A vicious cycle

Stacie Fidler, Annabelle Douglas, Amanda Cooper, all are names on a list that tally up. The lives of many widdled down to none. Thirty-seven girls scored on a list, and now there is a new name to scribble in a book. A new victim of his crime. Indistinguishable innocent or the perfect target in time? She didn't survive his heinous hands holding her body in place, strangling her struggling corpse as it squirmed to escape. And the reality is that her life was seen as nothing more than a game. A means to make a name and grow in fame; to prove a point.

When is it that one life is acceptably less valuable than the next? Not only should the build-up of bodies in the streets transcend our limits of acceptable death, but it should also heed the warning that life is not ours to take. However, in front of me, laid peacefully at my feet, is a woman. A woman scorned by the desires of a masked man hiding among us. A man so confident in his actions – his decisions – that taking a life is nothing more than a regular day. My day is littered with images and documents on the dead bodies of this town. The women who do nothing more than flaunt their bodies; from broken homes and struggling families.

Today, this time, the victim is different. She's younger—more of a victim of placement than an occupation, new to the game of attraction. Maybe, if given the opportunity, she could've grown up to be a powerful woman, but instead, she's laid to bed, left there dead. What's worse is the men around me all act the same. They look down upon her strewn body, like litter on the ground ignored by the mass of many. Nevertheless, I crouch beside her. An equal. A peer. A person. She is not mine to judge, and therefore, she is innocent in my eyes, regardless of the lies circling about her. But no one else follows suit, and instead, I see them smirking at the strangeness of my actions. My portrayal of humanity is seen as a laughingstock with secret glances, between my colleagues, of unspoken humour towards my inability to treat someone as just a case to close.

These women, lifeless bodies that I see day to day, are targets of competition stemmed from a man - murderer - who strives to remind people of what he considers the good days, the pure days—his idealised dystopian reality. Women, dressed in bell-bottomed jeans, tied died shirts, and talking about their desires for peace, are strangled by their medallioned necklaces. Left lying lifelessly, limbs spread, on the cold hard ground, with no one around. The screams faded into the distance, never to be found. They must have been scared, shocked, or confused in their last hours of life.

And like the thirty-seven before, this woman, the innocent girl, is surrounded by strangers now. She is looked down upon, assumptions made against her without the chance for her to defend herself. The world continues while hers ends. Over before it even began. I can treat her as a person, but, the reality, I'm respecting an empty corpse—number thirty-eight. Hours staring at a dead body, and I still didn't really know anything. Standing up, I take a step away from the body, my back turned against the scene as to give myself the chance to breathe and take a break from what would soon be all-consuming. After one last glance back, I headed back towards my car. I drove off.

That night I slept, plagued by the images of dead bodies, and I knew it had begun, the obsession with this masked man hidden among us. I was enthralled in my torturous twisted dreams, the streams of faces, the never ended open cases. And then suddenly, I was disturbed by the ear-splitting ringing of my princess telephone. She had been identified. Dianna Maxfield.

Siting up in my bed, I pulled out my black book and wrote down her name, added to the gradually growing list of gruesome deaths. After hearing her name, I knew there was no way I would fall back asleep, so I drove into the office in order to read up on the information of our new victim—as I built the courage to go to the victim's family. I stalled for hours, but as dawn broke, I knew it was time. Driving up to the new victim's house, I repeated her name, Dianna Maxfield, over and over again. I needed to numb myself to the reality of telling loved ones that they were never getting someone back and, worse, we don't know why.

Dianna's mum knew that her daughter was gone before I even got the words out, call it mothers' instinct or not, but she knew. However, she needed to hear me say it before she could come to terms with it. I don't cry, I don't think I know how to anymore, but this time, looking into the eyes of the innocent victim's mother, I felt a tear break the barrier, leaking out as I turned to return to my car. Twenty thousand dollars, apparently, is the worth of her daughter's life. $20 000, and they should feel better. But I know they - a grieving family - need more. I need more. Twenty thousand dollars is what I have in the boot of my car. Insurance money for my sister's death, killed in another town, and by another man; money I cannot spend. So, I know how they feel. Like them, I need to know who broke my heart. Those victims and the victims' families. Left empty. Left scorned. They need to know the truth.

Settling back into my car, I looked over my list again—my little black book with thirty-eight names in it. Annabelle Douglas, Amanda Brown, Dianna Maxfield, all are names on a list that tally up. They didn't survive. And as I looked up, ready to drive away, I noticed a pretty girl emerge from her house. She was gorgeous with a kind smile and jolly demeanour, waving sweetly as I drove past. It's sad to know that soon, she'll seize to exist. Rolling down my window, memorising her address, I winked at her. If only she knew not to trust a strange man, sat in a car, staring at her. And if you cannot tell - the masked man running around town - he is smirking right now. For he, for I, have found my target in the crowd.

I don't know why, but I can't keep the monster at bay. And tonight, she will be a victim of my crime. Indistinguishable innocent or the perfect target in time? She won't survive my heinous hands holding her body in place, strangling her struggling corpse as it squirms to escape. And the reality is that, to me, her life is seen as nothing more than a game. A means to make a name and grow in fame; to prove a point. She means nothing to me, at least not until I know her name, and it's cemented in my little black book. Only then do I feel remorse for tampering with the scene of a crime as I kneel by the innocent victim by my feet—all to be done again on repeat.