Prologue

Prologue: Reborn, because God didn't have eyes making me encounter a serial killer

Under the colorful theater light in the crowded hall, the MC appeared from the back stage, excitedly announced the events. The spotlight focused entirely on him, and as the noise died down, the audience all knew the final performance of the night was about to begin.

Contrary to the orderly and neat front stage, the back stage was a chaos. Dancers were busy either checking their outfits to make sure their hairstyle and clothes fit together or holding one another's legs down for warm-up and stretching.

I sank down onto the sofa away from the crowd, resting my feet in military boots on the make-up desk while playing with the peaked cap on my head in boredom. The leather outfit on my body seemed to be a size smaller today; probably it was our dance group manager who had secretly changed it.

This was a dancing competition, and I was a part-time jazz dancer for the dance group. Commercial dance group often took some TV shows, such as being the dance crew for a celebrity's performance. We participated in this competition because our manager wanted us to get the first prize to boost up the group's reputation; while I wanted to use the skills I got after sneaking into dance classes for a short time to earn money for living.

Even though my background as an orphanage could intrigue a cliché but emotional story, in the end I still by myself got into a university that was not so bad with a scholarship enough for me to manage all the other fees, , major in psychology.

A hip-hop dance group got to the stage for the opening performance. They were invited by the competition's host to heat up the atmosphere for the contestants. Since my jazz dance was the first performance after the opening, I also began to do some warm up exercises.

On the stage were performers in various types of outfits dancing in the intense music. Just as the jarring music stopped, I strode out, military boots on the stage floor created such a sound effect that easily caught everyone's attention. The echoing sound in the empty space seemed to make the atmosphere tensed up.

This was my designation for opening; I knew well how to catch the audience's attention. I didn't know if it was because I had always been living by myself that I needed to observe others carefully. I was particularly sensitive to people's thought and emotion changes through their facial expressions and subconscious body movements.

This was the reason why I chose to major in Psychology. The difficult, ambiguous Psychology in other people's eyes when came to me was easy as pie.

Precisely controlled everyone's heart, using skillful dance to excite their sensation, I performed all the moves that I had rehearsed over many times. I thrusted my hip and butt as in twerking; it was a simple move yet because it could exhibit the elasticity of my musculature, it was nevertheless welcomed.

One of my hands was high in the air while the other was stroking myself, the front half body made the body wave, my chin was up making a "sniffing" action – each movement was devoted to arouse the audience. Jazz dance was a lively, diverse dance style with sharp movements. At the moment I was also panting heavily in the middle of the song.

I swung my body along the rhythmic melody. As jazz dance required elasticity and strength, I was soaked in sweats just after a short while. The one size smaller black leather pant tightly covered my legs, under the theater light my curves were so noticeable, exciting the audience's eyes.

The wild madness of the girls below the stage made me a bit dizzy, moreover my sexuality is gay; it was hard for having practiced such moves for like a thousand times me to concentrate now. My eyes, hidden under the cap, boringly wandered around.

The song was getting near to the end, as the atmosphere was pushed to its peak I threw down my cap, eliciting screams from the audience. As the song was fading away, I slowly kneeled down on the stage.

Suddenly at the moment I felt a gaze that was almost physical, this feeling of being a poisonous snake eyes pierced through made my heart skipped a beat.

I stopped my movement on the dance stage, instead turned my face directly to the audience and stood up, searching in the crowd the gaze that gave me a cold sweat but got no result.

Maybe I should go home early today rather than waiting till this dance competition ended. Having made the decision, I went to the backstage telling my boss. He was busy cheering the dancers that would soon perform so he easily agreed, even complimented me on my performance today while slipping some "encouraging" money bills to my hands.

I put on my never changing smiling face, went to greet my other dancers in the group that I didn't even remember the names, then got to the changing room to put on my original clothes and left with those not so small money bills.

The competition used the stage of a pretty famous pub, because the main sponsor was the pub's owner. Next to the pub's backdoor was a small alleyway filled with smoke and alcohol smell, the drunkards and prostitutes around both disgusted me.

Pulling up the hoodie to cover my head, I passed through the alleyway to the parking lot where my poor secondhand car was. Contrary to the noisy alleyway, the spacious crossroad was eerily quiet; people going out at night were like a mouse crossing the road, comfortable in a dark corner and scared of a dim light.

Holding the car key I slightly sighed out, when I was thinking of how taking a shower should wash away such tiredness, a black shadow reflected from the car's glass. Not giving me enough time to turn around, a piercing pain went from my waist straight to my brain; my world blackened, and I fell into someone's cold arms.

Electroshock gun… What kind of robbers would carry around such advanced weapon? The first thing I did after regaining my consciousness wasn't opening my eyes but slowing down my breathing rates, trying to listen for any cues from the environment.

I could feel my arms were being tied up behind my back, and I was lying on an icy ground that probably made up from metal. For the short moment I couldn't guess where I was at, the pain from my waist was still throbbing.

"Clang" –something was being dropped. The sound of walking step broke the quiet space; my exposed skin because of the air moved as the person approached closer got goosebumps.

I could feel him getting close, very close; I could even tell that he was at most a few centimeters away from my face, my skin could feel his breaths; then he suddenly stepped back, and my neck was squeezed tightly.

"I know you are awake, open your eyes…"

His voice was hoarse, like the sound of paper being ripped apart. Damn it, was this my boss's enemy? I already knew that carelessly stealing others' business would eventually run into trouble, but why the unlucky one was always me?

My hesitance in a second was taken as protesting, the grip around my neck got tighter; I couldn't breathe and opened my eyes.

God! This man did not cover his face.

