Fear knows no mercy, Hester

[Saben Meinfried]

It was three in the morning, most of the patients within the walls of South Pacific were asleep. Not included amongst those patients, was Saben. Having made a deal with a nurse, he asked her to let him out from his room in solitary around 2:30. And since she held up her end of the deal, he'd do the same by sparing her during his little killing spree that he had planned. That, and he'd also have a bit of "private" time with her sometime later. As for now though, he was roaming the halls in search of more victims. There weren't too many people around at this hour, but that was part of the point. With less people, that meant there were also less who could see what he was doing and report it. His ultimate goal though was for the patients and staff to wake up in the morning to a massacre. Again, it wouldn't be anything too massive since there weren't a lot of people around, but it still succeeded in pleasing him.

As he walked down the hall, his black coat flowed slightly behind him, the inner red lining of it giving it a bit of flare and adding to his dark aura. It had become a daily thing for him to wear it, mainly because he could hide stuff in it and he found it quite comfortable. Now normally, he wouldn't wear it when he knew he was going to kill people, he was concerned about getting blood on it. On this occasion though, he was being careful. Yes, he slaughtered some people, a few bodies spread out across the floor here and there being evidence, but he was doing it carefully as not to get blood all over his coat. The bottom of it went just past his ankles, although was short enough that it didn't drag along or touch the ground, so getting it bloodied that way wasn't of concern.

As for his hands and his face though, that was a different story. There was blood all around his mouth from where he'd lived up to his reputation as a cannibal, his latest gig being where he literally ate straight from the corpse. He'd cut some pieces loose with a knife to make things easier, then bite directly onto the corpse and eat like an animal. No, he didn't do it often as it was inconvenient, but he liked doing that sort of stuff on occasion. It once again added on to his reputation, this time as a freak, and unlike some people, he didn't see that as offensive at all. He liked being the freak of South Pacific, or just "Cannibal Man" as people seemed to be calling him ever since he got here.

Another thing that his coat did though, was conceal him in the dark. Every so often you might see a flash of red from the lining, but that was only if he stepped into a brief area of light, which there didn't seem to be at the moment. All the lights were turned out so the patients could sleep, and at the moment, Saben had made his way over to the female dorms. He'd already butchered a few people in the male dorms, so now he had to take care of women...which had at first been a slight problem since they tended to scream more and a lot louder. He easily managed to overcome that though by covering their mouths and keeping things quiet. He didn't want them to wake up the rest of the patients or gain any other sort of attention.

Once he felt that there was no one else around at the moment, he continued down the hall, stepping over a body and once more making sure that his coat didn't touch any of the blood. Now that he'd started walking again, the only sound that radiated through the halls was that of his boots. If any patients were awake, they could easily take it as just some guard walking down the hall to make sure that everything was alright. But alas, everything wasn't alright. While they were sleeping, Cannibal Man was going on what he considered a scaled down version of a massacre.

[Hester Kilcher]

