The Beginning of a Nightmare

Primrose. Eight letters, two syllables. . . a name. A mysterious man roamed around the city in the darkness of the night, waiting for his prey to come. A name that sent shivers to the townspeople even before the sun rose over the horizon and illuminated the place.

Primrose waited patiently, until the prey he longed for came into view. Milky-smooth skin, red lips, curly hair. A full-blown makeup and a purple tight dress accentuated her sexy body. The loud crash of thunders and the rain against the pavement muffled the sounds as he struck his victim using a makeup brush he snatched from her pouch. He struck and struck and struck until he was satisfied. He licked the blood from the brush's handle before hitting her lifeless eyes.

He took his victim's ID — anything that could identify her — leaving her obscure and unwanted. As he left the premises, trains of blood followed his footsteps and remained on the cold ground where the victim laid motionless.

Memories of her voice still lingered in his mind like a broken record. Her screams of pain as he beat her body with force pleasured him. Her screams of help urged him even more. The pain of others was his desire — the opposite of what society pertained to as normal.

He laughed on his way home, humming to the song he used to sing many years ago. When he got far from the scene of his crime, he threw everything he took from his victim in an abandoned alleyway filled with homeless people.

An old lady dared to grab his coat and ask for mercy. The moment he looked at her, mercy gripped him enough for him to feel pity — his biggest mistake. How could a family abandon their precious grandmother? He turned to her as flashes of memory from his past he longed to forget crowded his thoughts.

He held her arm and placed the softest smile on his lips. "Come with me, please," he whispered to her. The grandmother wobbly stood and used his arm as support. That was when he noticed the wounds all over the old woman's body.

"What happened to your leg?"

A young man, drunk, passed by earlier and accidentally struck her leg with his broken bottle, she explained. The urge to help and avenge the lady went straight to his mind as he planned to find this young lad. He helped her, fixed her wound, brought her back to his home, and fed her.

As a way of thanking him, the grandmother asked if he could adopt her, with the promise to do everything for him. He smiled.

"No problem."

A little lie granted him the opportunity to hide his crimes forever. In the arms of a stranger, he'd commit the largest crime the police wouldn't see coming.