions? I don’t understand this. And you know what? I don’t think I want to understand it. It makes my stomach turn every time I think about these things, and I’m starting to question whether I actually WANT to go through with this.

*sight* And so I decided... Literally decided, to become a serial killer out of spite and... Really, not much else, come to think of it. Base emotions don’t come any more base than this. I deluded myself with illusions of grandeur, telling myself that I was some high-class intellect playing an elaborate game of chess with other people’s lives... And limbs. But it wasn’t like that, not at all. I was an addict, nothing more. A broken-down wreck who had abandoned all facets of life, all for the sake of sustaining this destructive addiction. I kept telling myself that I could stop if I really wanted to. After all, I was the master. I was in control. But I couldn’t. I was empty inside. My life was empty, my home was empty, my heart was empty. I had nothing else but this one, singular obsession, and every moment I wasn’t engaged in it felt like a torturous trudge, to the point where I literally saw nothing else BUT this game of cat and mouse and killing.

How long did this go on? Twenty years, probably more? I’ve lost track of the innocent lives that fell to the tower of my madness, and though I’ve tried to learn their names and at least honour their deaths, it’s impossible. No-one really knows how many victims I’ve had, and when I forgot, that knowledge disappeared forever. At the time, I didn’t care. I picked my victims from the happiest, most idyllic families I could find. Their happiness, their fulfilling lives were a blight in my eyes. The petty jealousy of small mind too blind to its own failings to realise its folly is its own doing. I took so many lives, and I broke so many more... “Tragedy” doesn’t even begin to describe it. All of this killing, all of this pain, all of this madness, and for what? To feed the insane, malicious obsession of one evil man. There is no justice enough in the world to offset this wrong. My fate was as gruesome as justice would permit, and even then it was far kinder than I deserved.

I’d killed so many it has become second nature to me, devoid from emotion as a whole. Devoid even from the sick satisfaction I had used to get out of these heinous acts, a dulling of the senses that was at the root of my spiralling madness. I needed more. Something bigger. So I decided on my end game. To hurt not just strangers in the night, but to hurt the one person I felt the closest to – Special Agent John Seamore of the FBI. He’d been following my case for far longer than any other detective. Ten years, probably more. I knew him inside and out, and he knew my psyche to a T. It was time for the end game, the final strike which would hit far closer to home than anyone had ever dared – his daughter, Eva. Oh, Eva...

Kidnapping Eva wasn’t difficult. She was the daughter of a policeman, so she knew how to take care of herself, but I’d been taking people in the nigh for twenty years. She was no match for me. But Eva was different. She was good, she was pure, she was... Perfect. A happy, idyllic life that I in my malice set out to ruin. But where the others were weak and frail, good only because a kind world permitted them to live, Eva was strong. Where others cried, pleaded, begged for their lives... Where others broke down, Eva stood her ground. Even bound, even at death’s door, she didn’t flinch. She didn’t cry, she didn’t panic. Eva was goodness personified, and she carried a kind of power I had never seen before. Not the high ground of superior strength, not the position of power of a kidnapper. No, she had a strength of character that scared me to my very core.

She looked at me with determination in her eyes, as if challenging me to do my worst. I don’t know how she knew, but she knew... She knew that, for all my posturing and all my big words, I was a coward on the inside. A lost, scared little child looking for more power and more control to fight back the fear. “You are empty inside!” she told me, not in anger, but in a flat, determined voice. And she was right. The power of this young girl was... Divine. For the first time in my life I saw good for what it truly was – not a kitsch, not a delicate flower existing protected in a harsh world. No, I saw good as the power of a pure heart, the determination and courage of a just cause. Eva knew I was scum, Eva knew she was right, Eva knew I was weak. And it was that righteousness that gave her power enough to crush my will with nary a glance.

I had spent my life practically in its entirety breaking people and destroying beauty. I should have been the master of this game. But this young, innocent girl broke me, and she did it so effortlessly. Her goodness, her purity, her unyielding spirit finally broke through my mental block and opened my eyes. Finally, I saw my life for the mess it really was. What had I accomplished? I had no friends but the people I had conned into trusting me. I had no family, for the only family I’d had I’d destroyed. No-one loved me, because I was rotten at the core. My home, my life, my entire world were nothing more than one giant monument to my singular addiction – malice. And as I realised the sheer depth of my folly, everything crumbled around me.

