[ the predator ]

—— The man sat in his chair, a candlelit mahogany desk in front of him. As shadows danced over the walls of the study chamber, the Predator wrote in a fast and frantic manner. He moved a black quill over blank pages, filling them, sentence after sentence, with loss and tragedy and sorrow and death. He did not make the words up as he went along; the shadows whispered them slowly and clearly.

           Another page was finished. The Predator turned the page as softly as possible, savouring every single moment of this activity. He dipped his quill in a practiced act into an inkwell placed near his book. Another few drops of crimson ink spilled on his hand as he concentrated to bring the quill over to his book again. It struck down with the force a god would struck lightning from the heavens. 'Amelia Pond.' — The process of writing resumed.

           Behind him, a body lay, empty-eyed. It had been there, waiting as he tried completing his work over the past two weeks. Since some time ago, its eye sockets and tongueless, open mouth had been home to the most elegant hordes of black insects, who were now swarming over hollow, sunken cheeks. A chunk of skin was missing around the chest, large enough to offer a wonderful view into the ribcage of the deceased. Here, too, armies of centipedes and maggots marched through tunnels of rotten meat. The floor around the corpse was filled with ginger red hair, spread like confetti.

           The stench emitted by this corpse was of no concern to the Predator. In all honesty, he liked it. This sickening smell of what had once been life helped him focus on his story. The story was what was important. Crimson lines formed from his palm as vile whispers sliced through the silence. 'The girl who waited.' Another page filled. The Time Lord averted his eyes from his work as he once again turned the page— the final one. Before he began writing, the Predator closed the book. His hand touched over the leather that bound the pages oh so lightly, carressing it. After all, it took him some time to find the perfect resource for this project of his. He opened the book and wrote;

           ’Here we are, you and me, on the last page.’ A grin. He enjoyed every second of this; ridiculing the dead. Ridiculing the one who was at this exact moment gazing upon the back of the Predator. 'Amelia Pond', he repeated on this page, in the red ink that reeked of the copper smell of blood. As much of the body was reused. The blood was a fine delicacy, but with the right skill, it had the capacity to colour the inside of this book so well. And then there was the leather that bound the book. The gap in the chest of the infested, crawling corpse looked awful and unpreserved, but it was worth it. The Predator carressed the human hide of the book once more as he closed it— and with it, the final page, on which the following words had been sliced with immense fury, but a surprising gentleness nonetheless:

❝ —I am not.. H I M. I am not the D O C T O R. ❞