EXE

Disorientation

"Tch!", she clicked her tongue in utter disappointment, "To be thinking about that for no reason at all", kicked an empty can, innocently laying on the street where it was abandoned, in annoyance. "No NeXt came by, suppose they're pretty scared now, huh? Suppose the bosses softened up after the news, letting employees leave early.."

Her hands, equipped with gloves, itched under her hoodie's pockets. Her legs, restlessly shaking, albeit slight while trying to balance her body for its purpose of walking in a monotone tempo that echoed through the silent, empty night. Grinding her teeth, well hidden behind her mask, in frustration.

Dawn would break soon, and no blood was shed by EXE tonight, this fact made EXE restless, and after countless curses under her breath, she finally reached where she needed to be; the abandoned mansion she so comfortably invaded before had apparently become her safehouse, of sort, for the moment, at least.

She would usually release her battle uniform before resting, as sleeping with mask, gloves and shoes could prove to be rather uncomfortable. Yet tonight, tonight when she had not laid hands on any body, pierced no flesh, and marked no crimson X composed of fresh blood and torn skin, she didn't feel like it. She was not in the mood. She just dropped her body on the beat-up sofa. Hard as it was, her body was numb and she wouldn't mind the pain nonetheless. She closed her eyes, all her frustration sucked up into a void somewhere in the corner of her heart. She slept the day away, ignoring bird tweets and bright sunlight rising slowly from the horizon.

~

She woke up in cold sweat, she never had a dream so vivid before. In fact, perhaps it wasn't a dream, more like a nightmare. Rushes of images buzzing in and out, flashing before her very eyes which were forced open while bright, burning lights shone directly towards them, various experiments were tried on her, and an equal or more; she couldn't tell, she was completely numb, shots from the syringe injected into her bloodstream and flowed across her immobilized body, strapped to a hard concrete table by tight leather belts...

From her teary eyes, she could only make out blurry, shadowy figures huddling in a dark corner of the dim room they're in, with only the lights that relentlessly attacked her already exhausted eyes for illumination.

The shadows scattered from the huddle in shock, one particular shadow moving steadily towards her, ignoring the other shadows trying to usher it back into the darkness.
"Nahh, I'm here for the blood!", a weird mix of cheekiness and ignorance in his tone, like a student justifying his procrastination in doing a homework, the shadow smiled wryly, raised one arm, holding steel that reflects the lights...

~

Her mind began unraveling, she felt disoriented, she was not in her right mind. She instinctively buried her head between her raised knees, and in the face of this feeling; fear, nervousness, weakness, whatever it was she was feeling, she could only laugh. The unhinged laughter, muffled by her mask, stopped only when she recovered from the nightmare.

"Tonight's hunt...", she muttered, a wicked smile resembling the shadow of her dreams kept a secret by her mask, "... Will be a bit different", and so she set off into Extensia, leaving the mansion a hollow ground, as it should be.

"Another murder?", the officer shook his head in depression, "First we have THAT case, and now a serial killer that literally crosses people off?"
"Thanks a lot, Captain Obvious, you are VERY helpful in this case", Pierre scoffed, sarcasm flavoured all over, "However, whilst the corpse does have an X on his neck and decapitated head o'er there, there's no evidence that it is sub-X that did this, maybe with an accomplice since beheading was not in their MO, and if they moved towards this new method, we'd best prepare for more disturbing scenes like this. If you recall, all their victims died in an alleyway, the decapitation of the good sir here shows that perhaps our little perp decided to mix it up a little ", he motioned to a small memo preserved in a zipper bag, scrawly words written in dry blood, it seemed, "And if it WAS Sub-X, then never would I have thought they would be  so kind as to leave such a be-au-ti-ful message ", the beautiful part sounded deliberately emphasised with a hint of condescendence.

Indeed it seemed highly unlikely for the mysterious Sub-X to suddenly leave a message out of nowhere, and the eighth victim was also the one distinct from the rest, putting it in the first murder's category. The memo, messy as it was, wrote,
" I was hungry
I had no money
The Head refused me
Had to get a bit messy
Sorry :)"
"Hilarious", Pierre rolled his eyes, "Now they apologise, after eight souls claimed, well, OKAY! I guess we'll accept your apology and forget this ever happened!!", his tone getting angrier and voice getting louder as he spoke, anger directed to the winds, silently whistling around the damp atmosphere surrounding the convenience store storing a manslaughter.
"Well, at least we know Sub-X is human, that's a lead, right sir? I mean, they get hungry, as we can see from that note..", a stammering Jeff said, "Why yes, Mr. Rye, indeed!", Pierre went back to his soft, friendly tone with, as Jeff realised, an obvious threat coming his way, "I guess now we can cross out the guillotines, ghosts and beasts and supernatural thingamajigs out of the suspect list! GENIUS, Mr. Rye, we can now CONFIRM it was a human that did this!", Pierre bellowed in rage, "Humorous coroners, genius killers, and HELPFUL aides. Perfect. Just perfect."
Pierre stared at the head, literally, of the store, which stared back at him with lifeless eyes, smeared in red like the rest of the store.
'Had to get a bit messy', the store was turned upside down, ransacked like a storm exclusive to the inside of the store had occurred, a tornado of blood.

Upon checking the store's records, some food and drinks were missing, and no fingerprints were found on a thorough investigation, although no money from the cash register was taken.

I mean, why go for money if for the rest of my life, I'll just find NeXts to murder? How would those mean greens help me? I can just mark owners of the things with an X and make ithem my own, but eh, world domination sounds too much of a hassle... So, I'll just do what I gotta to survive, ya know? Sorry, Head, you did not run into my line of vision, however I hunger, and thirst, since you were uncooperative and you saw me anyway, I had to make sure you don't alert anyone...
Or maybe you would have once the officials found your dead body anyway, ah well, it's about time I put Extensia on alert, and if it had already been, more alert of my EXE-istence....

Yes, I had to
Just let me enjoy my personal feast
Please

Her nightmare now completely behind her, and her increasing confidence gradually converted into a maddening urge to bring more ends to more NeXt, only this time, she won't wait for them to come to her line of vision, instead she'll come to them, at random, blade-like hands ready to cross more lives out,
ready to immortalise them with her marks, all for the heck of it, all because she felt she had to.

~
SMASH!
Another head.
All to stop the voices and the headaches they cause me... :)