A Convict's Recollection

Drip… Drip… Drip. That damn sound of leaking water has plagued me ever since I became stuck in this place. I understand that they can’t make a place like this perfect, but still, I think I at least deserve some peace. Anyway, I wanted to write down my thoughts, seeing as I won’t be able to tell anyone about it soon. I won’t be able to tell anyone anything, actually.

I’m a convict on Death Row, awaiting execution via lethal injection. I was convicted of premeditated murder. I don’t deny this, but… They don’t know the whole story. No one does, and I can’t simply die without anyone knowing. So I decided to write it down and give it to Blackwell, a CO who watches us in here.

It started six months ago, in eastern Seattle. I always lived there, in ghettos or some such place, because I orphaned as a child. Nobody wants a kid in a place like that, so I was never adopted and was kicked out to live on my own when I was 12. That didn’t matter to me, though, because of her.

We met when I was still in the orphanage (I think I was five), and we became friends under strange circumstances. I had been playing in the attic, as I usually was, taking apart spiders I happened to find (You may think it was sick, but when you’re growing up without activity or loved ones, you pick up strange habits). Eventually, I peered out of the open window of the rear wall, and saw her staring at me.

I freaked out. Our orphanage was separated by gender, so seeing a girl was a rare occurrence to me. She laughed a bit, and called me over, to which I obliged. After slinking over, she began to tell me her story, who she was, and what she liked… I couldn't quiet that girl if I tried. She avoided telling me her name, though. In return, I never told her mine, and we visited each other sporadically for the next few months. I never learned her name.

Then the Nylo’s came. If you don’t already know, they’re a gang that started out near my home, and made their money off of prostitution and child labor. They made everything harder on us, raiding our orphanage for supplies and money and the like, and we ended up having to pay them, just so we wouldn’t be killed. That didn’t stop them from taking some of us, though. Most of my brothers were taken, including the girl.

I was heartbroken. The girl was the one thing that made my life less of a hell, and they took her away. I was as weak and powerless as any of the other kids, though, so there was nothing I could do aside from bawling on the windowsill. When they let me go to live my life, I was nearly catatonic because of everything I had been through. But I lived. I got a job and a nice home, considering.

The Nylo’s wouldn't have that. They came to me and threatened me again for money, day after day. I was sick of it one day, when I was 16. I was sick and tired of them ransacking my former home, holding me at gunpoint, and desecrating my house with their filth.

It started with Remy, the guy who first came to rob me. I cornered him and smashed his skull in with a cinder block. It was just like a spider, I thought. The limbs limp, and blood splattering everywhere. I wrapped him up in a tarp and sent him back to their main building.

Nothing happened until three more men broke down my door and stormed my house three weeks later. I had planned for it though. I led one off into the farthest hallway in the building, and slit his throat with a snapped piece of piping. The second was put down much easier, begging me not to kill him after seeing his friend.

It didn't stop me. I leaned in and forced my fingers into his eyes, twisting them and breaking through his skull. He fell silently. I smiled, cleaned my hand, and went after the last. He tried to run, and actually managed to get far. But they taught me something from the raids at the orphanage: No man can outrun a bullet.

I hit his spine, crippling him from his midsection down. I pulled him back into my house, while he cried the entire way. I would have pitied him. But why should I have? He’d need to learn not to mess with me.

So I laid him on the living room table, and grabbed a hacksaw from my shed. I remember the screams he made as I cut through his limbs, one by one. Oh, but I didn't let him die. That would have been too much of a blessing. I wrapped him up with his two friends and sent them back, just like Remy. That girl’s head was sent back to me in retaliation. I cooked it for dinner and moved on.

Eventually, the police got me. It was only a matter of time, but… I had fun while it lasted. After all, that girl is with me forever, isn’t she? And the Nylo’s won’t mess the orphanage again. Injection doesn't seem so bad, now that I think about it. Those thugs had a worse fate than me, after all.