I got off probation today. I can't believe I was so scared to leave my house for a year; when I look back at it, it seems so silly. I sat alone for days on end, thinking about all the ways I could kill myself, end the misery. I watched Liberty City, and the world, go up in smoke; everything around me was consumed by flames of stupidity and apathy.

I celebrated the occasion, of course. I picked up a hooker down by the docks, first one in a year and a half. She was young, brunette, a crushed soul in an empty body; she was practically begging me for release. We went in an alleyway made by two office buildings; she got so wrapped up in her job, she never even noticed when the cold silencer of my pistol pushed into her ribs. She never knew what hit her, and her last expression was one of businesslike disinterest, even whores don’t care these days. I felt I should kill a prostitute to celebrate my life no longer being run by one.

 After that, I cleaned out my car and drove it into the river, for good measure. I bailed at the last second, right before the car slid off the bridge (tearing through the rails like paper) and plunged into the hungry, cold water. As the tail lights slowly sank into the dark water, I thought about the whole world sinking, and how everyone was oblivious to it.

 As I was walking home, I thought somebody was following me. I tried to shake him off by going through alleys that hadn't even been used by the bums in ages. I ran through shops, through bars. But this guy, or at least I think it was the same guy every time I looked backward, kept on following me. Like some pesky fly that spotted a picnic in progress and wasn’t phased by waving arms and rolled up newspapers.

 Finally, I confronted the man. He was sitting in his car in a restaurant parking lot, smoking a cigarette. For a minute, I considered the dozen ways I could break in, incapacitate the man, and ignite his car with the cigarette or its lighter. I decided it wasn’t worth the wait and the effort. I didn't wait for him to even acknowledge the fact that he was watching me as I got closer, I just drew my pistol and looked straight into the man’s eyes as he finally looked up from his cigarette. I broke the windshield with three bullets, and two more taps on the trigger left his scheming little head a meaty ruin. I don’t try to push my luck, but I hoped that maybe the cigarette would fall to the floor of his car and burn it all around him. I didn’t wait to see if fate would smile on me, I made a run for my home in the shadows.

No one messes with the Stranger.

 The cops tried to chase me, but you could tell they weren't that enthused. I evaded them, and they lost me in less than a block. Prostitutes follow the money, and those specific hookers were smart enough to know I had none for them. Besides, they wouldn’t want to acknowledge they were following me. As I walked home, I thought of the girl I had killed earlier... It's funny, in a way, seeing death; suddenly everything that matters so much to a person is reduced to an inconsequential breeze, a grain of sand. When they see the gun, the life in their eyes seem to drain out and what’s left in there is something strange, alien, and yet so familiar. It’s the look of rage that any predator has in it’s eyes before pouncing upon prey.

 The world is so used to the death and the pain of others; the people who are glorified in the movies are those who can inflict the most pain possible, those who deal the most death. The only people that really understand what it feels like to take a life are the ones who do it. I'm going to change that. I'm going to shock the world out of apathy, I'm going to force them to be remorseful and pitiful and feel every emotion other than happiness and loneliness and emptiness. I will kill innocent children, or mothers, or cops- I will destroy everything I can until the b*stards finally feel something.

 Tomorrow, I'm going to visit Raymond Johnson. He was my probation officer. I can tell that dealing with murders is just a cushy desk job for him; he is the most calloused of us all, he is madder than me- more of a psychopath than I could ever be. Johnson doesn't value lives, he doesn't even pretend to. The world to him, and all the horror in it, is nothing more than a series of possible paychecks and people to exploit.

 When he stares down the barrel of my gun, I hope the thing I see is a scared man who finally understands why I shouldn’t be free, and why the world isn't a paycheck. 

Author's Note: To be honest, I imagine I was channeling a bit of Brave New World and a bit of Watchmen into this story, a combination that I enjoyed brewing up. I hope it interested you, and fan-fic on!