The female breathed unevenly as she diligently pressed the silver numbered buttons on the pay phone and waited anxiously for either one of her parents to pick up the other end. It was late into the night in SPP, Hester had to be quick. Guards and nurses were on watch, but apparently, it was quite easy to slip past these so-called vigilant eyes yet again. That was a fault. Not vigilant enough, but she was thankful for it. She wouldn't have been standing where she was right now–by the pay phones. She kept her pale fingers crossed and uncrossed as she waited impatiently. Ringing.. Her palm settled into a weak, trembling fist into the frontal pockets of her hood that was two sizes too big and extended down below her knee's.
“Come on.. come on..” Hester pleaded in a hissed whisper through her teeth, checking around herself every second there was a passing ring. She couldn't afford getting caught now; she couldn't afford to bump into him again or see him–Cannibal Man–despite he was apparently in his room in solitary confinement. But the moment she thought of that, there was a shade of doubt. A chill rushed up her spine and her muscles tensing so soon as her eyes locked to the turning corner of the hallway and then moved up to the dark windows that were absent of gleaming light outside. No moon. No stars. No light. Nothing in the heavens guiding, leading her. Not one sparkle, one glimmer on her side. Only a flickering redness down the hallway which was that of the red 'EXIT' sign with a door was surely locked. Hester smoothed the hood from her head and looked around again.
The long ringing stopped. A tired groan. Finally. “Ugh.. do you understand what time it is?” The man's smooth voice was hushed, too tired to summon anger. It was her father, Louis. Hester's hissing breath now clipped as she listened to make sure her ears didn't lie to her. “Hello? What is it?”
“Dad..” she murmured, a tear fleeing from one of her shadowed eyes. A short sob escaped her.
“Hester?” A surprised change in his once tired voice. Hester could hear the groan of the bed in the background, notifying her that he was sitting up right, down-right surprised. “Honey, what's the matter? Is something wrong?”
“Daddy, listen to me..” Another sob. “I want you to get me out of here. I don't care what the judge says.” she started. There was silence, only his breathing was what she could hear. It made her frustrated. Hester knew the answer, but she was still persistent with this. She couldn't bear to be in the facility any longer. Any facility would've done better with the exception of this one. “Honey, we've been over this. You have to stay there to get better. It's for the best.” He sounded equally like her mother now.
“Aren't you aware of what happened a few weeks ago?!” Hester hissed bitterly. She slipped shut her pale eyes, her figure quaking in hushed sobs in recollection of what happened. She placed a small hand to her bruising cheek, which flamed to a painful sting causing her to retreat her hand away. Some of the bruises and swelling had healed, the rest remained slow and somewhat reluctant to heal. There was more silence. “What? What happened?” Louis sounded concerned now.
From there, Hester froze in her spot, her eyes flying wide open in utter disbelief. “..Honey, are you still there?” she stood quiet for a few moments, attempting to reluctantly grasp what her father had said. They hadn't told her parents about the incident as they promised? “They didn't tell you?..” she automatically spoke without realizing it.
“Tell me what?”
Her heart slammed to a halt. They didn't tell them at all..
“Oh my god.”
“What? Hester, what did they forget to tell us?”
“They didn't forget, they didn't tell you at all! On purpose!” she hissed.
“Calm down, sweetie, relax. Now tell me, what did they, purposefully, forget to tell us?”
Hester bit down her bottom lip, only to wince in pain. She reluctant to recant her tale about the beatings she endured from Cannibal Man in the operation room. “Hester, please.” her father urged on in a calm voice. “He beat me, dad. He beat me.” she whispered, her breath shuddered. Memories, they flashed in her minds eye again. The blows she took, the hurts she received.
“Who beat you?”
“Cannibal Man..”
There was a silence in the line, only Hester's hushed sobs could be heard.
Her father's voice spoke up again. This time, there was puzzlement. “Cannibal Man?”
“There is a cannibal in the same facility as I!” she hissed feverishly. Again the line was befallen with more silence.
Hester decided to put more honesty with her words, thus she reluctantly recalled the event that triggered her sleeplessness, given trauma, great fear and the more want to get out of the facility and thus why she called to plea again. Once she was done, there was nothing her father could say. She could somehow sense an astoundment with him despite there was only silence given. “Cannibal Man.” her father repeated again, the words making her shudder. “It couldn't be.. It just can't be..”
Hester was confused herself now. “Huh?”
“I don't want to alarm you, sweetheart.”
“W-Well, it's too late for that now, isn't it? Tell me..” she whispered.
There was reluctance. “Please..”
There was a sigh. “It was before our move to Australia. You know when we were living in Germany for two years?”
“Yes.” she replied.
“I'm beginning to think it's that mass murderer that was in Berlin, Germany or around Germany at the time. He was always on the move. I believe the newspaper I worked for did a story on him. I believe they called him.. the Berlin Butcher? He did the most unspeakable things.” Her father swallowed audibly, almost preparing himself for what he had to say. “He left bodies gutted with the organs no where to be found, assuming he ate them; he burned down buildings with people still inside.. He was a horrible man, Hester, a very horrible man. A person most deserving for death row.” At his words, her eyes flew wide with terror. Hester's grip on the phone was limp and almost lost, but she retained some manageable grip on it.
The thought of it being Saben, it almost matched him well. This was going to be a big step. Hester dared not to utter his name once for it seemed like a curse when slipped out of the mouth of one. Instead of calling him 'Cannibal Man', she was going to call him by his true name. A name that was most feared in the facility and most warned about.
“Would his name be.. Saben?” A gasping sort of noise came on the other end of the line which made her heart stop. A rare shout from her father came. “I don't believe this! I don't fucking believe this! That cannibal bastard was supposed to be in Germany or dead by now!” Hester heard another voice, it sounded like it was from her mothers. She couldn't exactly focus any more. Fear embraced her tight; Her knee's shook like tree branches to the brutal wind, almost ready to give way. A horrible man indeed was in the same place as herself.
To be able to stand still, Hester drew back a step, but at the same moment, she found herself pressing against something. Her pale eyes flew open yet again. She slowly craned her head over her shoulder, praying it to be nothing but the other payphone. But instead, she stared directly at a chest of a much taller man in a coat. Gazing up, the need to flee paramount in her mind. Her mouth parted, her grip forgotten on the phone. A feminine scream tore the quiet of the night. From there, Hester scurried off like a spooked doe down the corner into the hallway..

