Love. A many splintered thing.

The love Dorothy had for her parents had been broken in the accident that killed them. The love the mother and father had for their child was smashed by the oncoming car that had forced them off the road and into the lake. That of an aunt and uncle was well meaning and genuine, but was a pale shadow of what a girl might need to help her walk through life on the right side of self-esteem and confidence.

Love was a whisper of a song on the wind. It could fill you with meaning and light your soul with its flame, yet be snatched away by an errant breeze that extinguished its warmth in a heartbeat.

The axe was keen. Its edge was finer than a human hair and could, indeed, slice one in two, twice over. It had been sharpened and polished and sharpened again, the blade being given the attention a loved one might afford. It was caressed late at night. Greeted with a smile in the early morning light as dawn's sun reflected brightly off its surface.

And it could, with a single swipe, take a life.

It would not need much effort in bringing the blade down down, as if the axe itself was helping the swing, eager to touch the intended target. A lover's kiss, deep and passionate and leaving the other breathless.

In this case, however, the lack of breath was due to the equal lack of life.

Love. Something Edward Simmons could never truly know. To feel the emotion – to feel anything – you needed a heart. Edward was lacking that particular organ. In truth, Edward was lacking many organs, but he was doing his utmost to remedy that situation.

The man was called Stephen Decker. A wife and two children told him they loved him on a daily basis. It wasn't a reflex response to a member of the same family. It wasn't something you just said because it was expected, though you meant it, though it was sort of automatic. No. They told him they loved him, a comment he readily reciprocated, because they did. Because they liked to say the words and to hear them. Stephen Decker said the so-called 'three little words' because they rolled off his tongue and, in the process, filled each of them with a feeling that would energise them for the whole day.

He was returning home. He had worked for long hours in the fields surrounding his farm house and was ready for his dinner and his bath. Stephen had never wanted to be a farmer. He wanted to explore and to learn and to be a man of substance. His father dying younger than he should have and more in debt than he needed to be had forced Stephen to take over the family farm to pay off the moneys owed that fell to him as the firstborn. Onlyborn, in fact.

His dreams died with his father. The day after the funeral, his mother walked out of the front door and was never seen again. She had yet to shed a single tear for the loss of her husband, though she loved him dearly and was a devoted wife. Regardless of the grown son she was turning her back on, Edina Decker felt she had lost everything and her life was over.

So she stepped over the threshold of her home, and let her feet lead her to a brand new life.

They did, indeed, though she walked for four weeks to find it. She was weak and starving and dehydrated when she was found hiding in a coal house from the rain. The woman, a widow herself, took Edina in. She could see a kindred spirit that was a shade darker than it should have been. A strong friendship developed between the ladies. When questioned about her past, Edina never mentioned her son. She remained oblivious of the grandchildren that would have blessed her life. She, in a way, forgot she'd even had a previous family. The woman, Katherine, became her family. A sister in all but blood.

Life was good. Life was new.

For Stephen, her lost son, life was also over. No longer would he seek out new lands. No more could he gain an understanding of things outside his experience. His father's farm became his prison. He worked it as hard as he could, and dedicated his time to its maintenance as the dutiful offspring he was. He married his wife and had a son of his own, followed soon by a daughter. Within the walls of his house, Stephen was happy. Blissfully so. Beyond, he felt as if he were stepping into a pit. One that was determined to drag him down and swallow him whole.

When he stepped over his threshold, he might easily have been walking in the cold footsteps of his mother. They were fading and led the abandoned man, who often felt he was still a boy, nowhere.

The trees in the copse that he'd cut down disappeared as a consequence of his frustrations. He took his axe to them with a fervour that had decimated the long-standing wooded acreage, and it had taken a time short enough to be insulting to their longevity.

The animals that had lived within its space were further victims of Stephen's anger. He had enjoyed their squeals of fright and slowly diminishing whimpers more than he would have expected. Killing them was something he was hesitant of at first but grew to enjoy and even hunger for. He did, in the end, learn. He discovered that a sliver of spite ran through him. He found that slipping a knife across the throat of a deer or between the ribs of a rabbit gave him a chill that vibrated through him as if he had been touched by lightning.

He loved his family, and they loved him. Totally.

He wouldn't extend his newfound passion to them.

He just wouldn't.

