Curiosity Killed the Cat - by Ibn Abdullah 🦁

DISCLAIMER: THIS PIECE CONTAINS SCENES THAT DEPICT EXTREME VIOLENCE AND GORE THAT SENSITIVE READERS MAY FIND UPSETTING!!!PROCEED WITH CAUTION! ⚠️ STATE EXHIBIT 14 Recovered Audio Recording Source: Digital voice recorder recovered from the residence of the accused. Speaker: Franklin Fischer Date: Three days after the incident. The following recording was admitted into evidence by the prosecution during the trial of The State v. Franklin Fischer. The defendant claimed the recording was made voluntarily "so people would understand how it started." [Recording Begins] Curiosity killed the cat...I opened the door one night, entering the house in a fit of laughter. Billy was right behind me. He laughed like a madman, clutching his stomach as he rolled around on the floor. The girls came in after us, probably questioning our sanity. Billy almost knocked Tiffany over. She would've probably broken up with him if he had. Jessica wouldn't. No matter what I did... she'd probably never leave me. I had a strange feeling she'd still stay even if she knew what I was doing. I never told her, though. No reason to. It had been one hell of a party. Jason, Todd, Damien, Dick, Zack, Matthew, Lawrence, Annie, Heather—everyone was there. I thought Jason's parents would kill him when they saw how badly we'd wrecked the house. He only got grounded for a week. Rather soft, don't you think? My parents would've surely killed me. Eventually everyone left. It was just me, Billy, Tiffany, and Jessica. We returned to my place. We drank. We drank a lot. Beer cans littered the floor. After that, we binged the Insidious movies. Jessica hated horror films. Most of the time her face was buried in my chest, refusing to look at the television. Billy and Tiffany, on the other hand, loved every second of it. Halfway through they got bored and started making out. Billy had already unclipped her bra before Jessica interrupted them. "Get a room," she said, still looking away from the ghosts on the TV. A notification chimed from Billy's phone, pulling him away from Tiffany. "Hey, Franklin." I walked over. "Come check this out." "What is it?" "It's a video from Max. He says it's gore." "Gore?" Tiffany practically shouted. "Billy, don't watch it." He ignored her. "A cartel execution. Whoa... he says it's called FunkyTown." The thumbnail carried a warning in bold letters. NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. "Don't watch it, you guys," Jessica pleaded. "Why won't they listen?" Tiffany muttered. By then, neither of us was listening. We had to see it. There was no going back. I'd heard Max describe videos like this before. ISIS executions. Cartel executions. Brazilian gang killings. War footage. Beheadings. Dismemberments. Miss Pacman. Two Guys One Hammer. Ghost Rider. Nick Berg. James Foley. I knew the names. I knew the stories. I wanted to see them for myself. Billy handed me one of his earbuds. We pressed play. The screaming was the first thing I heard. It wasn't movie screaming. It was raw. Human. The footage was grainy, barely watchable. At first all I could make out was what looked like a peeled watermelon lying in a pool of blood. Then the camera moved. It wasn't a watermelon. It was the back of a man's head. His scalp had been flayed. He was still alive. My stomach tightened as reality hit me. This wasn't special effects. It wasn't horror. It was real. The victim was rolled onto his back. One of the men slit across his forehead and began peeling the skin from his face. His eyes stared blankly upward, floating in a sea of red. The screams became almost unbearable. I wanted to look away. Billy did. I couldn't. I noticed something else. Every time the victim screamed, the men in the background laughed. Cheered. Celebrated. That was the part I couldn't understand. Why? Most people would probably wonder what the victim was thinking. I didn't. I wanted to know what was going through the minds of the men laughing. What could possibly make that amusing? Neither Billy nor I slept that night. The images replayed every time I closed my eyes. Billy was haunted by them. I was haunted by a question. The next morning Tiffany spent hours trying to comfort Billy. Jessica walked home with me instead. On the way back, I noticed a tiny white kitten wandering through an alley. "Hey there, little kitty... are you lost?" I stroked its soft fur, earning a gentle purr. "Come on. Let's go find your mom." I searched for hours but couldn't find its mother—or an owner. Eventually I gave up and took it home, planning to try again later. The rest of the afternoon was spent cleaning the house before my parents got back. By the time I finished, I was exhausted. I fell asleep. The kitten's meowing woke me a little while later. It was hungry. I reached into the fridge for the can of cat food I'd bought earlier. "Where's the damn can opener?" After searching the kitchen, I sighed and grabbed a knife from the drawer instead. As I looked down at the blade, I heard cheering. Not real cheering. The cheering from the video. The same laughter. The same excitement. I looked from the knife... ...to the little kitten licking its paw on the floor. Once again, the question echoed in my head. What was so amusing? The next thing I remember... ...I was staring down at my bloody hands. And I finally had my answer.

Deranged

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