Someone once asked me if I thought the stars looked so beautiful by firelight because they were twin souls calling out to each other across the universe. I never answered them because it was a weird question asked by a weird person who, at the time, had been holding my car keys hostage so I couldn’t leave what turned out to be the sketchiest camping trip of my life. Or, one of them, at least.

  Perhaps that’s why I never really gave the question much thought. Now that I’ve had some time to think about it, I must say, the stars by firelight really do make for quite a fetching sight. Even if said firelight comes from the ceremonial braziers surrounding my bound body.

  “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to untie me so we can talk about this?” I make my last ditch, if somewhat lackluster, case for my life, giving my wrists a tentative wiggle. The bindings are still as tight as ever and I’m starting to lose feeling in my fingers and toes.

  A bored part of my brain immediately starts droning on about permanent tissue damage due to lack of oxygen, but once you find yourself tied to a sacrificial alter in the woods, considering the issue of potential long term damage seems unreasonably optimistic. I’m not a very optimistic person, as a rule. If I remember correctly, I gathered up the last remaining scraps of optimism I had and tossed that waste of time out the window after one of my elementary teachers set the school on fire. He did it for me, he said.

  No, my name’s not Damien, and no, I’m not the anti-Christ. I’ve just led what some might call a “challenging” life.

  “Cassius, don't be afraid. I’m not doing this to hurt you. I’m doing this for you.” A head appears above me, half blocking my view of the night sky and illuminated only by the flames from the braziers. Brown eyes, brown hair, normal in every way expect all the mark drawn across her face. "By offering you to the Lord of Dreams, I shall make you his favored one and you shall-"

  I stop listening because fuck if I know who the Lord of Dreams is, and fuck if knowing that actually matters.

  Hers is an only slightly familiar face, if I’m being honest. That feels like an embarrassing thing to admit when talking about my would be murderer, especially when they seem so fond of me and all, but I really can only vaguely remember her. An underclassman from college. Quiet and bookish. Harmless, I thought. We’d been almost friends, for a time. Or the closest to friends I tend to get. It lasted for a couple weeks maybe. Then I caught her picking up the things I threw away and realized she was just like all the rest. Never talked to her again.

  I hardly remember her because there was too much else going on in college. There was the professor who kept causing me trouble so they could rush in to “help” me, and then there was the stalker classmate who broke into my dorm with a knife and, yeah, I guess a couple others. She just got overshadowed. Here we are, potential murderer and potential murderee and I can’t even remember her name. Embarrassing.

  Come to think of it, I never did get my degree. Though, to be fair, based on the rather striking iconography she’s painted on her face, it would appear she’s also strayed somewhat from her previous calling of forensic chemistry.

  She, whatever her name was, places her hand on my face, caressing my cheek in the way only creepy people can.

  They all have the skill, I'm sure of it.

  I don’t try to avoid her touch. I don’t react at all really. I can remember when I would’ve reacted, flinched back and struggled against my restraints. That was years ago. People really can get used to anything. There’s only so many times you can be in a situation like this before you have no more fucks to give. But maybe that’s just the depression talking.

  “Your soul is too beautiful for this place. You deserve a better life. A better world. I’ll make sure you get there.”

  I let out a deep sigh, flicking my gaze back to the stars, resigned. She’d been saying stuff like that since I woke up here. Some nonsense about offering my soul to some divine something or other so I can finally be happy or some shit. Honestly, if I were looking for tips on happiness, I doubt I'd have asked her.

  Home-baked occultist just isn't a very reliable look.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  I don’t feel any anger, no sense of betrayal or outrage knowing this lunatic is going to kill me soon. I’m not even struck by a desperate upswelling of desire to live.

  I’m just tired. If it wasn’t her it would’ve been someone else. If not this situation than another.

  “Well, if you feel that strongly about it.” I mumble vaguely at the stars.

  In truth, from the way my life started no one could’ve guessed that things would end like this. I was born as the youngest child of a well to do, upper middle class family. My family was loving and warm with two happily married parents and an old brother and sister that dotted on me. The perfect, safe environment to grow up in, all but certain to set me up for a stable adult life.

