I’ve never been a very sociable kid. To be completely honest, I’ve never really seen the point of it. People talk about the same things over and over again. Meaningless things. The weather. The weekend. Work. School. As I’ve gotten into my late teens, I’ve grown to loathe it. Whenever I hear the kids in my classes or in the halls talking about the same old crap and giggling my blood boils. People avoid me mostly, which can be expected. A few of the more brutish kids pick on me, but I just ignore them. I spend my weekends alone, indoors. I like to play the piano in my spare time. It’s very… therapeutic. It’s like my meditation. When I’m playing it I usually think about life. I think about people, and my general dislike towards them, I think about the kids who pick on me at school and I think about the recent disappearances of kids in my surrounding area.

They were all kids of similar age to myself, mostly girls, some even from my school, my classes. There have been eight in total; I’ve been keeping track of them you see. I follow their stories in the newspapers quite closely. I’m very keen on what the police find at the scene and always keep an eye out for any evidence they find that might lead them to the killer. The profiles are always the same. They are usually discovered in back alleys or in ditches always with their throats slit in a clean and precise manner. The curious part, that the police can’t seem to figure out, is why the victims always have their tongues removed. Ripped out from their jaws – and I quote the newspaper when I say this – “While the victims were still alive”. They say it’s the worst serial killing they’ve had in my country for years. The killer is calm, meticulous, and leaves not one shred of evidence at the crime scenes.

Whatever the reason, my classes have been getting noticeably quieter as the noisiest of the kids have one by one gone missing, only to be found days later, mutilated and dumped as if they were trash. It’s so much more pleasant, I can concentrate properly now. There’s still one girl in my class though, who really grinds my gears with her high pitch whiny voice and that piercing laugh that seems to penetrate deep into my skull every time I have the displeasure of hearing it. I heard her again today, loud and irritating as usual, and couldn’t help thinking that she used that tongue of hers far too much. I might even go as far to say that she didn’t deserve to have it at all.