Criminals who didn't cover their appearance were the most dangerous, as they from the very beginning did not have any intention of letting the victim survive, so they did not care if they were seen or not. This was the basic knowledge in criminal psychology.

At first I didn't take criminal psychology class with any thought of becoming a police officer, but rather it was personal interest. Majoring in Psychology, I had always planned to earn a working license, becoming a well-paid psychiatrist. Who knew this class would first become useful.

This middle-aged man's eyes showed a trace of insanity; his lips were dry, beard unshaved, hair was with sign of baldness, body looked distorted but could show that he once must have been working out regularly in gyms.

This frustrated middle-age man must be a successful person, the brand of his watch was out of reach of people with average income, not to mention that this design just came out this year, its price was like thousands dollars. His shirt was wrinkled, the cuff still had some wet spots, the smell on his body was like that of the pub's air freshener in WC; shit, he was the owner of the gaze I felt while on stage.

His left hand still had a mark from wearing ring, seemed like he was an emotional person. His target was me, whose body also was fit from working out in the gyms.

He was gay.

"Cough… cough." As I opened my eyes, this mad man formed a pleasant smile and loosened the grip that was choking me. I noticed that he did not cover my mouth, I bet he must have taken me to a rather remote place.

My eyes scanned around, this place looked like a truck garage, or maybe a storage. Each cue I had from the environment made me even more hopeless, as this implied his target wasn't my boss, but it was me.

If it was for benefits, I had confidence in keeping myself alive until helpers came through negotiation. But if it was a psychopath I did not think I could escape from a madman's hands.

I remembered a couple days ago I saw an article about a serial killer; all of his victims were young Asian boys, before getting killed were forced to have sexual contact, the cause of death was suffocation, and a strange point was that their tongues were all cut.

The police guessed the culprit was a homosexual, also Asian, man. After all, cross-race serial killers were so rare. But now if I could survive from this, I definitely would run to the police station and scream to them, you guys had guessed a wrong culprit profile, broaden your mind a!

Because even in darkness I could see that this man was a typical Caucasian. Thinking of the misery the victims had gone through depicted on the article, for the first time of my life I thought of committing suicide.

Committing suicide, early death early reincarnation. At least it was me giving myself an ending, while now waiting for me ahead was an unknown nightmare.

Most people never thought they would get into the same tragedy depicted on the news, like me. I remembered after reading that article, I even thought that maybe not so long after the killer was caught I would have one more essay prompt to write. Analyze the newest criminal case was professors' favorite topic.

Never thought that now I would become a part of text in that analyzing essay, how irony.

His two glove-worn hands, except for the one hand that choked me early, was holding a sharp butcher knife, at first it looked just like being brought out from a kitchen.

He looked at me, laughing, shaking the knife in front of me. If I hadn't read the news article, I probably would start talking to him. But I would not, because he probably would cut off my tongue right after that.

This madman's lover was an Asian guy that betrayed him. He cut off each victim's tongue, because tongue brought lies.

I kept my mouth tightly shut looking at his bald head, acting like a wood doll. I didn't want to show my fear or any terrified reaction, even though my heart was palpating so hard it was like in my throat.

To these revenge serial killers, the more terrified the victim, the more excited they got.

"Talk… talk to me!" – the madman was disturbed by the silence, probably it was the first time he saw the victim not begging for mercy, the quiet situation made him feel like the victim was getting out of his control.

His swinging knife cut a wound on my cheek, I frowned, tears coming out uncontrollably as a physiology reflex. Damn…even dead my face would be ruined.

As expected, seeing my tears excited this madman, he laughed while moving the knife on my face, staring at my wound; blood flowed out from it, running to my eye corner.

"Tell me… tell me you love me.." the mad guy whispered to my ear, the hot wet air made my tears flow even more, couldn't distinguish if it was reflexing physiological tears or frightened psychological tears.

He buried his head onto my nape, I could only saw one side of his shoulder along with the hand holding the knife near my chest. If I couldn't escape from death… I should at least take a risk fighting back once…

If I failed then early death early reincarnation.

I stared directly of the knife moving, slowly opened my mouth.

…

Was he dead yet?

Under the dimly lit light, I saw many shadows in front of me.

I was planning to use my words mocking him, making him under the anger lose his guard, giving me a sneak attack and escape chance. In the end I still failed. He was not simply a pervert but a madman. With a pervert I could still have a chance fooling him around, but holding a conversation with a madman? I had no chance.

Using the life of an excellent youth like me to trade off a mad serial killer's life, this was really not worth. Too bad God above was stingy, I had no other choice.

My hands holding the butcher knife were a bit shaky, because of the lack of air my ears started to ring, my vision was getting blurry; the blood of that mad guy almost covered my entire body, the warm liquid was getting colder and colder.

….

"Police admitted, the sketched criminal profile was wrong in the beginning, leading to wrong investigating direction. The killer and a victim were dead for three days until the police discovered the corpses…"

"Tongue cutting serial killer case was solved. Was this the loss of humanity or the loss of morality! Please read further for more details…"

…

I thought that this was the end, what a tragic life ah. Orphaned, self-taught to get into university, got a good scholarship, about to graduate, future was in my hand, finally because god did not have eyes I encountered a serial killer, bravely fought back and got both killed, died at the age of twenty three, became a top news on newspaper, an essay prompt in university, then went through cremation, rested in the public cemetery, returned to dust.

But, when my consciousness not yet fell into deep sleep, I suddenly felt my body was almost like returning back to earth from outer space. My skin touched the burning asphalt road under the intense sunlight, I heard some people said

"Someone fainted. Call the ambulance !"