  There was just the one problem.

  For whatever reason, and I truly have no idea why, I seem to attract the obsessive attentions of what can only be called extreme individuals. Age, gender, orientation, none of it matters. They follow me, watch me, try to get close. When that doesn’t work they go for harassment, kidnapping or they just attack me, all in the name of their twisted affections.

  When that sort of thing happens as often as it does to me and every new person is a possible threat, its difficult to remember the good things. Hence the depression. (Serotonin, you foxy minx, get your ass back here!)

  Maybe someone else would’ve been able to handle all this better than me, overcome and face these challenges with optimism and courage. Me? I just got so tired. Ground down by years of everything I took even a moment’s passing interest in being tainted by the obsession my unwanted admirers, by every life path I tried to take being blocked by one outrageous incident after another.

  In truth, I don’t particularly mind being murdered because breathing already feels like something of a chore. I don’t dislike living, mind you, but the way I'm living makes me feel like I'm already dead.

  I know if I were a normal jobless twenty-three year old with no career prospects and crushing depression I would probably be homeless by now. Luckily for my somewhat pampered ass, my family have been very understanding about everything and insisted I continue to live with them.

  Which, ironically, is kind of how I ended up here.

  Above me, my would-be murderer starts chanting something, the strange cadence snapping my attention back to her. She has a knife now, gripped in both of her hands before her chest like a slightly wild eyed knight with a very short sword. She hadn't stopped talking since earlier, but I tuned her out. Now I’m kind of curious what I missed.

  Whoever she is, she’s patient and quite the planner. I haven’t seen her in years, yet here she is, having this all set up and ready to go at a moment's notice just in case she got her chance. And she did, obviously. She actually got me the very first time I went out alone, which is harder than it sounds. I'm never really alone anymore.

  My family is very aware of the troubles I deal with, having been there for most of it. This has made them more than a little overprotective. Like trackers sewn into my clothes and checking in every couple hours kind of overprotective. I never thought much about it because I knew exactly where their worry came from and their precautions have saved me more than a few times.

  It wasn’t until I moved back in that I finally realized that perhaps they were just a little too happy to have me back. I didn’t want to accept that. Didn't even want to think about it, but years of paranoia wouldn’t let me ignore the thought either. So I tested it out. None of my "fans" react well when I try to put some distance between us, so I brought up the idea of me getting a job, maybe moving out one day.

  That went very poorly.

  Mom just started crying and soon after my car keys and wallet went missing.

  Dad got very serious and told me about the money he’d put aside so I never had to work, while the house got new locks and indoor cameras.

  My brother started having a lot of heart-to-heart conversations about how he “admired my will” but how I should “consider the risks” and realize that maybe living safely with the rest of the family was what was best for me.

  My sister suddenly had time to spend with me. All the time. And it somehow turned out that someone was always available to go with me whenever I wanted to go outside.

  I couldn't really deny it then. I knew the intense look in their eye too well by then to miss it. They weren't violent like so many of my unwanted fans, but that didn't mean they wouldn't use force if I pressed them. I think that, more than anything I had yet experienced, truly broke my heart.

  My depression got a lot worse after that.

  It took a couple years, but I did finally manage to slip away by myself. ...Only for this to happen. So maybe they were right about home being the safest place for me.

  “Cassius!” What’s her face yells out at the top of her lungs, clearly reaching the climax of our final moment together. Or maybe she noticed I wasn’t paying attention. “Heart of my heart! I send you now into the loving arms of the Lord of Dreams!”

  She raises the knife up into the air and I focus on the tip and the way it reflects the firelight. Bright like a promise. There are some questions I’ve been asking myself for the last few years that I’ve been trying not to answer.

  If even my family, my lovely, sane, once-so-safe family, could succumb to the insanity that surrounds me, than were all those people over the years really crazy? Or am I what made them like that? An incurable poison that twists everything it touches. If I am, than is me being alive even a good thing?

  With a scream the knife plunges down, straight into my heart.

  And that’s how I died.