[Saben Meinfried]

It seemed like the majority of the people in this place were scared shitless of him now. Stories and rumors of "Cannibal Man" were spread around like the tales of the Wolfman, the Boogieman, or any other monster of myth. A handful of patients and staff alike would turn their gazes away from him whenever he passed, afraid of what the consequences might be if they even did so much as look at him the wrong away. It was as the saying goes, better safe than sorry, especially when it came to Saben. There was no telling what was on his mind, he was unpredictable and always changing. One moment he could be cooperating, the next, he'd be tearing you limb from limb, and quite literally as well. His tendency to have a short temper had a lot to do with it, especially when it came to the staff around here. He hated people of authority, and to him, those people were the staff.

With no one around though, he didn't have to be too concerned about staff coming by to stop him. Even when someone did come by, he could step off into another room or duck into the shadows to avoid being seen. So far though, not a single soul, besides his own, seemed to be anywhere in the all. Or that's how it seemed it at first. After stepping out from a room to check for any potential victims, he heard a very familiar voice. Stopping where he was, he looked to his right and saw the very being he expected. It was Hester, the girl he'd been tormenting for days and months on end. She was on the phone again, not surprisingly, calling who he believed to be her parents. He knew she snuck out every so often to call them up, as it was in such a moment that he'd run into her for the first time. Seeing her now though, with the phone to her ear and hearing her pleas, he began to think through the different things he could do. Without anyone else in the hall, he could probably get away with beating her again. After all, he'd only just killed a bunch of people in the male dorms without being caught.

Taking a step forward, he made sure to walk silently, taking each step carefully as not to alert the girl of his presence. With her back turned to him, she wouldn't see him coming. And as he stepped in behind her, he heard utter his name to the person on the other end of the line. Once again, he assumed that she was talking to her parents about getting out of this place. With Saben tormenting her, it was no surprise as to why she wanted out. To him, she was his pet, and that meant there was no end in sight when it came to messing with her. As his pet, it was his way of "playing" with her.

Only moments after she spoke his name over the phone, she backed up into him. Looking down at her with an emotionless expression, he saw her look over her shoulder and meet his gaze. Like any person with a brain would do, she dropped the phone and ran with a scream, fear obviously overcoming her. And now with the phone dangling down and swinging from its cord, he could faintly hear a man's voice. Shortly after, he heard the barrage of curses and insults. It was her father on the line and he must've heard Hester scream as she ran down the hall. Shifting his gaze to the phone, Saben grabbed it from where it was hanging and put it to his ear. Now he could clearly hear what was being said to him. "HESTER?!" There was a quick pause, then the insults came once more. "DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH MY HESTER, YOU SICK FUCKING BASTARD! I'LL KILL YOU MYSELF IF YOU DO, YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

Upon hearing these words, Saben smirked. "Your Hester?" He asked, his voice dripping with malice. "She's mein haustier, as such, she belongs to me. I assure you though, I take good care of her." As soon as he'd stopped talking, her father began shouting more insults and threats, however, Saben hung up the phone in the middle of it all, not even bothering to listen to what he had to say. And with his hand still resting on the phone, he turned his head and saw Hester already far down the hall, making her escape.

Letting go of the phone, and leaving blood on it from his hand in the process, he turned and began to walk down the hall, following after the girl. He wasn't going to run and chase after her this time around. Instead, he was walking casually, the only hint of calm amongst a scene of chaos.

[Hester Kilcher]

Hester ran, ran as fast as her legs would take her. One of her ankles were stiff, sore and flamed in a knife-edged pain, but she didn't care enough right now. She could hear the thump of his heavy boots on the floors behind herself. Far, but still close. Her breath clipped and panting; her throat burned as if she just dry swallowed a large pill that refused to go down. Her pale eyes buried behind a curtain of tears that strained at the corner of her shadowed eyes.

The black hood from her blonde head slipped forgotten. Hester's heart beat drummed frantically, it almost drove her insane. Every door she wanted to hide behind and frantically tried was locked. Fear locked every motion, but she was smart enough not to stop now. If she stopped now, she would be dead or beaten again. Her colorless, clumsy and shaking hands rough with each door knob greeted to her in the hallway. She cussed as she learned each were locked and provided no solace or hiding place to escape from what was tailing behind her in such an eerie casual manner that promised something omnious with it's presence. She was trapped. Oh, how she wished she could've simply turned back and ran past him and went directly to her dorm room and locked it, but of course, he'd find a way to get in there. Even if it meant killing a staff member.

Turning this corner, to that corner, down another hallway. She tried not to scream or make a sound. The only sounds from her was her panting, and small cries she emitted out of desperacy and fear. Hester now felt like she was swimming through the hallways, the air, the darkness, shadows and red lights that flew past her. The whole hallway bobbed up and down in her clumsy view. Until suddenly, she felt herself falling forward and meeting with something that caressed her cheek roughly enough to conjure a sting of pain. A thick wetness. It stuck to her hair and clothes and it smelled familar. Rusty. Metallic. The moment she lifted her head from the soaken floors, her eyes automatically met the soulless, dead stare of a nurse. Her eyes shot wide in horror of her discovery. She slammed her teeth together to stifle a scream. She immediately picked herself from the floors, only to sit in blood of the victims around herself. “O-Oh God..!”

