1 Matthew Silver

What is the most important thing in this world?

Some people may say money.

Others power.

The more idealistic may say friends and family.

The more romantic love.

And some may even claim ridiculous answers like tasty food or good booze.

Everyone has an answer and I am no different. In fact my answer is a rather typical one too. In my opinion the most important thing in this world is to enjoy yourself.

Money and power and even family, friends and love, all of those things are a means to that end.

Humans do most things in the hopes of pleasure.

If you disagree then may I ask you a few questions?

Why do we go to school?

Most people will answer something like to get a good job.

But why do we want a good job?

To make lots of money is the obvious answer.

And why do we want money?

And the answer to that is something along the lines of to live a good life, full of pleasure and luxury.

The main course of our lives is all for the sake of enjoying ourselves.

Or at least that is how I would justify my answer.

But at the end of the day this question is one of those that cannot have a definitive answer and you may believe it is similar to questions like "what is the meaning of life?" And "Should we really be putting beans on toast?" there simply isn't one answer to these philosophical questions.

Most people ponder such things in the shower or in the middle of the night when they really should be sleeping but I find myself doing such things much more often than most. As I think about why that might be I come to the conclusion that perhaps I have too much free time.

You may be wondering why I have so much free time. Well the answer is simple, I am unemployed and I liked it this way but If this continues I may find myself knowing a bit too much about philosophy and not enough about having friends and social skills.

Don't get me wrong I'm not entirely socially inept nor am I a shut in, if you don't include my lack of job I live a pretty normal life, I go out drinking with friends on a weekly basis, I keep in shape going to the gym 5 times a week and on a run twice a week, I even go on a date every so often though nothing ever came from any of them.

*Knock* *Knock*

Bringing me out of my thoughts was a knocking on the door.

See I told you I had a normal social life.

*Knock* *Knock*

Another 2 knocks came and this time louder than before, it appears my visitor is impatient.

"Matthew Silver! Open this door right now!"

It appears that my unexpected visitor was not proof of my immaculate social life but rather my mother. Though perhaps I shouldn't be thinking about that and I should be opening that door, so i spring into action and dash at the door of my one bedroom apartment and quickly unlock the door to see a relatively tall, at 5 foot 8 inches, middle aged woman with short blonde hair and clear blue eyes,traits I didn't managed to inherit instead getting black hair and brown eyes, I called this woman my mother but surprisingly that is not her name, no her name is Beth Silver.

"What a surprise you're at home at 2 pm." It appears my mother is in the mood to sarcastically mock me, how wonderful.

"What brings you all the way out here mum?"

"Well, you see, me and your father were considering a vacation and decided upon coming out here to the big city and I graciously decided to come visit you before we begin our festivities."

"You came to pester me about getting a job?"

"No, well kind of, we did in fact come to London for a vacation but I did visit you for that purpose."

Speaking of London why on earth would anyone come here for vacation and in the middle of September no less, it's really cold and sad, and all we have in exchange is a glorified ferris wheel, a big clock and pubs, a whole lot of pubs. I think I've come to a conclusion, my parents came here to get wasted and as a bonus lecture me.

"Alright, whatever, come in."

As we walked through the apartment my mother began to ask questions.

"How is job hunting going?"

"I'm making progress I even have an in person interview this afternoon at 3."

I had lied through the skin of my teeth, not only did I not have an interview at 3 I hadn't even begun job hunting yet and I didn't intend to anytime soon either.

"That's brilliant! After all you can't just keep living of the money you earned from this crypto thing 5 years back."

Ah yes, another one of my lies, I never once invested in a cryptocurrency but I told my mother that because I knew she would never question it as she knows nothing at all about crypto. Where my money actually comes from is slightly different.

"That's the answer you wanted right so would you like to stay and chat over a cup'a or would you like to leave?"

"I wouldn't say answer I wanted, I would have preferred for you to go to university."

"I know, mother I know."

Seriously I know a little too much she's told me at least 100 times before.

"I suppose we can chat over a cup of coffee. After all there's about an hour until 3"

I begin to open a pack of instant coffee discreetly as to not notify my mother of the use of instant coffee as she would likely rather die than drink it but she won't notice if you actually pour it out and serve it to her.

