Radio Static

I will admit: I have killed a man. You've probably already made your mind on me, that I'm a monster and unfit to be a human, to which I agree, but please allow me to explain myself. In order to defend my crime in more detail, I must say the events which had led up to it.

For a long time now, I've had these episodes of unreality - this disconnect from all including from myself. First, there was a radio static in my ear which gradually grew louder and louder, until the sound of the outside world had became warped and distant, barely present. But each harsh sound from the real world pierced through me, causing an unbearable pain which crashed through my ear to my brain. The tinnitus was simply a precursor to what was to come.

A hallmark of these episodes was the barrier from myself and my surroundings. As though an aquarium glass was placed between me and reality, I had to look through the murky glass to see a more distorted and blurry world: one which was like a landscape for my dreams. It was in this view of reality I had seen people, those I "knew" well -- those who I should have, apparently, felt a deep connection to, but yet they felt like strangers, but strangers isn't quite right -- it doesn't properly portray their distance. They were the NPCs of a videogame, a background sprite which would occasionally mutter the same phrases "Hey, how you doing?" "I have to go somewhere." Videogame is exactly how to describe these episodes: I even felt as though I was watching everything from a third-person, like a spectre cast aside from my own body. I would watch my body, my droid-like body continue on with the day. My mind, a separate entity from the body. All things are closed behind a door with several locks -- my emotions and my actions, all foreign concepts to me in this state. I had to wonder if I was even real, if I was robot or perhaps dead -- was there an afterlife after all? Am I caught in its limbo for my heathenistic ways?

I had stood there, looking in the mirror to see the empty, remote eyes of a stranger staring at me. I looked at the stranger as he stared back. Then I noticed that I was covered in this weird flesh, so I pulled it and saw the stranger pull his own cheeks. Squishing the skin on his face. No it wasn't my body, but it must have been and at the realisation it was there was this incomprehensible feeling that crept up me, strangling everything in me to the point where I had to acknowledge that this was indeed the truth, this skin cloaked over me was my body and this strange simulation I had found myself in was actually reality.

It takes a toll on you. Not knowing what is and isn't, being an entity outside of your body and the world. Do you, dear reader, know what that feels like? My mind was slowly being destroyed, I felt nothing, everything felt like nothing, everybody felt like nobody, my senses warped, I couldn't leave-- everything had turned from me, leaving me in the margins, only allowed to watch everything. So, please take this into account when judging my character -- make the empathy you rave on about of use and attempt to place yourself in my shoes.

Let's get to the point: you don't wish to sympathise with this experience and instead want to hear about the murder, how I killed an innocent man. Well, as I've said many times, during these episodes I had a disconnect from my own emotions. I felt nothing. In such cases, a person resorts to methods to feel something -- most of which being unhealthy. I am not proud to say that I took up self-harm as a cope. Whenever I hurt myself, I felt a concrete pain which I knew was real, I was assured that everything was indeed not a dream. There was only one problem with this -- whilst my disconnect from my body was partially eased everything else in the world was still a distant realm with a deep sense of the uncanny. I wasn't quite sure how to stop this, episodes were becoming more and more frequent, meaning I had to face that torture more and more often. I had to think of a solution quick.

And find a solution I did, all whilst being in the haze of an episode worse than all which came before. Self-harm wouldn't help this time, the pain didn't snap me back to myself oh no, the pain was instead a separate entity from my body which was a separate entity to me. I couldn't think properly, my mind was racing. I did what spoke to me in the heat of the moment: I killed a stranger. Not the stranger NPCs which I apparently knew, a proper stranger which I had no real-world connection to. By murdering him, I was attempting to see if the outside was real, if there'd be a reaction, if there was a struggle and most importantly: if there was blood. Blood was the life-stream, the liquid which flowed through us allowing the brain to function. When we're dead, making of blood is ceased, so a blood flow is proof that someone is alive. My killing was an experiment to see if the world was real, if its inhabitants were alive.

So, I stalked a young man in the heart of the night -- I crept up on him and choked him out, making him unconscious, so I could pull out my blade and create a slit in his throat. Don't worry, I made sure to not leave even a trace of evidence -- all I wanted was for me to see the blood, not the authorities. My game had worked out, he was clearly a living man whom I stole life from. But I felt nothing. Not a shred of guilt or remorse in me. The hunt was, admittedly thrilling. With the killing I felt more alive.

I stood, relishing such pleasure from my sin, banqueting in my evil, knowing that I was indeed in reality -- at least until the next episode, when another innocent life will have to fall for me to come to again.