Author's Note
So, I don't know about you guys, but I have a bit of a morbid fascination with True Crime or crime fiction. I enjoy trying to get into the head of serial killers. I watch 2020 Episodes of Diane Downs, BTK, and (of course) Ted Bundy, whom I also watched the Netflix series Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes about.
This story was inspired by what Bundy called the force that made him kill. I took the two words, and I poured every 2020 special, every documentary, every true crime book, and every Criminal Minds episode I have ever seen into it. And I have to admit, it was fun to write, just to try and see things another way.
So, for all you True Crime/Criminal Procedural Drama lovers out there, I hope you enjoy my take on a serial killer.
The Entity
We live among you. We are fathers, brothers, sons, coworkers, and citizens of a community. Our masks are polished to perfection, never cracking. You wouldn’t know what we really were until we decided to take our masks off. And then, you would run in terror- or try to if we didn’t take your life before you could. We are killers. But we cannot help it. Because the thing that controls us, gives us this desire, is darker than we understand. I call it The Entity.
The Entity cannot be seen. Not even by us. Some think us crazy for speaking of it. But we are compelled by it. We must obey, or we will go insane. We are not insane because we have it. We are not schizophrenic or mentally ill. At least, most of us aren’t. Some are, but they’re the ones who get caught. I have never gotten caught, nor do I intend to. I keep this record for long after I am gone, that those who may find it may understand that we aren’t simply insane. We are not. Insanity can be quantified. The Entity cannot.
It compels us. From the day we are born, we are different. We try and be normal. We try and have families, jobs, friends. But The Entity cannot be shoved aside. It tells us to do things, starting small like stealing bits from a parent’s purse, and steadily grows until we kill as it commands. We want a normal life. But sooner or later, we all resign our control to The Entity, or risk going mad. Even the strongest of stallions cannot resist its pull.
We are drawn into the darkness. Occasionally we can escape it for short periods, but never for long. Those short periods are when we try and have a normal life. We go to work, we have kids, we kiss our wives, but The Entity pulls us in. It’s grasp is iron-clad. We cannot resist it in the end. What we want, and what it wants slowly becomes the same, until we cannot remember who we were or what our own goals were.
The Entity gives us only one gift that we could actually be grateful for, that others might wish they had- we cannot feel fear. We cannot feel empathy either, for that reason, but not feeling fear is what gives The Entity its power. If one cannot feel fear, one cannot empathize with the feelings of others. We are fearless. We take bigger and bigger risks every time we go and hunt for our victims, because we have no concept of whatever danger may await us. We scoff, and say danger has no place for us. But we are usually wrong. I have done things on impulse, scoffing at danger, and nearly got caught. I try and be careful, but some days the urge is too great. Some of us who have The Entity get careless- reckless, even. They are the ones who get caught. But I am not like them. I am better than all of them, because The Entity made me special. It may have liked them, but it didn’t treasure them like it does me. The Entity has shrouded me in its darkness, and I am secure and invisible in it.
The Entity has taught me its ways. I know now how to prepare for anything- a formidable weapon indeed. I can see several endings and prepare for them. I can see what others don’t. I’m five steps ahead, every time. The Entity has trained me well. It’s dark tendrils encase me, and I share in its darkness. Nopony else is blessed like me in that way. I am it’s chosen child. I am the darkness itself. I am the killer of mares and stallions.
I am… Loose Gear.
I am a traveling handyman in my day job. I have a wife, and a daughter whom I love. They say that serial killers like me cannot feel love. But I know I can, because if anything happened to my little filly, the one who did it would be dead in two seconds. Isn’t that how every parent feels? Isn’t that what love is? I cannot speak for other parents, but to me, that is love. The difference between others and me, is that while they might say they would kill somepony, and not follow through, I always will. It’s a promise The Entity made sure I would keep.
The Entity does not sleep like ponies do. Even in dreams it is active. It takes our fantasies and turns them into rich, beautiful movies for our enjoyment. We always remember those movies. We keep them in the back of our minds as they play over and over again. But, just like the movies, when we play out the fantasy it is usually not as gratifying, because we didn’t get it to conform exactly to the fantasy in our heads.
Nothing beats the first time. I can tell you that right now. The adrenaline, the rush of the chase, the satisfaction of hearing their last breath, and knowing you caused it… It is far more intoxicating than any alcohol. Most of us who are repeat offenders have learned that the payoff from killing diminishes with each one. We believe, in our convoluted way, that The Entity will give us instructions, and if we follow them to the letter, we can replicate that first time. But we cannot. And by that point, we must obey The Entity. We do what it wants, or we go insane. Ponies always tell those of us with The Entity that there is another way, one without taking the lives of others.
But they are wrong.
They are speaking of something they cannot understand. To be controlled by The Entity is to submit to it’s demands completely. Once it has chosen you, you cannot escape. It has been a shadow following you for your entire life. It will not release you from it’s clutches just because you want to stop. If wanting to stop made it disappear, then very few serial killers would truly inhabit the world. But The Entity takes us, willing or not. And just like we take the last breaths of our victims, we give our last breaths to it, trying to serve a master most of us didn’t ask for.
It is getting to be daylight soon. I will soon shower, and get ready to work. I will kiss my wife and hug my daughter. I will work my full day, and come home and eat dinner. But when night falls, The Entity will come and take me again, and we will go on a hunt together. We will find a beautiful mare, and we will steal her last breath. We will feel calm afterward, maybe for several weeks or months at a time. But sooner or later, it will come back demanding more of me.
I do not know anymore if I want to stop. I barely remember the life I once lived before The Entity took hold of me. They are like an old dream, barely clung to over the years. I know now that I cannot be that anymore. I am no longer who I used to be. Now I serve a greater master. I am the right hoof of a force that wishes to cleanse the world of all whom it deems unworthy. And whether I succeed in the tasks given me, or fail at them, I am guaranteed greatness. I am marked for a place in history. My name will be burned into the memories of all ponies, of all generations to come- though if I don’t get caught it would remain unknown. But someday, somepony will find this journal. And if I didn’t get caught before this is passed on, I will be known from this. And someday, somepony will read these words, about a thing they cannot understand. They will call it rubbish, or idiocy, or the writings of a deranged mind. But it is none of those things. It is what forces me to do what I do.
To the pony reading this, however many years from now, I hope you take in these words. Don’t dismiss them as the writings of the insane. They are the writings of somepony who tried to be normal and failed spectacularly. There is something else at work here. There is a force beyond comprehension at work here. And if you ever encounter one of us who has been chosen by The Entity, know only one thing:
We cannot stop.
