Confessions of a Madman

Prologue

August 19th, in the year of our Empire, 1022. 

The bastard is caught. We thought we lost him when the trail went cold, but we finally have him. 

However, what I am not convinced of are the circumstances of his capture. At first, I thought his inability to escape was his downfall, but I believe now that he gave himself up deliberately. I am convinced of that fact. Whether my colleagues believe me or not is of no issue, because there is no denying the obvious. He's slippery, he's smart, but also a complete madman. I have seen the man take a bullet to the back, and still outrun and outmaneuver an entire trained squad. His injury could not be the reason for his capture.

I suppose for the sake of this journal, I should go into further detail. As specified in pages past, our madman is an assassin - cold, calculating, and lawless. For years he's been on the loose, evading capture purely through genius. In that respect, I unceremoniously applaud the man. But there is no denying his brutality and total lack of morality. Let me explain.

Most assassins are clean. Quick. Many leave no trace, and some, as it pains me to say, exist to serve our Empire. This man, however, is different. Savage. Animalistic. But not in a trampling, brutish fashion. This man works as though he almost fancies himself a regal predator, a result of mother nature. A terrifying result of mother nature. 

We nearly caught him only twice before, yet both times he slipped through our fingers and vanished in the shadows. Yet this time, he made no attempt to vanish. No attempt to flee. He just knelt there, drenched in scarlet red, bowing before a mound of flesh as blood dripped from his sword. The image of him, stationary among the sum of his violence, was the stuff of nightmares. 

We were called to the scene early in the morning, so early that the sun had yet to rise. It was a cold morning, miserable and wet, the air laden with the heavy moisture of last night's rainfall. We pulled the boat up in front of one of the countless abandoned fisheries, and stepped out onto the wooden docks. Towering against the rising sun was one of three abandoned warehouses, dilapidated and worn by the winds and downpours of time. From the front, a commercial insignia was faintly painted across the rusting walls, serving simply as a remainder to those who remember the times when this part of the pier was steeped in success.

One of the local constables accompanying my investigation had called forth a junior officer to take lead and investigate the entrance, which was peculiarly open. I stepped forth, disregarding safety, and made my way through the open door, holding my pistol ready. However, the precaution made no difference, as nothing prepared any of us for the sight ahead.

The scene was brightly illuminated by the morning light that shone through a collapsed hole in the roof, bringing forth ever so slightly the sickeningly red color that dripped onto the water-stained cement floor. And there, kneeling in the blood, was he. Clutched in his hand was his short-sword, shimmering and dripping, and before him was the butchered remains of what we can only assume was a man in his thirties. I cannot recall at all what the rest of the warehouse looked like, for its centerpiece was one of such utter shock that I'll never look towards the pier without its image branding itself onto the forefront of my mind.

The next hour or so passed quite quickly, and in a daze. I stepped forward, and remember my voice shakily commanding the kneeling man to stand and give himself up. He did not respond, waiting instead for me to approach completely. Behind me, officers took out their firearms, some anxiously shaking in fear, others frozen completely by it. The constable, tearing himself away from the effigy of violence that presented itself to him, looked only towards me. He was a stout fellow, but that wasn't enough. I recall waiting anxiously, but cannot recall the true feeling of such anxiety. It transcended fear, and shut down the senses. In fact, the thing I recall most aside from the initial shock, was numbness.

As I approached the man, he shuddered. I then realized that there was something peculiar about his posture, and noticed the hilt of a dagger awkwardly sticking out of the man's abdomen. Yelling for medical attention, I saw the man fall over into the pool of blood surrounding him, unconscious, or as I presumed at the time, dead.

We don't know who he killed. We don't know whether the dagger injury was a result of an ongoing struggle on the victim's part, or a self-inflicted wound, and I currently puzzle why he did not try and slip away as he has done before.

Alas, there is a time for everything. Tomorrow, as discussed with the other members of the guard, I will be interrogating the madman, perhaps shedding some light on these matters. A torturer would not do any good, I argued, and to my surprise, they agreed. There is no doubt that he deserves pain and suffering, but we also wish to hear a confession.

The day after tomorrow, however, his head rolls.

***

I woke to find myself exactly where I had thought - the nightmarishly famous interrogation chamber of the Empire's finest and most  privileged institution - Northgate Prison. Despite my keen awareness of this fact, I was unable to visually taste the room around me, as it was unusually dark.

Only a few torturous moments after I had woken did I find myself optically able. And the view did not disappoint. Strapped into a device that may be a metal chair, or the Empire's most elaborate death machine, I saw only concrete walls, floors, and ceilings. The only source of light was from a slight viewing hole in the steel door that separated this enclave of serene pain from the noisy and wild world that was the prison's cells. At least, I thought, comforting myself, I'll be dead before long.

After that thought spread throughout my mind, the dagger wound occurred to me, and a sharp sting in my gut greeted me, as if on cue. I groaned, but only minimally so, almost as if to keep from waking whatever lurking danger waited behind the thick darkness. The thought amused me. I had been that danger, more often than not, and whatever took on my old role in this plot was almost ironically similar to me. I mused the thought of being in the place of such an interrogator, interrogating a person he already deemed mad and dead. 

But I was weary. Weary of the games, weary of the lies, and weary of the obvious irony that ruled this purportedly peaceful empire with a bloodied, oil-powered fist. Then, I was sad. Sad knowing that my death would come at the hands of a useless pawn incapable of understanding the finer machinations of the giant beast he so unwittingly tries to appease each day. Sad knowing that whatever danger lurked in the corner, it would be a purely psychological and physical beast, incapable of wit or thought, replacing such things with torture and hatred. I sighed, yet it was a laborious sigh, as I tried to move in my constricted position. Yet, after a brisk attempt, I resigned myself to my position of total immobility, and continued to bathe in the irony. Justice, I thought, imagining hundreds of people amassing on the streets outside, screaming for it.

Justice. In the Empire, justice was as ambiguous as the term's definition. There was no justice behind the steel curtain that hung over the Empire and its people. No just laws. No fairness. It was a system. A system based on profit and power.

I dealt death in a minuscule degree when compared to the Empire, and killed whom they would have killed. Yet the machine that inhales life and creates death condemns me to the last abyss. I smiled at the irony, knowing that, while the final blow was at the hands of a pawn, at least I understood the game. 

The game was business. I was a murderer. A killer. A shadowy fiend. A threat to public opinion, and a test to the murdering scoundrels that littered Imperial security. When I worked for them, I was exactly what they wanted. Someone who could prune the decaying branches from the great big tree. But now, I was dangerous. Too dangerous. I did not complain, nor try to change my fate. My fate was final, that was clear. All I wanted to do was enjoy the last moments of elitism and irony, before succumbing to the lovely thud of the guillotine.

But I wondered. Would my final friend, my ultimate adversary, the face of my end, be as understanding? Would he realize? More importantly, was he even capable of listening?