Fan Fiction ❯ Checkmate ❯ Death ( Chapter 1 )

Death is an art. Of course, in the eyes of many people, death is terrible. Many people cry about it. They just can't see the beauty of it. The way a person dies has to do with the beauty, obviously. When someone old dies on a bed with all of their family around them is boring. As are natural causes. I hate it when I read the obituary and find that most of the people were old or something. But other types of deaths, like car accidents, or when people get stabbed to death, those are interesting.

Death is quite easy to bring about. Stabbing someone with a knife or equally sharp object, strangling them, or a painless death, putting an air bubble into a vein with a simple needle. The air bubble than stops the heart, and the person is dead. Of course, this goes under my list of boring deaths. What's the beauty of a death if there isn't any pain?

I first became obsessed with death when I was a teenager. A murder was committed inside of the school, during a regular day. It happened in a stairwell that was barely used by anyone, that lead into the orchestra room. No class was held in there that day, for some reason. Anyway, apparently two boys got into a fight about something or other, and one of them pulled a knife. The other had a knife that was hidden, and when the other went at him, he pulled the knife, and the guy landed on it. He bled to death, and the other boy left without a scratch. One of my friends found the body (she's still in therapy), and I found her as she stood over the body. The blood everywhere, the boy's glassy eyes, it was beautiful.

So then, after seeing this, I began experimenting with knife, cutting myself. I loved it: the pain that I felt, the blood rushing from the fresh wound. I couldn't get enough of it. I just couldn't. I was only about sixteen at the time, and it was winter when the murder happened, so I was wearing long sleeved shirt and sweaters and pants and stuff like that, so the scars didn't show. Then, of course, came spring and summer. I curse those seasons. One of my friends noticed the scars on my legs, which was where my first cuts were, and I was admitted to a hospital. Everyone thought I was depressed and suicidal. No one would believe that I was doing it for fun. So I went along with all of them, and they finally released me from their vice-like grip, letting me out of the hospital. And I left.

I moved away immediately after that happened. I couldn't stand their insanity. So I just moved to the other side of the country. No one could stop me, since there was no actual proof of me being mentally ill, save the slashes on my arms and legs, and I was eighteen. They tried, but to no avail. So I was on my own.

My fixation with death and pain didn't falter during my stay at the hospital. If possible, it became greater. When I was finally released from the hospital, I was able to find images of people hurting themselves, and of murder victims. It was wonderful, seeing all these images. They inspired me, I must say. Beautiful, simply beautiful.

So then, one day, I decided to act out the images that I had been looking at for the last year or so. The first one I tried was my favorite of all of the pictures. It was so easy to do, I've used it many times over. Every tenth victim. Of course I have a pattern. Did you think that I recklessly just went out and killed the first person that I saw? I would never do that. I plan things. Always.

I had been watching the person for the longest time. At least three months. Maybe more. Anyway, I stalked them. Watching them in their window, following them to work, everywhere. My first victim was a man. Most would think I might have killed a woman first, for a man could overpower me, since I'm quite small, but this man was an easy target. A total doormat. And physically weak. Only a few inches taller than me. So, you see, very easy target.

I had decided on the exact day and time on which I would carry out my plans. I knew the man would be home. I don't remember the names of my victims, of course, that's useless information. I didn't need to know his name to guess whether he was a good target or not.

So, on the exact night when three months of stalking would be over, I attacked. Slowly, I broke into his house. The lock on the door was like him. Weak. All I really had to do to break it was lean against the door, and it just popped off. I had tried this before, when the man was not home. Anyway, I walked through the pitch-black house, as it was night, and made my way toward his room. No sound could be heard when I was stepping. Of course not, I'm very stealthy.

When I finally reached his room (I was moving slowly, and he had quite a big house), I found the door open. He apparently wasn't inside. I heard a soft noise behind me, turned, and saw that the door to his bathroom was closed, and a thin stream of light showed under it. Quickly, I ran into his room, since I knew he would be out of the bathroom soon (the sound I heard was water running), and hid myself in the closet. I knew he wouldn't find me there, since I knew that he never got anything out of the closet at night. Only in the morning when he was getting dressed.

