Prologue #2
The guard’s bleak eyes travel to Sinn'ous, the only one to notice his presence.
They cloud in a pleading swirl of desperation, begging for help.
And they close on a shaky exhalation when Sinn'ous makes no move to assist. A man giving up hope of derailing his destiny to the floating clouds—if the fucker is a religious type who believes in a sky daddy.
Something tells Sinn'ous the guard is not a Satan enthusiast.
“Hurry up and stick it to him, we all wants a go.” An inmate standing by the guard sniffs. He is strung out and tweaking to such an extent his legs are visibly twitching, fingers fluttering over a crudely carved toothbrush handle.
“On it.” Another inmate steps forward.
The guard’s dread coiled pupils blow out when he takes in the sight of a second inmate, a glint of a weapon clutched in blood cracked knuckles.
The circle of hungry predators close in.
Egged on by a pack mentality, Sinn'ous will never understand. If you can’t kill outside of the protection of a flock, you shouldn’t kill at all.
If you can’t handle the heat of blame for the crime than hiding under a rock is all you’re good for.
Only the weak can’t handle killing alone.
And Sinn'ous is no weakling.
The glint of weary desperation in terrified eyes is like all the victims Sinn'ous has stood before. They always break, they always show fear. And he eats it in like an animal starved.
Dulling irises flicker back to him. So much life in them, a hope for a miracle that is not present in this scantly lit laundry room, smelling of stale soap and old piss.
He should step back and watch the show unfold.
And yet, Sinn'ous exposes the taser, turning it over in his hand, watching the guards eyes lock with it.
A questioning look passing over reddened features, exhaustion evident in the rapid rise and fall of his chest.
A guard on Sinn'ous’s side is a ticket he should collect.
He smiles, and lets out his inner beast to eat its fill.
Satan is my strength.
He zaps the closest man, watching their back arch and their muscles lock tight to the electricity injected into them. There is a collective gasp and a pause for everyone’s little minds to decipher what’s happening to their fellow flock member.
Sinn'ous attacks the next one without pause, pushing into the folds of shocked men, he disarms one by breaking his wrist. The crunch of bone is like music of the highest quality. As the men catch on and square up to defend themselves, his fist snaps out collecting one’s consciousness like a gift card and sending the man to the cold floor.
The shiv he’s acquired could have been a spoon in a former life.
No worries there, it slips smoothly into the eye socket of a charging junkie, who keeps coming at him despite the new eye accessory.
Sinn'ous slaps his palm over the protruding object—and between his stable stance, locked arm, and the junkie’s momentum—the shiv disappears right in there.
Dropping the next sack of disappointment at Sinn'ous’s feet.
Here’s to hoping someone can put up a decent fight, and be an adequate kill. He wipes the eye juices off his hand on his prison pants, already honing onto the next kill.
Sinn'ous lets out an animalistic growl as he tackles an inmate, sending them both crashing into one of the machines. The loud clang is echoed by his grunted breath escaping as a second man punches his side. His kidney kits back, sending a wave of fuck you into his nervous system.
He snaps his elbow out, and the feel of bone crunching under it lets him know he broke a nose. The high pitched squeal of a stuck pig also informs him he hit home on that strike.
The pig pitches backwards, arms pinwheeling as he topples over his downed flock mates. At the same time Sinn'ous crushes the windpipe of the man he has pinned in his hold. Thumbs digging in while he feels the erratic heartbeat pick up in tempo to the knowledge of its imminent death.
Sinn'ous doesn’t play with his food, he stabs the artery in the man’s neck with the guy’s own shiv, and turns to the next advancing inmate.
The man’s brown features are turning a dark scarlet, rage filled yells in threats of violence that Sinn'ous easily shoves out of his mind. None of the words hold meaning to him, they aren’t important. All he cares about is this next kill.
His ears take in nothing save for the sound of pain he delves out. His body still. Mind quiet. Focus clear. The only presence he can feel within his soul is that of the deity he will follow to the ends of hell and back. The eyes of Satan are watching him, approving of his sacrifices.
To Satan I pledge thee. He vows, and launches himself at the next one. Speaking to his deity through the bones cracking and the innards leaking. Stabbing and slashing. Blood splatters over his face, running into his eyes, causing them to itch in irritation. An irritation he grins at.
Each body becomes one in the same. Each kill connecting in blood shared. He can no longer see who is where. Which body belongs to which ark of blood splatter. It’s a messy scene he dives into, swimming through it to step out on the other side as a man who has had a full meal.
A meal not partaken alone, it’s one he gladly shares.
For you. With these sacrifices I re-pledge my loyalties. He sends down his prayers to a deity he serves.
The shiv in his hand—from where it came he can’t say—is a toothbrush he uses to open the closest stomach.
Well, he tries to, the weapon is too blunt to make it through the prison shirt via slashing.
So he stabs instead, and it sinks right in without a moment’s hesitation creating a home inside a warm body.
His hand releases the shiv to duck under a sloppy punch.
Coming face to face with the guy’s crouch he has a tickling urge to do something unpleasant.
He kicks the urge away, instead he grips above the knee and high on the thigh, pivoting his hips and driving his shoulder in to drag the man down.
They both hit the floor in a sloppy splat, blood sloshing under their grappling bodies.
It’s all too easy to lock his arms over a throat and cut the other’s air off in a chokehold.
Feeling every twitch and shudder of a dying man trying to starve off the inevitable.
