The Twelfth Fire: A Tale of Youth

This was one the first stories I ever completed as a youth, about 20 years ago. I wrote is an introduction piece for a class and my partner was not too amused. He thought I was trying to be serious in a pathetic, goth sort-of-way, Man, those were the times. I've left it basically as it was, all those years ago, a chance to reflect on my own growth as a writer.

In Plain Sight

I am not who you think I am. This shell that I exist in causes separation from the world and everyone in it. The loneliness and separation is the hefty price I pay for immortality.

But is life eternal worth the things I’ve seen or the horrors I’ve done? The fires of regret in my heart rage like the fires of hell, waiting for my long overdue entrance.

I shall tell you of my terrible crimes and the downward spiral towards isolationof my soul from humanity.

The tale of my life began in 1899. My father was the leader of an underground satanic church. Underground because worship of the dark lord was not so popular at that time in Salt Lake City. 

My mother was unknown. Perhaps she was sacrificed or murdered,maybe even got away. My father never mentioned her.

What he did tell me was the power you could gain from hate towards someone or something. People hated Satan and my father drew and used that overflowing pool of power. He taught me how to use it and manipulate people, objects, and even the possibility of time and space.

Many forbidden arts I learned under his guidance and discipline. He told me I would learn where ultimate power came from, but the cost would be more than my young mind could imagine.

If nothing my father was the wisest person I ever knew. The townsfolk, however, did not agree. They stormed our communal farm after word leaked of my father’s practices.

At the age of twelve, my world as I knew it was burned to ashes and blown across the earth.

The town applied mob justice to my father. They sentenced him to burn at the stake and to burn in the eternal judgment of hell.

My father’s followers fled to the west and settled in San Francisco. I didn’t escape.

The next six years of my life were spent under the strict Mormon teachingsneeded to “cleanse” my soul.

The community took me in and made me renounce all I knew to be true and accept a phony idol of worship. Men can force me to say what they hear, but they can never change my will or soul.

The more I lived among those pathetic Jehovah worshippers, the more I separated myself mentally from all contact with them.

The training in the dark arts continued in secret, the family I lived with totally ignorant towards my late night rituals and the regular disappearance of the pet mice.

At the age of eighteen, I channeled my father’s soul to understand my purpose.

His tormented spirit said, “Murder that entire family and you will feel the true raw power that you were raised to absorb.”

I returned to bed and pondered his words all night. I had never killed a person nor wished to, but my lust for power nagged me as I tossed and turned. I finally resolved to do it the next night.

I planned and plotted how I would slaughter the hapless three boys and their mother and father all through the day at bible school.

I sharpened a dozen pencils and stuck them in my pocket.

My pulse steadily quickened through the day, my mouth constantly drying and a steady stream of sweat flowed down my back.

I arrived home and went straight to bed, claiming a sudden fever had struck me. I went to sleep fast, wanting to awake and fully alert for my crusade later that night.

I awoke and looked at the clock, 12:20, the witching hour would safeguard my actions and the demons should protect.

My “brothers” all slept in the same room with me, beds set up in rows like a barracks. I grabbed my pillow and pencils and snuck over to the youngest one’s bed.

I put the pillow over his mouth and nose, smothering him with my left arm. His eyes opened and gleamed into mine. I took the sharpened number two and drove it deep into his right eye, twisting it back and forth with my free hand.

His other eye widened and pupilated as blood started soaking my pillow and dripping of my hand.

He tried to struggle, but my weight was more than his small body could handle. After only thirty seconds his arms went limp, and he ceased breathing.

The middle child was as easy to kill as the small one, but then I glanced over at the biggest one knowing that he could throw my weight off him, remembering the constant beatings he would throw my way.

I took the sheets quietly off my bed, surprised he had not awoken yet. I threw one sheet over his upper torso and crawled under the bed, grabbing the ends and tied them together, not to tight as to awaken, but enough to hold him down. Another sheet for his lower half same as the first.

Putting the final over above his mouth, I yanked the ends together. As his eyes opened I put my foot over the tie and finished the knot. His body struggled fiercely, but the fabric held.

I jammed three pencils straight down into his neck as his muffled screams echoed inside my head. His pierced jugular spurted warm blood in my face with every beat of his draining heart. His breathing became short gulps of air as the steaming fluid continued to gush from his neck all over the bed and soaking through to the floor.

I looked at the clock as his breath and hemorrhaging finally stopped.

12:45. I had fifteen minutes to kill the last two.

I crept into the kitchen and found the two biggest knives available. The parent’s

door was always opened, and this night I accepted the invitation. I walked between their separate beds and held each knife over their outstretched necks.

Holding until the quite toll of the clock struck only once, I shouted the ancient words to complete this dark ritual and drove the blades down into and through their throats. They shouted at the same time, but were quickly gargled and choked out by their own seeping wounds.

I released the cutlery and dropped down to my knees.

An overwhelming sense of accomplishment and power flowed through my body, overpowering my senses, and causing me to black out.

When I awoke I felt the strength of five guerrillas, the awareness of a shrew, and the elevation of a bird.

My father had not lied.

This was the ultimate power I had been seeking. After it set in, the horrifying realization of what I had done took its place, and my heart felt the terrifying guilt of my evil deeds.

I ran out of the house, never returning there or the state of Utah. That was many years ago, yet my physical features have remained the same as my guilt.

Now that I have told you my dark secrets, I ask you to realize that such power cannot happen without a price, a price that can be high. 

I cannot take back the things I’ve done, nor do I seek your forgiveness.

I’m only writing this to explain why I have separated myself from all of mankind. My sins have made me alone.

Ralph Waldo Emerson described my pain with his words “You shall have joy or you shall have power, said God, you shall not have both.”