Thick smoke filled the small room and crept into the boy’s nostrils while he slept. The boy jolted awake and looked around to try and find the source, but instead he saw the shadowy figure of a teenager standing in the doorway. The figure was wearing a dark sweatshirt and was holding what appeared to be a can of gasoline. His arm extended towards the back of the room and the boy’s gaze followed it. On the wall behind him was a sentence written in blood, “God has abandoned us.” The boy looked back but the shadowy figure was no longer there. Panic began to set in and the boy rushed to his doorway to escape the burning building but the door was lock. He tried to scream but the smoke filled his lungs and all that came out was a violent cough. That was the last noise he would ever make.
Minutes later when the fire department arrived, they were baffled to see that only the little boy had perished from the fire. His parents were found brutally murdered by some sort of blunt weapon. Nobody in the house survived, so nobody could tell the firemen that a teenager had broken in, killed the adults with an axe, and used their blood to write a cryptic message on the little boy’s wall before locking him in the bedroom.
The teenager responsible for the crimes was named Alexander Reese. Unknowingly to him, he suffered from schizophrenia. Some nights, he’d wake up to a demonic man shrouded in darkness standing over his bed. He also wore a long, dark hood that shielded his face. This dark man was named “The Master,” and constantly told Alexander what to do. Usually it was nothing too bad, like taking a small item or two from a supermarket or cheating on a test, but now he was telling Alexander to murder a family by setting their house on fire. Without any hesitation, Alexander would nod his head and do whatever The Master said.
One late night in February, Alexander woke up when a cold breeze blew by his face. His eyes opened to see The Master kneeling over him. “Kill…kill the man who sleeps behind the downtown library…God has abandoned him along with the rest of the world’s sinners.” As if he were in some kind of hypnotic trance, Alexander slowly nodded his head and stood up to fulfill The Master’s orders.
The night air was freezing cold and the sky was a beautiful shade of grey. Alexander went down street after street and after about thirty minutes of walking, reached the library. Behind the dark building was a middle-aged homeless man sleeping inside of a garbage bag. Next to the sleeping man was an empty beer bottle. The man was clearly an alcoholic as well. Alexander kneeled down and picked it up, feeling the smooth glass against his fingertips. Then with a sudden move of his arm he shattered it against the pavement. The piercing noise of shattering glass awoke the homeless man, just in time to see Alexander pounce over him and stick the pointed piece of broken glass into his throat. “I’m sorry, I had to,” whispered Alexander. The homeless man choked on his own blood for about a minute before his eyes slowly shut. He was at peace with himself as he died.
When he got back to his bedroom, The Master was waiting for him. “Very good…” he said while slowly clapping his hands. “You’ve pleased me much more than I could’ve asked.”
“Thank you Master. I must ask though, why did I kill that man?”
“You dare question me?”
“I mean no disrespect.”
“Hmm. I suppose I could reward you for your hard work. You murdered that man because you wanted to.”
Alexander was puzzled. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“Think, you fool. Use your common sense. Who do you think I am?”
“You’re all-powerful…”
“If I’m all-powerful, then you are too.” The Master lifted his hood to reveal his true face. Alexander was looking into his own eyes; he was The Master. “I merely exist in your mind. You channel your thoughts through me because you’re too afraid to express them yourself. I am the dark side of you. The side that you’re afraid to show to others. Do you understand?”
Tears began to flow from Alexander’s eyes. “I murdered innocent people… What have I done?”
“You won’t be found, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“That kid…I set a kid on fire! He had a life ahead of himself, and I killed him for what? Because ‘God’ abandoned him?
The Master laughed. “Isn’t it funny what people think? They believe in an almighty God and they do it because they’re afraid. They’re afraid of what the truth really is, so they create this imaginary being. People are so worried about what happens when the die so they create an elaborate fantasy about Heaven and Hell because they can’t grip the reality that when you die, you’re gone! You’re never coming back and you’re done living. Just like the boy, and the middle-aged parents. And the disgusting alcoholic. They’re gone, forever. And there’s nothing you or I or anybody can do about it.”
That was the last time Alexander ever saw The Master. A day after murdering the homeless man, he went to a doctor where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. The medicine he was prescribed helped him immediately. Although he was never blamed for the murders, he couldn’t help but think that he should turn himself in. It would be the right thing to do, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
The police officers investigating the homeless man’s death couldn’t help but consider the possibility that the same man who commit this crime was the same man who burned down the Robinson family’s house. The only piece of evidence they could find was the broken bottle used to stab the man in the throat. It was a relief to the entire police force when they successfully found finger prints on the glass. A few hours of running the prints through the database led to one match.