• “The first rule is realizing you are not alone. Right now, no matter where you are, who you are, what you are wearing, or how much money you have-they are watching you. The second rule is just as simple, you will only see them if they want you to see them. Finally there is the third rule, and the most important rule; there is nothing you can do to stop them.
    “Don’t believe me? Didn’t expect you would. That’s the problem with people in today’s day and age. You want proof? Well what makes you so special? The proof is all around you. But I suppose that is too vague for you. I guess I’ll have to tell a story.
    “It’s raining. A cold, harsh, bitter rain, the kind that soaks you to your bones and covers your skin in ice. It’s night and you are walking alone, trying to get back into the leather seats of your four door luxury car. You are solemn in this rain, so determined to reach your comfort that all thoughts other than that heater are drowned out of your mind.
    “Your steps are quick, hard, puddles splash around your ankles in a cacophony of noise. It’s then you notice that everything around you is quite. Has this rain really taking over the sound of the street? Where are the other cars? Where are the other people? These questions float to your mind. They are your humanity. Cherish the last of them.
    “As you approach your car, and by this time you are a mere few steps away, the lurch in your stomach tells you to stop. It pleads with you. Begging for you to for once listen. However you credit this to hunger, to cold, to paranoia. Do you credit it to these generic excuses or do they credit it to these excuses? You open the door, the smell that is so unique to rain, and car, to steel and leather, and designer shapes fills your mind. Safety. Warmth.
    “As you start the car you notice, that two your right, the passenger side, sitting patiently, waiting for you to notice is one of them. All you know is that in that moment, you know nothing. That in the shock of what you are witnessing, that there is no horror that could be more alarming than the one smiling at you now.
    “It sits there, taunting you with its permanent bloody smile waiting for you to acknowledge its existence. Your mind cannot comprehend this heinous monstrosity, can you even describe it? Its skin is burnt black, peeling with red and white pus visible between the cracks of the delicate looking flesh. It’s taller, leaner than any human, sitting crouched with its knees to a boney chin. Its pointed face, with empty burned sockets staring at you lifelessly. Those eyes are what you stare back at as it moves slowly closer to you. It’s head cocking to the side letting you see in full the hellish face.
    “Its black skin is cut, bleeding, pumping from its mouth. All of it’s long pointed teeth are visible, and you realize with alarming clarity that the beast before has but red protruding scabs for a nose, where green and yellows pus gather around it as sniffs audibly.
    “The sound is like sand paper being rubbed together. It smells your fear. It finally smells your fear. As the distance between you and your fate close, you smell it. A cold rotting smell that bring tears to your eyes, and constricts your throat. Your stomach is squeezed so tight it feels that not even vomiting is capable for relief of this smell. This smell is its pain.
    “Yes this creature, this demon, this nightmare has been waiting for you, always. Watching you, calculating. You never saw it. And now, there is nothing you can do to stop it. It inches closer, to where it’s face is but millimeters away. It breathes a breath of toxic air directly into your oxygen supply. You gasp, the first sound you can make, and also the last.
    “Pain, dizzying, red hot, burns into the skin of your jaw, as the nightmare rips into your flesh. Blood pours from your face and you try to scream, blinking away tears before you feel the long nails of this monster sink into your vision. You are blind, defeated, struck dumb by the creature and it’s power. As the pain starts to ebb, and you are almost lulled to your death, you hear it whisper in your ear, a strangely sweet sound.
    “ ‘Am I important now?’ ”
    “ A harsh cry, that is the sound of true sorrow fills the rest of your senses, and you realize that the pain you have experienced is nothing compared to the fire of it’s hatred. Burning your flesh, the hell fire of its fury tosses you into an agony that you cannot see, you cannot understand. Your life flashes before your eyes. What have I done to deserve this? You ask yourself, to god, to whatever being that could possibly know the answer. No response of epiphany comes your way. Then as the process of your life finishes, and you recall the first moments of life, as a single cell organism-you awake.
    You awake to a black and white vision of the world. People, if they could be called that, ogle blue screens wordlessly. You cannot tell them apart. Man, woman, all have lithe frail bodies that seem so deprived. And these screens! For the love of god why are they staring at these screens?! They are starving, they are shivering, naked and cold, and still they stay! Rooted, stuck, stupid and ignorant.
    “But it’s then you realize, that it is not that they are stuck as much as they are chained. For as you start walking, and start peering into these screens, that these screens are not screens. They are illuminated mirrors. Digital, and false. Showing them everything they could, would, and should be. Everything they could have if only they looked away.
    “That is when you notice your own race, though not so hellish as before. Though they walk with same burnt skin, they caress each of these shriveled people slowly, quietly watching them, waiting for them to notice. Waiting for the right moment to walk into their world and liberate them. Their hatred grows as the screens grow more obscene, yet still they wait, wait for the right moment.
    “I chose my protégée long ago. Now are you ready for liberation?”