Edward Simmons could imagine the feelings warring with the confines of Stephen's body. He pictured the internal carnage that was ensuing as the temptations grew to be more than a single man could contain. He couldn't feel it, for he was yet to have that ability, but Edward knew he was still a work in progress. He was a canvas that was yet, in part, in need of the brushstrokes that would render him complete.

Edward was his own artist. He had to be. The one who had started his landscape had long since cast him aside. Edward had to finish the work started. He would probably have enjoyed it, if he was able.

He crouched in the field. He had been in that position for four days, waiting until the time was right, unmoving apart from the occasional need to lubricate his joints lest they set him in place. He spent his time thinking about his forthcoming actions, as he did each time. He wondered what remorse would be like. Would it eat away inside of him, devouring his heart until he inflicted upon himself that which he did to others? Or would he celebrate those who fell before him in the knowledge they were fulfilling a destiny they didn't know they had?

Edward thought about feelings most of the time. He wished he could enjoy the sensations they would give him. Perhaps, before his canvas was filled, he might find a way to paint some onto himself.

His thoughts whirred and spun in his head, cogs turning and belts running silently on spindles as fine as a spider's web. When he was finished, he was sure that he'd be a masterpiece, and those who had helped him become complete would be honoured in doing so.

The tingling started in his fingertips and ran up his arm to where it joined his shoulder. It stopped there, of course. Where the flesh met the metal was a cold, impassable wall that pins and needles could never prick. He flexed his fingers to relieve the bristling of the nerves and watched his fingers with a wonder that had yet to diminish. Bremen, the original owner of the arm, had been a vile man who crept into the houses of single women and stole from them. It was not for monetary gain, as he never sold anything he took. There was no specific reason he took any single thing – it didn't need to be valuable or unusual. He took what he liked, purely because he wanted to.

He would stand over the slumbering forms for hours, watching them until the sun began to stretch its fingers into the early morning sky. Then he would leave.

If they awoke early, or were disturbed, he would still leave, but there would be a flush to his cheeks after a strangled cry and a broken neck.

Edward thought Bremen should be proud of the new use his arm was being put to. After he had been killed the limb was transferred, replacing Edward's own metal appendage. Taking the lives of those not deserving of drawing breath was a fitting compensation for the man's victims.

Stephen Decker strode with a smile on his face. He was going home. He would be embracing his family. He would tell his children bedtime stories and would retire to his own bed with his wife, where they would enjoy each other before falling asleep in each other's arms.

He would just need to stop by the stream first to wipe the blood from his hands and face. He would need to rinse his shirt. He tried to avoid splatters normally, but he was starting to me more aggressive – no, enthusiastic – in his work. The wild boar had proved to be a formidable quarry, but it had fallen, as it must. This marked the first time he had tasted one of his kills. Previously, he left the carcasses for other animals to feast upon but, when one of the sprays of blood hit his mouth and, instead of recoiling or wiping it away, he had licked his lips, he could not help his urge.

Still warm, the animal had proved delicious. A large part of the taste had to be the spice of the adrenaline coursing through him, but even without that, Stephen found the beast filled with flavour.

He would still eat the meal his wife set in front of him when at sat at the table. He would still enjoy it and compliment her cooking, but it would be lacking a certain something. The added ingredients of his own hands and blade.

As he walked, he saw those hands push that blade into his wife through her stomach, pulling it up between her ample chest to the neck he loved to gently kiss. He stopped and breathed deeply, banishing the image. She was his beloved. He would never.

Never.

Edward stepped up behind Stephen. His metal legs moved easily from the position he had remained in for so long and Bremen's hand wrapped around the axe's handle as if they were old friends.

Stephen let out his last breath explosively, his life leaving with the same exhalation. His broken skull split like the trunk of one of the trees he had so vigorously felled.

Edward looked the dead man's body over, even though his choice had already been made. It didn't hurt to be sure. As ever, he agreed with his first decision. The left leg. Stephen's body was well muscled and in the condition one would expect from many days of hard labour and evenings of soft comfort. It was both looked after and enjoyed.

Edward would like to experience that same enjoyment at some point. Perhaps he even could.

The axe came down a second time and the man made of metal, machinery and science, set about replacing his leg with that of the man made of flesh, feelings and increasingly sickening appetites.