The murderer

CONSCIENCE

Through the ornate, yet antique telescope that had been plastered with gems of a whole plethora of colors and elements, he stared intently with one eye at her. She, a slim, opulent cashier with a silky head of ebony hair, looked gorgeous in a fanciful long black dress. She was his dream target. Exhilaration began to overwhelm Kane, accompanied with a surge of adrenaline. As he peeled his eyes of the telescope, another warped formulation of plan began to present itself to him. He started trembling at the thought of it. It was not much of fear that made him quiver as that was not the first time he had done it. Maybe it was because a chilly breeze that came up. The bridge was too high, yet it was the good place for keeping track of her. Pretending to be a tourist, Kane had been waiting for week, observing her like a vulture would do to its prey. Kane came down the bridge, towards his target. Though he knew it was beyond morality to appease his desire for more money to gamble, she would be the last.
She would be the last, he whispered.
The garden was deserted apart from the occasional tourists who visited the Super Trees and himself. The lights on the tree were too vivid that no one would focus or see anything happens on the ground. Everything was blurred and lost in the gathering darkness under the canopy. Kane had been tracking her daily routine and came to know that she would always be the last employee to leave the casino just after midnight and pass by the garden ten minutes later. Kane was well-hidden within the dancing shadows, seeming to mock him of his unquenchable thirst.
With movements that were inaudible even to bats, with stealth that was comparable to ninjas, Kane crept out of the shrouds of darkness. He increased his pace. Within a handkerchief dosed with chloroform, he clasped his fingers, with the handkerchief muffling her. Resistance was put up, but the effort was merely futile. Kane began dragging his prey into the abyssal darkness of an alley.
Within a few minutes, Kane took all her valuables. Nothing was left behind. But that was not enough for him. Get carried away by a surge of adrenaline, Kane wanted to take her heart to mark the end of his atrocious acts. Within few seconds, with a well-prepared scalpel of his, he began to cut her open. The tip of the scalpel touched the bare chest of his victim and it soon worked itself down. By then, the heart of the victim had already stopped. With invaluable experience from past incidences, he skillfully picked the heart out. The temporary satisfaction of appeasement was all consuming as Kane began showing signs of hyperventilation. He laughed, a harsh, sinister laugh. He took a moment to rest as well as to admire his work as he stared at the lifeless body, cloaked in crimson blood.
Back in his apartment, he put the valuables aside and stared at the heart. Though it was not in perfect shape, he admired himself for the work that he had never done before. To Kane, the heart served as the end of his horrible act but to his guilty conscious, it was a trophy for his weeks of bidding and waiting before his “performance”. Suddenly, he felt a sense of guilty passed by his thoughts. He remembered the way her shrill voice pierced his ears as the stiletto blade found its way into her chest cavity impaling her. The hot, copper-smelled blood that oozed out onto his hands, the knife falling to the floor with a loud clatter, the way her limpid eyes swelled with tears, and the way her body became limp and lifeless as all color drained from her face, terrified him. He was a killer, a cold blooded murderer, so cold like the icy wraiths of insanity-ridden chains.
“Why did you kill me?”-her voice kept reverberating in his head. He ruffled, put a hand on either side of his head and rocked himself to and fro, droning to himself like a child whose grief has gotten beyond words. There was a shroud of silence surrounding him. He wondered why silence was so deafening. Maybe it was just his inner voice that kept constantly resonating in his head. Maybe he was tormented.
He looked at the jar. The once empty jar now laid with the fresh heart of his “last” victim. The heart was so beautiful, he thought. The feelings when he held the red object on his hands were overwhelmingly pleasant. He tried to suppress his abysmal thought but it was simply too much. Finally, his guilty conscience prevailed.
The urge arose again. Just one more time, he thought.
Just one more.