"Ah yes Matthew did you see the news this morning?"

"Hm, no I didn't, what was on it?"

"There's been another body found, a woman in her 30s with just the skeleton and a few organs left the rest was carnage. Strangely they say the skin was only torn apart at the front. People are saying it could be some monster by how destroyed the corpse was. Ain't that scary?"

"What? You still believe in monsters at your age?"

"Getting cheeky aren't we?"

"No, mum, I would never."

On a more serious note this is the fourth mangled corpse in a little over a fortnight. As well as that considering the strange circumstances of death and the remaining skin, skeleton and a few organs, it's pretty clear we're dealing with a seriously messed up killer, though strangely they don't seem to have a victim preference after all there have been an equal number of men and women and age doesn't seem to be much of a factor either as victims have been at random ages, occupations vary as well. Everything seems to be at random, maybe it is some sort of monster. Thinking about this I decided to Google the case after serving coffee.

"Ah right, me and your father are thinking about riding the London eye."

My mother started going on about something unimportant. I looked over the case it seemed that the organs that remained untouched were the brain, liver, kidneys and pancreas which are all inedible or perhaps more to the point not edible without proper preparation , so we can assume our monster is no expert chef. This pretty much confirms it then whatever is killing these people is eating them after death.

"You should totally visit the London eye, it's so fun." A meaningless response, full of deceit and lies. Don't visit the London eye it's boring.

So the last question is about whether it's a human doing this or an animal. My first instinct is of course an animal due to the state of the bodies being utterly destroyed, you'd presume that a human would eat more neatly and more to the point not as much, the date of death of the bodies is always 3 to 5 days apart that's too much food for a human. But I don't quite believe that as there have been no sighting of large beasts around here and considering the frequent eatings of one every 4ish days the only animal I can think of is a bear and that animal is not nocturnal so it most likely would have been spotted wondering around in the middle of the day, not to mention a bear in the middle of London is not just a little strange. Of course it could be a group of smaller animals but the bodies are torn to shreds said animals would have to have large thick claws and be rather large which once again brings us to lack of spotting of the animal. For the animal to not be spotted no matter what it is, it would have to be at least somewhat intelligent to a degree, I just cannot see any animal managing to stay completely hidden from the police it would have to know which places it was least likely to be seen when it murders something. Finally this most recent victim was attacked from the front meaning that the killer was right in there eye line and they didn't run away or rather they weren't afraid of them, so it couldn't be an animal. In other words this killer is no monster but rather a human. But wait why eat so much? This isn't just one cannibal it's a group! But why mangle the corpse? When it was only one person it could be some strange fetish but with a group that looks less likely, which implies this was a deliberate act perhaps to throw off the police or maybe even cause panic? How exciting!

"Don't you agree Matthew?"

Ah it appears my mother has had a whole conversation while I was in thought. What should I say? Best to just agree.

"Yes, I agree wholeheartedly."

"Oh really, so you agree that the poor woman deserved to be killed? Hah… in future please listen when I'm speaking."

Shit! She got me.

"I'm leaving Matthew you should get going to your job interview it's in half an hour."

As my mother walked out the door I panicked a little because while the job interview is a lie I do have business at 3 and this was cutting it close. I ran into my bedroom, on my way grabbing a 400 gram weight hidden behind my fridge, and opened my wardrobe, inside were clothes, go figure but among them was a set of pitch black jeans and a pitch black hoodie of course this was a rather normal set of clothes maybe slightly edgy but no crime so they were in the open but after that I placed my hand all the way to the back of the wardrobe hidden behind all the clothes was a small hole as I put my hand inside the hole I felt a hard plastic this was a mask made of acrylic it was pure white except the top which had 5 circles on it , I picked it up and at the same time dropped the 400 gram weight into the hole, it was a simple pressure sensor trick if this were taken without the weight being put there then it would send me a text that would notify me immediately in which scenario I would most likely flee the country. Anyway I grabbed the mask and placed it in a rucksack and ran out of the door.