I spent the majority of the night just pacing around my house, trying to make sense of my own chaos. In the end, I failed. I never laid a finger on Eva. The girl scared me in a very physical way. She was the one person I could never dominate, the one person who would never break. She was the one person who proved that everything I had ever done and felt was utterly wrong. In the end, I couldn’t come up with any answers. The only thing I could do was drop her off at her house the next morning, no worse for wear. She even had the tenacity to wave goodbye at me as I drove away. Incredible... I drove around town that whole day, not really going anywhere. I didn’t know where to go. I didn’t want to go back home. Not to that depressing, empty house. Not to the place that reminded me of all of the horrible things I’d done, of all the empty space that was where my heart should have been. I looked at my life, I looked at my crimes, and I was... Disgusted.

The only thing I could think of, the only recourse there was, was to just end it all. Suicide was my first idea, but it didn’t really seem fair. Could one death really offset so many others? Was this truly justice? No. No, that was taking the easy way out. No, I had to set things right. Just like Eva had, I needed to face adversity, face my own fate, admit to my mistakes and be judged by the world as it would judge me. She believed in a just, honest world, and so she trusted herself to fate. She inspired me to think the same, to trust myself to my own fate and hope that I would face the kind of justice I deserved.

So I turned myself in. I parked my car on the staff only police parking lot, walked into the PD and basically introduced myself. I admitted to all my crimes, one after the other after the other. At least, to the ones I remembered. There were so many, and I never kept a list. The interviewing officer was obviously disgusted, and in fact got physically sick several times throughout. I can’t blame him. I felt sick in my guts just being who I was. Conscience is a funny thing like that. As if at the flip of a switch, everything in your life becomes disgusting and just wrong, and you realise just how utterly wretched you really are. It’s sickening, like a thick, nasty smell that turns your stomach, but which you can never escape from, because that smell is coming from your own insides. As all the filth in my life came washing over me, as I laid it all out in one go, it finally dawned on me just how low I had sunk.

About mid-way through, Agent Seamore took over the interview. I think he spent most of the day just being glad his daughter was alive. But Seamore had none of the benevolence Eva did. He hated me, as well he should have. He tried not to show it – he was trained well. But he did end up flipping up and punching me in the mouth when the story got to the kidnap of his daughter. I think he knocked at least two teeth out of my mouth, I don’t remember it clearly. And I don’t blame him. No amount of pain inflicted on me would be undeserved.

I would have happily pled guilty and waved my right to trial, but people wanted to sentence me to death, so a trial was held anyway. No that it mattered. Not even my slimy, cash-in lawyer could do much to save his case after my full, graphic testimony at the stand. I could see the jury’s reaction. I could see the revulsion in their faces, the hatred in their eyes. For the first time in my life, people could see me for what I really was, without all the charades, without all the masks. And their reactions were very telling. They saw a despicable monster, a monster I had created with my own two hands. They saw me, and they were horrified. But once Eve had broken me, I was no longer surprised at their shock. I expected it. I would have been surprised if they had not been utterly disgusted.

The case was clear as soon as they left to court room. It took them no more than half an hour to return with a verdict: guilty on all counts. Sentence: death by lethal injection. That didn’t scare me in the slightest. It’s what I deserved. In fact, it was better than I deserved. It was far better than any of my victims had had it. Agent Seamore came to my cell after the trial, basically to gloat and pat himself on the back. He deserved it, to be honest, but I don’t think he got his money’s worth. Like his daughter before him, only then did he realise what kind of pathetic, hollow, worthless man he had sentenced to die. The sinister, grand monster I’d played myself up to be was nothing more than an act, a front for world. Once you looked behind the curtain, you found just a little insecure, cowardly child. Hardly an evil worth the kind of publicity I got. I think he even felt sorry for me right at the end, which I do NOT think he should have. I don’t want people to question the morality of my sentence, thinking that maybe I didn’t deserve to die. I did. And it pains me to know that some felt otherwise.

I tried to give up on all of my appeals, as I wanted this sentence, but it still took some time for it to be carried out. Eva visited me once. I still don’t know why she did it, but I know it wasn’t so she could gloat like her father had. Maybe she wanted to see if I really had understood the error of my ways, or maybe she just wanted to make sense of things as much I did. I honestly don’t know. But the strength of her presence was undeniable. In a way, Eva had become my conscience. In her presence, in her radiance, all of my sins became clear to me. All of the mistakes I had ever made popped up like ink stains on a white shirt. Eva was beauty and goodness that I could never bring myself to harm. I wasn’t jealous of her happiness, I wasn’t jealous of her life. I was, for the first time in my life, happy for her. If my choice had always been between destroying other people’s happiness or destroying my own delusion, then for Eva, I chose to destroy myself. And I have never regretted it for a moment since. Not in my life, not in my unlife.

Eva saved me from darkness, but nothing could save me from the injection. All the better. But as it turns out, even that wasn’t the end of my story.