31.

Monday April 3rd, 2084. City college of San Francisco, twelve forty-seven in the afternoon, nineteen-year-old Philippe Bateman sits on a stone wall next to the base of the steps that lead to the main college entrance. Professor Angelo Sanderson exits the building without noticing that Philippe, who is one of his more intelligent and quieter students, was or is sitting close by.

The professor begins to make his way to his car and Philippe follows. On the inside, Philippe is filled with a growing anger and has been full of this anger for some time by this moment in time. He has been fuelled by a strong rage for some time and has been acting out of late. He hates everything and everyone but to look at him you could never tell for up to now he mostly has held that anger and rage inside. Things are about to change.

Standing six foot two inches tall, being well-built and handsome, he wears his blonde hair with a slight quiff, and he is quite popular with the ladies, well was quite popular until he bit one girl on the lip with such force that it made her bleed. She had slapped him in the face and ran but Philippe liked how her blood tasted and he wanted to taste more.

Curiosity made him do it; the experience of taking a life would set an addiction into motion. The professor had confronted Philippe about that young lady only a few days prior to the Monday morning on the third of April, lacking the knowledge of what had come since.

Philippe did not like how the little bald man spoke to him. He did not like many things. He is not gonna let anyone talk down to him. Philippe will never again allow anyone make him feel small ever again. It is time to let who he really is to come out to the forefront and play, he has begun a craft, one he is eager to hone. The death of a young lady would not become public knowledge for a few days yet. In Philippe's mind here and now, how he had been feeling has been boiling over for too long.

Angelo opens the car door on the driver's side but before he can get into his vehicle, he is hit on the back of the head with a baseball bat then is unceremoniously dumped into the back of his own car. Having taken the keys, Philippe gets into the driver's seat and drives the car to his own home. Angelo would eventually wake only to find himself tied up in a darkened basement like room; a large spot light like contraption is shone directly at him.

The professor finds himself hanging just off the ground; rope hung from the rafters holding his arms in the air tied together at the wrists, his barefoot toes almost touching the ground and his ankles were also tied together with rope.

Having had his clothing removed from his torso, the professor was most certainly feeling the cold that the evening's darkness brought, despite being indoors. Yeah, it hardly had become afternoon when he had been knocked unconscious. In his moment of waking, it has become early evening. Angelo being blinded by that large, strong, and bright white light being turned on and also being directly aimed at his face, takes a moment before speaking.

'Who is there? Who is that?' asks Angelo sounding like an authoritative figure, something he most definitely is not in the current moment ...

'Who is there? Who is that? ... Hey' responds Philippe with an almost childish sarcastic taunt.

Angelo recognizes the voice.

'Philippe? Is that you?'

'Of course, it is me Professor and you are about to regret the way you were with me the last time you and I conversed.'

'Don't be rash here Philippe; if you just untie me then the two of us can sit down and talk like men.'

'Talk like men, I like that' smiles Philippe with the thoughts of what he was about to do very prevalent in his thoughts, 'I am sure that we both know that it is way too late for talking, anyway you have to be a man if we are to talk like men and you are nothing more than a worthless slivering earthworm.'

Philippe moves slowly from being next to that large light of his until he comes to stand right in front of the professor and there he pauses for a moment. He begins to glide the tip of a hunting knife along the skin of his captive, beginning from the mid-point of the chest. The cold sharp blade cuts into Angelo ever so slightly and this makes him squirm and call out in pain. Philippe brings the blade downwards slowly; Angelo's blood begins to trickle and chase along after the knife.

Halting the glide of the knife, Philippe would begin to make an incision right in the center of Angelo's torso just below the ribcage. The previous glide of the knife barely broke skin. This new incision which has only just been made had done a little more than break skin and the bearer of the knife would bring that incision right down to and through the belly button stopping just below it.

Angelo screams while squirming all the more in agony. The squirming makes the cutting all the more difficult, this however seems to make the moment so much more pleasurable for Philippe, yeah, he is certainly enjoying it and keeping things at a slow pace ensures he will continue to enjoy it. All this is almost like he is going back in time and to a point where he was about to dissect a frog in a science class. This though was no science class and Angelo is definitely no frog.

Using a small step ladder Philippe raises himself to stand higher than Angelo and at that he also ensures he stands behind him too. Phillippe is naturally tall and athletic, and Angelo is naturally a short man, the step ladder just provides a positional advantage. Using that Bowie hunting knife of his, which so happens to be the favourite knife in his rather extended collection of what he would refer to one day in the near future as his tools, Philippe would reach around and cut Angelo's neck from the left side to the right. Philippe comes down off the step ladder and sits, to watch and wait until all life from the professor's body has come to an end.

The sound of Angelo suffering, the sound of his occurring death echoes and to Philippe, this sounds better than any symphony could. The sight of the body bleeding and the squirming coming to an end was and is to Philippe a piece of art, a piece of art he created, a piece of art he can be proud of, having it hang in display as all good art should. To take it down would almost seem to be a waste but take it down he would for Philippe is not done. His first masterpiece is yet to be complete.

When he would be sure that the Professor is well and truly dead, Philippe makes his way back up the step ladder and cuts the rope holding up the now lifeless body, a body he would carry towards a large marble table, laying it down on its back before wiping away some of the blood from the torso. With that knife he favours so much Philippe would cut into Angelo's torso again, much deeper this time.

Reaching inside, Philippe grabs and pulls out the stomach. There would be no regret, no remorse, and no repulsiveness in doing any of this, only a smile and a new and stronger desire to go do something like this again at another point in time is present. Angelo's intestines would follow the removal of his stomach and they would spill out on a concrete floor in a blood-filled mess.

Philippe had killed now for a second time. This occasion was more masterful and artful than what the death of the young lady who had bitten his lip, and with this new effort Philippe would truly go on to develop a taste for human organs. It seemed human blood was not the only thing he had acquired a taste for, and that young lady's bitten lip had acted as some kind of catalyst. Here his first masterpiece indeed now felt complete, there would be more to come, Philippe would make sure of that.

In a darkened room aboard The Pathfinder Maria hung above the ground, her arms having been tied together with rope at the wrists. The toes on her bare feet not quite touching the ground and her ankles are also bound together. Her top tied up to reveal the bottom half of her torso. Still unconscious, it would only be a matter of time before Philippe would want to take yet another life, creating yet another piece of what he considers to be ... art.

His first two kills aboard The Pathfinder had been rushed; they were experiments to see what he could get away with. With their success, the grimmest of all grim artists wants to take time, he wants to enjoy every second of the kill, a new kill, and he wants to enjoy every second of what surely will be his newest creation.