Blood on Fire

He couldn’t help it. The smell of blood enticed him, controlled him, and even drove him to do questionable things that he sometimes wished he could forget.

The hunting of unsuspecting people that went to his school, the capturing of his best friend�"his first victim from three years ago�"and slicing him into ribbons as slow as he possibly could while they could scream their pain away.

No, Riley Blair wasn’t just in love with the smell and the sight of blood; he was obsessed with it and did everything he could so he couldn’t forget about it.

Like today, he was just starting his break from his thirteenth victim named Coraline Hollowitz. A girl that was seventeen�"the same age as him�"and taking the same classes as he was with long, straight blonde hair and green eyes like the last victim and skin that would rival any porcelain doll.

She was such a damn fighter too, and he liked it when his captives were feisty. Showed they had back bone,and Coraline definitely had it, but she had a low pain tolerance and passed out quickly when he worked on her.

“If only she stayed awake long enough for me to finish what I wanted to do.” Riley muttered to himself in a pout as he cleaned off his choice of weapon this hour; a regular kitchen knife you’d use to chop vegetables.

But it was only a few minutes later when he heard a groaning behind him and quickened breathing that he could tell she was waking up for more. Maybe the fire in her eyes finally died, or could it still be there?

Turning around, he leaned back against his work table that held a vast array of weapon choices ranging from boning knives�"for carving pieces of flesh off bone a chunk at a time�"to a double headed ax�"for when he wasn’t in a patient mood and wanted it done and over with quickly�"and watched as she slowly regained her painful consciousness. He could see her shivering in cold and in pain.

Walking up to her, he finally took off the tape over her mouth and pulled out the gag. He wanted to hear her speak now. She had thrilled him and in doing so he’s giving her a chance to say her final words before he decided to finally end it all after five hours of playing with her.

“You get this one chance to speak. Do so wisely because there’s nothing you can say to make me change my mind. When I find the perfect victim for my current muse, they never leave until I’m completely done with them.” Riley tells her as she coughed a bit.

“Why did it have to be me?” She asked him, her head down low because she didn’t have the strength to keep it up like she wanted.

 “Because I like you, and usually I carve the people I like. I do this because I want to feel what’s flowing inside that wonderful, voluptuous body of yours. It’s so plump and juicy looking that I just want to see how it parts when a knife cuts it and how fast your life force drains from you.” He states quietly but loud enough for her to hear every word, every bit of emotion he could muster into those words. “And besides, if it wasn’t you that I chose, it would have been some other prospect in the same place as you.”

“How can you find joy in this?”

“It’s what you people call a compulsion. Like how people are obsessed with what makes you happy, I’m obsessed with this just the same. Blood from others makes me feel alive, and yours will make me feel even more alive than anyone elses’! It’s because you have that fire in your eyes!” He tells her, almost screaming as he threw his hands in the air and stood up, taking step back before turning and grabbing something from his work table; a long handled hatchet.

“I will remember you and compare every prospect after this, to you. I may even be disappointed and move on somewhere new and pick prospects up in some sorry sack city where the real fish swim.” He muses as he turns back around to face her, a grin plastered on his face as he tried to keep himself from laughing out loud.

Suddenly his face, from this serene stare changing to one baring a crazy grin, bared down at her as the hatchet came down on her left hand that was tied to the arm of the chair she was sitting in and chopped it clean off. Quickly he did the same with the right, not wanting to miss a beat as her blood curdling scream erupted from her throat moments later once the initial shock wore off.

They were in the middle of nowhere, so no one could hear her screams.

“That’s it! Give me that beautiful music and that brilliant, vibrant life force that’s inside you!” He screamed in a maniacal laughter over her as he aimed higher on her right arm and cut off more at her elbow, right at the joint where it was easiest.

From there, he couldn’t stop himself. He kept bringing the hatchet down on her until there was nothing left to cut and her screams, her blood curling screams were long, long over and the only thing that could be heard was the flowing blood from her corpse and the laughter that still rippled from him in waves that didn’t seem to have an end.

Even without life in Coraline’s eyes, the fire was still there, frozen in time until someone closed them forever.

Author's Note

Okay, this has got to be one of the darkest pieces I've ever written. Sorry for something so sick and twisted! The beginning from this had been plaguing my thoughts for a few days and typing it out led to this.