"Into the Light" by Sean M

          Darkness was all David awoke to. He had no idea where he was and attempted to stand up, this was the point where David realized that his hands and feet were bound with what felt like rope but not quite. He began to get some of his sight back and he started looking for his wife Jane. David notices her directly to the left of him also attempting to break free of the restraints. There was something not quite right in this place, first of all it smelled awful.  As David’s sight became more and more accustomed to the darkness he began to look about his surroundings. He thought he could see more people in chairs just like the one he was in. Just as Jane screams David comes to the same conclusion that she did, those people in the chairs, are no longer people, they were dead for a long time. Likewise, the restraints around David’s and Jane’s extremities were not made of rope, they were made of decomposing body parts woven together.

                  David looks across the room and sees something moving in the shadows. The object reveals itself as a man in a dark overcoat.  The man moves close to David and whispers, “You-Will-Die Tonight, but don’t worry, I will kill her first” and lets out the most hideous laugh David has ever heard. The tabletop where the man seems to be spending the bulk of his time is obscured from David’s view but not from Jane’s, from the look on her face David can only guess what dreadful things might reside on the table.

David shouts out “Why are you doing this to us?”

                             The man pauses for a moment then says nonchalantly, “Because I can”

                  The man walks towards Jane and not before long David feels something hot and sticky on his skin. He looks over to see Jane’s bloody heat separated from her body, David is amazed how far her blood squirts across the room in every direction. Some of this blood splashes onto David’s face and into his mouth, something inside David clicked at the taste. The Man just stood there with a grin on his face holding the decapitated head, this was the final straw.

                  David chews on the muscle around his arms until he breaks free, the man doesn’t notice. David breaks apart the rest of the restraints, still the man doesn’t notice. David sneaks up behind the man and jumps at him. The man shrinks away in terror, David had no idea why he would run from him until David saw the knife in his hand. He plunged the bloody knife into the man’s heart and rips it out. He turns the heart inside out to look for anything resembling good inside the man, but to him everything looked the same. Sirens blare outside so David runs.

                  To this day the police haven’t caught the “Telltale Heart”. He killed twenty-one people, He ripped the heart out of each one, turned it inside out, and displayed their true nature to the world.