Part 1:
The Beginning of the End


…I remember it so easily, the smell of chemical cleaner in the sterilized room, the sound of water quietly dripping from the faucet in the background drip, drip, drip, the razor edged scalpel in hand, and the face of the boy lying in front of me. Tied and muzzled like an animal waiting to be slaughtered. His eyes frozen in fear, in fear of what will happen, in fear of me. This is the story of my life, my demise and also my greatest experiment.

My name is Keith Klanner, on the outside people mistook me as just a regular person, a nerd, a crazy, but they failed to realize who I really was. Behind the clouds lay dormant a terrible and merciless person. I went to san Francisco High and was an honor’s role student, had plenty of friends, and was adored by many, however every passing day I felt something was missing. I needed to know what was missing, what was the hole in my soul comprised of. Being an atheist I could not use religion as an excuse for my feelings, they had to be found through science and calculations. I could not bear the feeling of the unknown; I feared the unknown and swore it was my life’s duty to remove the veil over humanity’s eyes.

It all started out on a regular, boring, Monday. I woke up, got ready, and walked over to the bus stop. It wasn’t even ten minutes since I sat myself in a seat when I saw five police officers wrestling a man to the ground. I watched in amazement as the man was apprehended and captured. As the police carried away the man to one of the police cars the man looked up and shot a glance at me. When I saw his face it was permanently imprinted in my mind, his black eyes developed in a cloud of insanity, the blood from the skirmish slowly trickling down his forehead, and his crooked, psychotic smile gleaming at me. It made my stomach knot at the sight of what he had done. The body of a girl maybe one or two years older than me curled up like a dead bug, her hair mangled and knotted as though it were put through a lawn mower, and blood stained from her effort of escaping. Throughout the day the horrid scene haunted me and gave me nightmares in my sleep. I continued to wonder “What kind of insanity does one have to kill an innocent person and laugh about it as though it were a joke?” I wanted the answer and I was going to do whatever it took to get it.

I started researching all there is to know about the human mind and the cause of insanity, but there was no full explanation for them. I knew this would mean experimentation on animals. I wasted all my money on lab equipment and lab rats, as if money was important in these matters, because if this worked I would go down in history as the person who unlocked the mind. I created a lab in the basement of my house, furnishing it with everything I might need. I began with surgery. It was easy cutting through their thin skulls and peering into their tiny brains and hearts. I took great interest watching their hearts beat outside of their bodies. I then began my tests by drugging the rats with ergot and other mind stimulating drugs. I took no pity on the rodents as they squealed in pain, in fact I laughed and took enjoyment out of there last squeals before death, however I soon realized I was taking the wrong approach as I could not see the emotions being portrayed by the rats. I needed humans, and I knew just the place for them. School provided many unsuspecting subjects for my purposes.
As I was packing my backpack with all the necessary equipment for my plan I stopped and thought “Am I willing to put others lives on the line just for one simple answer? If I do follow out my plan, does that make me any better than that psychotic killer?” I just kept telling myself it’s for science and their deaths will be for a good cause. I did not know at the time, but I was soon to realize that I had crossed the line of what is right and wrong.

When I got to school I began scoping out my fellow students for a suitable test subject. I could not have one that would pose a threat against me and my operations on them. I needed one who could be easily seduced and detained. Then I found him, he was perfect, weak, scrawny, he lived very close to me, and was addicted to drugs. I believed I was doing a public service by eliminating him, no one would miss him, and he would just fade away in the background of people’s minds. I waited till after school and when we both got off the bus to go home from a long day I told him he should come to my house because I have a surprise for him.
Luckily, nobody was home and he was stoned so it was much easier than wrestling him to the ground. He had just walked into my deadly trap, out of my pocket I pulled out a syringe I prepared earlier, and without warning I gave him a high dose of triazolam, a common sedative found in hospitals. He fell to the ground with a hard thud, his limp body sprawling all over the floor. I dragged him down to the basement and tied him up to a metal table. The experiment was simple, cut open his skull and detach the frontal lobe of his brain. This means of surgery was called lobotomy, but was forgotten due to the fact of the high death rates in surgery. If all went well he would become a mindless drone, a slave with no free will, no personality or any way of making decisions. Sadly, before I could start he awoke and I had ran out of sedatives. The operation was still going to continue with him awake or not, it wouldn't matter in the end though, it would have all been forgotten or he would be dead. I did not care either way, there were many more where he came from. I started my experiment, I remember it so easily, the smell of chemical cleaner in the sterilized room, the sound of water quietly dripping from the faucet in the background drip, drip, drip, the razor edged scalpel in hand, and the face of the boy lying in front of me. Tied and muzzled like an animal waiting to be slaughtered. His eyes frozen in fear, in fear of what will happen, in fear of me.
When I looked into his eyes it was as though I had been awakened from some kind of mutilated dream. I was about to kill a person just to answer my selfish questions! I finally saw through the fog made of my own lies, and I saw that I was no better than the psychotic killer I witnessed. I had become the one thing I was fighting against, I could not put others lives in danger. I had fallen into a blizzard of all the thoughts and emotions of guilt and confusion I felt slowly being absorbed into my madness, so without any second thoughts I took the scalpel to my chest and thrust it forward through my heart. I watched in slow motion as blood flew across the air, and as my legs gave way and I collapsed on the floor. My mouth was filled with blood and I lost all sensation in my body. Everything began to fade together and with my last dying breath I thought “Is knowledge really worth taking away someone’s life?” and for once I actually knew the answer.