All too soon the body stops its jerking, laying limp against Sinn'ous. He shoves it away and crouches ready for the next one. The next sacrifice to Satan. Only to discover that there is no next one.
He’s killed them all.
This was over far too quickly, it leaves a resentful taste on the back of his tongue. It could have been hours spent killing or minutes, it’s still never long enough. He could kill for days on end—with no end in sight—and it still wouldn’t be enough. It would still feel like a matter of seconds.
Sinn'ous straightens to his full height, rubbing both hands up and over his jaw and face, flicking off as much blood as he can.
His hair is a dripping mess that only a shower will solve, and the blood quickly runs back to attack his eyelashes, fighting to get back at his eyes.
He swipes it again and is met with an endless stream to replace it.
It looks like someone filled a leaf blower with red paint, hit reverse, and tried to repaint the whole room and everything in it. And during the frenzied painting the crew fell asleep and their apprentice said ‘fuck it’ and just painted right over them.
He scans the scene for any twitches of life he needs to crush—
Movement brings his gaze to a machine at the end of a row which cuts half way down the middle of the room.
He strides forward, stepping over bodies as he goes, and rounds the machine to find the guard pulling himself up into a sitting position.
His hands pressing against his upper thighs to stem the blood flow from unseen wounds.
His uniform is rich in so many dark patches he doesn’t have a chance of putting pressure on them all.
The cuffs are gone, either Sinn'ous mistook him for being restrained or he found his keys and removed them.
Pain filled eyes flick up to Sinn'ous, doing a double take over his blood-soaked body.
Teeth visibly gritted in pain, the guard’s voice is stalked by a ragged, shaky breath, “for a second there I thought you weren’t going to do anything.”
“I wasn’t.” Sinn'ous tone is flat, and emotionless.
“Ah, right. Well,” the guard laughs, a nervous sound to go with the shaking of his hands over his trembling thighs, the adrenaline visibly crashing, “I think it goes without saying, but thank you. And as far as I’m aware, I didn’t see the face of who helped me, I passed out.”
Sinn'ous digests the words for a moment. Then adds, “you owe me your life.”
The guard sends a nervous glance to the door, eyes flickering back to the carnage spread over the tiled floor, then to Sinn'ous’s towering form. His Adam’s apple bobs on a swallow. “Sure, yeah.”
Sinn'ous dips his chin on a nod, neither caring if the guard is lying or telling the truth. He takes accountability for his actions, no regrets, and he wouldn’t change a second of it. If that means he has to spend his life behind bars, so be it.
He turns his back on the room, and the cooling bodies strewn over it, leaving the guard to deal with the clean up.
Stripping out of his soaked prison orange he wraps the soiled clothes in a towel and drops them onto the guard’s lap.
Using a clean-ish towel he finds at the bottom of a folded pile he scrubs at the blood in his hair and on his face.
Drying as much as he can to prevent trailing a path to the showers.
The soles of his feet are dried last, he then steps onto a blood-free patch of floor by the closed laundry door.
He grabs a clean pair of prison greys off a table, and pulls on the pants, adjusting the tight fit over his thick thighs.
The shirt is next, tugging it over his head to settle on his blood smeared torso.
He’ll wash his body in the showers, and dump the clothes in a bin, then fake like someone stole his prison orange.
He’s sure hazing the new guy isn’t above the men in this shithole.
Either the guards believe him, or they don’t.
There isn’t much he can do about it. He doesn’t regret his actions, but that doesn’t mean he needs to make it easier for them to lock him up and throw away the key.
And wearing his blood-soaked prison orange would be harder to explain away than walking around butt-ass naked.
His mind links a thought—no guards have come barreling in guns blazing. Yes, it’s a minimum security prison, but surely someone is monitoring the cameras?
A glance around at the rough ceiling reveals a thorough lack of cameras. He hums in thought at the very obvious hazardous-to-ones-health oversight on the prison’s part. Do they care for their guards’ safety?—his eyes come to rest on the downed and stabbed guard—clearly not.
Should be something the prison board looks into fixing.
Not that he can find any complaints. His lawyer did warn him not to make waves, to keep his head down and stay out of trouble until he can clear up his charges and get him out.
His lawyer’s voice is choppy in his head, his words of warning to not kill anyone and get sent to a maximum security facility.
A lack of cameras is a sure way to follow his lawyers exasperated advice.
A look into the corridor shows old as fossil cameras plugged into the ceiling at varying intervals down the empty space. He tips his face back to the guard, who is halfway off the floor using a machine to balance on.
“You’ll take care of the cameras.” Again, not a question, it will either happen or it won’t and he’ll deal with whatever comes next.
The guard simply nods, lips pinched and eyes furrowed in open pain.
Sinn'ous steps out, the door shutting at his back, his body thrumming in a wash of endorphins and adrenaline. A palatable taste he can sense as if it were a tangible presence hovering behind him.
A dark grin spreads his lips, chased out by a laugh which bounces down the starkly lit corridor.
He spreads his arms out wide, almost touching both sides of the narrow corridors white brick walls.
The bricks are painted in the same way as the rest of the prison, a lumpy coat of mouthwash white, like a landlord might paint over everything they want to hide from the new tenant until it’s too late for them to do anything about it.
Something to satisfy the prison health inspectors or human rights activists?
“Hail Satan,” he bellows to no one in particular. No one needs to be here to hear it. He heard it and Satan heard it. That’s all that matters.