It sounded like a baby crying, shrieking, a concentrated beam of primitive rage, pure and piercing, breaking glass along the lower walls, at the top of his reach. The Bad Magician woke with a start and the blood of his dreams receeded. He descended from his sleep to travel beyond the gates, taking to the road, not looking back. A small pebble of this Universe was in his shoe: he removed it and saw everything. He placed the small rock of the Universe in his pocket.
On the nearest broken highway a transformer spit and hissed on the weeds as furtive mice darted beneath it. The Bad Magician stopped and organized the clouds, then reached upwards to the sound of power and caught enough electricity to spin himself into the grid. He alternated east and north to arrive at the awful place. The Bad Magician had no choice. He shut out the sky.
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The Bad Magician arrived and was everywhere in the room, and then only in the One Place. The Killer was in front of the camera, the Bad Magician shot through his nerves but could not feel them. He listened to the mind of the Killer.
The voices told me why they had to die. The voices came like rocks down a mountainside, crashing onto me. Bad things were being done to me. Bad things were being done to us. The voices continued their avalanche. Kill them, for they will kill you. Your case is made. Do it. Do it. Kill them. Show them. Kill them.
The Bad Magician fell out of the Killer's head and tried to vanish but could not. He scrambled up the Fourth Wall and lingered. The Killer knew what to do. The Killer always knows what to do: kill. Kill. Kill. He smiled, and the bright lights of attention dimmed, and the cameras turned away.
How was I? asked the Killer, as if it mattered. How was I?
You were good, Mr. President. You were very, very good.
Thousands and thousands were preparing to die in the head of the Killer. Their shrouds were laid out, and small bits of earth were gathered, to be sprinkled on their lifeless corpses. The Children wanted to play in the graves. The Killer saw them.
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The Bad Magician remembers the Killer. He reaches into his pocket and fingers the small rock: he places the Universe beneath the skin of the Killer. One day, the Killer will see everything the way a rock does.
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