Her panting gasps came sharp and quick with each intake as she surveyed the horror around herself. Bloodied, mutilated, gutted bodies of staff members. Two of them gutted from ribcage to pelvis, essentially hollowing out the torso of internal organs, the guts from the wound were half-eaten and some of them were entirely hollow. Fully eaten. Hester's quaking hand was slippery with gore, blood and splinters of bone. A hushed sob escaped her, her eyes wide and liquidy with tears. Blood was in her eyes, she rubbed her brow and weeped tears of red. Her heart stopped dead as she snapped out of her horrified trance for the thud of boots was near. Thus, a pause. Her head craned over her shoulder. She saw him. Cannibal man..

“No,” she moaned, “no, oh God, please.. no.”

Hester could see his shadow, tall and elongated. Pausing, watching, waiting. The moment his footsteps again approached her ears. His shadow bobbing silently towards her. She automatically pedalled her feet back, also using her elbows and hands, swimming through and collecting the blood of his unfortunate victims to herself and onto her clothes until she met a wall. She pushed her head back deep into the corner and cried softly, staring at him with frantic red eyes. Leave me alone!, she wanted to scream. Fear embraced her so taut like a familiar enemy, trapping her there. Fear aided him..
For the moment, she was positive he was going to kill her, not just hurt her, but to really kill her. Slay her like the rest of them laying before and around her. There was something inhuman about the way he looked as he was coming towards her with his head lowered tentatively and his hands hanging at his sides at the end of his arms like meat pendulums. At this moment, he looked like a bull..
She cried, shaking her head, frantically pedalling with her feet. Hester settled once he was before her, she slipped closed her eyes tightly and braced herself for an excruciating pain or a blow that would've taken her out..

[Saben Meinfried]

Saben remained in a casual walk as the girl he called his "pet" ran down hall after hall. It was the way he presented himself that made it all the more creepy and frightening though. With his head lowered slightly, his arms sitting still, but loose at his sides, he looked very much like an impending doom...like death that was slowly creeping your way in such a casual and relaxed manner. He knew fear was on his side, and that sooner or later, it would do the girl in and make her slip up. For that reason, he was in no hurry. He firmly believed that she would make her own mistakes and fall into her own trap, there was no need to run after her. And better yet, if he let her get ahead of him, it would be sensible not to scream. If you screamed, he'd find you. But the way he looked at it, if she screamed, she'd draw attention to them. So why not let her get a head start and keep quiet to avoid being found? It worked out for both of them, and Saben would much rather have to search for her than have to deal with a bunch of staff members and guards trying to put a stop to his fun.

As he turned a corner, his boots thudded across the floor, echoing in the halls. While he did like them, he wasn't all that concerned about getting them dirty. They were boots after all, always in contact with the floor. And if he got a good amount of blood on them, he could always just wash it off. So with that in mind, he made no attempt to avoid stepping in the blood and simply walked right through the puddles, trailing bloody bootprints every so often. Under most circumstances, leaving prints was one of the last things that you wanted to do, but when it came time for others to see the horror, it'd be obvious as to who was at fault. Gutted bodies, missing and half eaten organs, it couldn't have been anyone else other than Cannibal Man. This was what he was all about, horrifyingly gruesome murders and cannibalism.

When the girl tripped and fell over a corpse further down the hall, Saben had only taken notice by the sound of her hitting the floor and the sudden absence of running. He didn't bother to look up though. Instead, he kept his head lowered and continued on with his walk in what was almost like a ghostly scene. If one were able to see his face, they'd see an emotionless gaze, his green eyes looking at nothing more than the floor and his feet. And as he continued forward, he no longer heard the rapid and frantic sound of her running. Either she hadn't gotten back up, or she was going at a slow pace.

Moments passed as he walked towards her, and then, he saw her in his gaze. She had stopped and was sitting down, her back against the wall. She was also covered in blood, apparently having fallen in the blood of one or more of his victims. Once he got close enough to her, Saben stopped. After pausing for a few seconds, he squatted down in front of her, head still tilted down and he paused once more. Then he finally gazed up at her and rested one of his elbows on his knee. His right hand, covered in blood, went up and gently took her chin. "Ich würde niemals mein Tier zu töten." "I would never kill my pet." He said with a grin. He then let go of her chin before standing up and turning around. From there, he simply walked off in silence, once more walking through the puddles of blood and stepping over mutilated corpses. He never had any intentions of harming her this time around. He'd simply wanted to creep her out and get a message across. So once he reached the end of the hall, he turned the corner and disappeared from view.