Love In The Mind Of A Psychopath (Paranoia spin-off)

The Beginning Of The End

I was never told that you can actually feel emotions. Physically, that is. I always thought of them as chemical reactions in the brain, the influence of hormones and neurotransmitters and synapses galore.

It's all fun and games while everything is OK. Love is a warming emotion, I remember feeling it what feels like a lifetime ago. I remember how it would spread through my chest, intertwining with my veins and nerves, giving the illusion that it was the very thing that made my heartbeat, sustained me. I couldn't imagine a world not feeling it, I remember being afraid of the thought. I understand all those songs that compare love to a drug, because I was undoubtedly a junkie who was always yearning for a hit.

Sadness, the few times I have allowed myself to feel it, is a draining emotion. I don't care for it much. The feeling of my entire body somewhat deflating because of thoughts in my brain is far too human for me.

Heartbreak has to be the most physical of all, however. A physical pain, an honest to god ache, in your chest that doesn't seem to stop nor pause for a moment. An indescribable feeling of being numb while at the same time being hopelessly filled to the brim with a wailing kind of agony, and never seeming to have the right words to explain the pure torture of it all. Even in sleep when my body numbed itself for a while night runs freely, my mind will torment me with thoughts I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Replaying the moment I knew I would never feel the love I so desired and required anymore.

I still get flashbacks, fragments of the memory forcing themselves into my conscious mind, completely uninvited and ruthlessly abrupt.

We had been arguing, and I don't even remember about what. I had decided to get her flowers, because whatever it was, I didn't have enough pride to let it stop me from getting to hold her, kiss her, feel the feeling of her skin on mine so all could be right in my world once again.

Clutching the bouquet of roses in my hand, bright orange, her favourite, I entered the house calling after her, wanting her to know immediately I was looking for her, that I wanted- needed - her presence. I listened in but there was no sound of her small footsteps pattering about the house giving me any indication of which room she was in. I wondered, and feared, if she had gone to bed without me, because that meant I might have to wait another night without being in her good books.

I scaled the stairs, feeling nervous, a jarring emotion only she could bring out in me. The door to our bedroom fell into my sight, I gripped it blissfully, swinging the door open to reveal my own unravelling in front of my eyes.

Holding her limp body in my arms, her face lifeless, motionless eyes, possibly the only eyes that saw me in a positive light, staring back up at me not picking up any input anymore. Her skin cold and greying, wiping away the sun-kissed life she had lived. A forceful tear in her shirt, above her left breast, left bloodied and covered in flesh and ripped muscle, once perfectly designed to keep her most important organ protected. Slightly lower down was her swollen belly, holding the unborn life of our child. I remember hope sparking up on me, could I possibly salvage one life from this mess? Deceased mothers are known to still hold live babies for a few hours after death, provided no wound was afflicted to the womb.

My eyes began to frantically look for a knife, the small amount of anatomical knowledge I knew from briefly bullshitting my way into medical school for a year flashing into my mind in a jumbled mess. My nose was desperately trying to ignore the fact that she had been dead for quite some time. In a blur, I had raced to the kitchen and grabbed a large knife and returned back to the scene of my worst nightmare.

I pressed the silver tip to her stomach, roughly around the area I had seen women have a C-section scar. I took a deep breath and fell quiet. Silence surrounded me. And that's when it hit me, silence. There was no heartbeat in the room. No signs of life coming from her stomach.

The knife tumbled to the floor as my hand felt limp. I was seconds away from cutting open my dead wife's body. I shuffled away from the body until my back hit the wall, bringing my knees up to my chest and I wrapping my arms around them, eyes fixated on her body as I began to- much like a lost child- sob.

But that isn't the best place to start this story, because that's where I deem that the story ends. I want to start at the beginning.

Let's get one thing straight: I am not the good guy. Ive bought myself a ticket to hell a million times over, you are not supposed to root for me, or hope all my problems will solve themselves. You are supposed to be terrified me, hope you never run into me, hope you don't know anyone like me and pray your daughter doesn't date me.

Most importantly, you should feel no sympathy for me. But you do, don't you? The image of me clutching roses and stumbling upon my wife's deaf body coaxed some sorrow for me into your being, even though you know it shouldn't.

That's one of the many complexities of human psychology. Perspective. There is always a bad guy, but who it is... is what comes into debate.

Is the serial killer the one to blame because he is bad, or is it his parents for neglecting him or abusing him and making him that way? Or, if people are truly born bad, is he really to blame for simply being a product of his biology?

It's a slippery slope when you start getting into details. Regardless of your viewpoint, humans have been known to be drawn to the people who truly are the worst of the worst, dare I say even care for them.

That's what I plan for you. I want to make you question your own innocence and sense of good and bad in the face of something objectively and utterly evil.

So I'll tell you my story, but I ask you to leave your fears at the door. They have no worth here, they will get you nowhere. Come with a blank slate. Forget what you've heard of me and learn what you think of me.

Welcome.