I waited in the closet for at least two hours. I didn't have a watch, so I couldn't tell, but I'm very patient. If I wasn't, how could I have stalked this man for almost three months, rather than just killing him right away? So, in the closet I sat, not moving so much as an inch, and scarcely breathing. Finally, I emerged, ever so slowly, and crept over to his bed. He was asleep, as to be expected, since he had gone to bed two hours before, and fallen asleep an hour and a half. I knew, because his breathing patterns had changed, and he stopped shifting in bed.

I hovered over him for the longest while, just watching. He slept very peacefully, barely even moving. His breathing was hard to hear, but I could sense that he was still taking in air. I have very good animal instincts. Anyway, he didn't wake up. I watched him for what felt like about five minutes, but when I looked at the clock at his bedside, I saw that it had been almost an hour.

I decided to strike then. I knew if I didn't soon, I couldn't savor it, for I'd have to leave quickly, since the sun was due to rise in two hours. I wanted this to last, so I'd remember it forever. Slowly, I withdrew the knife that was concealed in my left shoe. It has almost cut me a few times, since I leaned on it the wrong way in the closet, but I never moved, I just made sure my weight didn't press on my shoe very hard.

I raised the sharp object over my head, and brought it down on the man's right wrist. He awoke immediately, crying out at the sudden pain. He didn't see me right away, since he had tried to pull his wrist back, but found it held fast to the bed. I then pulled another knife out of my other shoe, which hadn't been pressed against me like the other knife. I plunged the other knife into his right wrist. He screamed, and finally saw me.

When I sank the first knife into his right wrist, I did it almost slowly, and carefully, since I was almost afraid of what might have happened. Nothing did, and I became more confident with the second knife, which when into the mattress, also, so it held better than the first one. He struggled against the knives for a while; I didn't bother watching the time, I was enjoying this so much.

Finally, though, I knew it was time. Time for him to die. I pulled out one last knife, which was hidden in my jacket. Raising it into the air, like the last two knives, I held it there, watching him writhe and whimper, still tugged at the knives that held his wrists. He had lost a lot of blood, and was getting weaker by the second, but he still tried to get free. Then, I slowly moved the knife down toward his heart, but, at the last second, swooped up, and slit his throat. I did this very cleanly, with one quick swipe. The blood oozed out of the wound, and he slowly became still. Dead.

I pulled the knives that had restrained him, and quickly cleaned the blood off of them, putting them back into my shoes when I was done. Then, I pulled a pen from the coat pocket that also held the knife that I used to slit the man's throat. I also pulled out rubbed gloves, from a pocket inside the jacket. A secret pocket. I put the gloves on, and picked up a piece of paper that lay beside the man. A note to himself to pick up more milk before he went to work the next day. In very sloppy letters, a writing style I had practiced before I began stalking the man, I wrote, "Checkmate."

Why "Checkmate?" No, I don't play chess. I just like the sound of it. "Checkmate." I decided it should become my trademark for when I become a serial killer. Serial killer. Those words make my shiver with glee every time I hear them. Another reason I decided to use it was because no other famous killed had ever used that before. At least, I don't think. I only look at the patterns that infamous killers used. They all have one. You just have to look closely enough.

So, then, he was my first victim. The first to die under my hand. I didn't take his body with me, like I did with later victims, but that was because I needed to leave. Very quickly. The sun would was due to rise in about five minutes at the time, so I hurried down the stairs, not caring whether I made noise or not, snuck out the back door, and jumped into my car and drove away.

Later, I watched the news. The story of the man's death was all over the news. His friends and family made threats that they would find the killer, find me, but I didn't believe any of them then, and I still don't now, since, of course, I've never been caught.

The only mistake I made with my first victim was I didn't take any pictures, which I started to do with my second victim. Fortunately, I looked on a news site on my computer, and easily found images of him. I downloaded all that I could find, most of them having my trademark, "Checkmate," scrawled in the corner, put in by the police, in a way to help them find the killer, find me. It never helped, though, wouldn't I have been caught by now if it had? Yes, I would have been, but I'm still here. Still here.

A/N: Don't like the ending of this chapter too much, but the rest, I think, is okay. The rating might go up to an R in later chapters, due to slight sexual content, but I'm still not sure.

Next chapter will be about the man that was killed by the "Checkmate Killer," in the prologue. Please review!