I hear it said it is darkest when you cannot recall the exact moment that change took you though we don't really know anything about darkness or being taken anywhere by it, now do we? When the light leaves us and we are only left with the dark, there is only one place that any of us will go. Speaking of which...

In total darkness, you see nothing, nada, not a thing and all you can hear is the sound of your own breathing. You are lost and confused not knowing of where it is you are. Are you dreaming? If only. You are soon consumed by the sound of your own heartbeat and it soon beats so hard and fast, that it feels as if it just might beat right out of your chest or at least give your eardrums the sensation that they may just burst at any given moment.

You briefly consider calling out a 'hello' but not knowing where you are or how you got there prevents you from doing so. Same goes for as far as moving. You indeed do not know where it is you are or what may or may not be close by. It soon becomes apparent that you have no choice in regards to moving for you are in a lying position and are unable to move. Are you strapped to what it is you lay upon? Yeah, it more than seems that you are.

What about clothing? You are not wearing very much, are you? You can feel a chill and that chill is enhanced by every single nuance that surrounds you. That chill hits your skin and hits you almost over your whole entire body, it moves through you, into you, right to the bone. Goosebumps… You have never had them quite like this before. Perhaps where you are is being refrigerated to some degree.

As if there was no cause to do so already, you really begin to panic. This sense of panic seriously begins to heighten when the sound of a single scream echoes loudly. That sound is as much a waling screech as it is an echoing scream and is enough to make you jump if it weren't for the fact that you can't.

The combination of those sounds, your pounding heartbeat, and that echoing scream could probably take you somewhere you do not want to be by yourself but unfortunately, you are in such a place already. Where is this place? How did you get there, or rather, here? You don't have any answers, do you? If you think about it, maybe you do have some answers.

That scream you heard along its echo tells you things. It lets you know you are not completely alone; it lets you know you are within a room for you can tell that the scream is coming from another room, a room or place very close to where you are, separated by at least a sturdy partition, but most likely, by a wall of some sort. It also tells you that you are in danger, as if you did not know that already. Is screaming something to come into your existence quite soon? A second scream echoes and that scream tells you that it just may be the final scream that its owner may ever be afforded.

Time is running out for whatever fate which has been bestowed upon the owner of the scream may just be the very same fate that awaits you. What is happening? What is going on? Why is this happening? And why is it happening to you?

Indeed, your time is up, or so it appears. The door to the room you lay within opens and the white light that shines through is so bright that it almost blinds you. The dark can do that, when and if light comes too quickly, forces you to only want to turn away back into that darkness.

The silhouette of a man stands in the doorway. You no longer lay in total darkness of course as there is that blinding white light, though the room's own illumination has also been turned up somewhat. The not such good news for you however is that despite the arrival of light, you will soon find a return to a darkness of sorts.

Unfortunately, this soon-to-be incoming darkness is not one with which you want to head into, or maybe it is, and if that want does exist then that may just be as much as or more unfortunate for those you may come in contact with. Has that want for darkness been building in you all along?

An older gentleman has entered the room. It is he who had raised the lighting and it is he who had stood in the doorway. One thing is for sure and this is that the word gentleman is not an applicable word to describe this man for you almost instantly recognize just who he is despite the fact you have never met him before. This man is not civilized or well-mannered, even if he appears to be just that; if anything, he is a monster, a beast, a true man of evil intention.

This man is in his late fifties; his head is as bald as your average everyday hard-boiled egg and that head of his shines with the light that has drowned out the darkness you woke to. He, this follicly challenged assailant, is of average height and build and is wearing a white lab coat, a white shirt, and a full-length dark brown leather apron. His shirt sleeves are turned up and past his elbows and he is carrying a folded beige satchel, the contents of which are soon revealed to be a full set of knives, butcher’s knives.

You know of this man as his likeness has been all over the news of late, in fact, his existence has been known about for decades now. He is a mass murderer known as 'The Butcher' and he is known for torturing his victims with those knives of his, killing them slowly before butchering their remains beyond all recognition and most likely taking joy in every moment of it.

Are you to be his latest victim? Or does he have something else entirely in store for you?

When this man steps into the room he walks with a purpose but not before the door to the room is closed shut. This fellow heads towards a worktop only just a few feet away from where you lay and he unties that satchel of his, rolls it out indeed to reveal its contents. The first thing he removes from it is a rather large meat cleaver. He turns towards you and inspects the cleaver.

The cleaver is spotlessly clean and gleams more than the head of its owner. You can be sure that this cleaver is razor-sharp. In more of a panic than what you have been in up to now, you attempt to wriggle free but escape, any attempt at an escape is futile. You are in trouble and you know it, that trouble however may just get to evolve somewhat.

He takes one look at you and appears to have made himself a decision before speaking out loud.

'No, this is not the way to begin things. This would be far too quick, and I much prefer to take things nice and slow. You would much rather things to be nice and slow, wouldn't you?'

Not knowing how to react, you make your best effort to agree with the man standing before you. He returns the cleaver to the satchel. When he turns back to you, he is holding a small thin knife with a serrated blade, something which looks… Surgical. You are sure that this Butcher is about to use that knife to cut into you, but you are soon more than surprised and somewhat relieved by the fact that this is not what he does.

Rather than cut you, he cuts into your restraints, one by one, freeing you from the bed you lay upon. He moves away a bit though you stay right where you are. You see that you are closer to his knives than what he now is. What do you do? What could possibly be running through your mind? Having turned away he soon turns back towards you.

'So, are you coming or what?' he asks.

How do you react to this? Is there a right thing to do? Is there a wrong thing to do perhaps? You move off the bed and initially find it difficult to stand. In fact, you struggle to ensure that you don't collapse into a heap onto the floor. You had been lying where you had been for some time and your body needs to react and recover. Who knows what may have been put into your system prior to now, especially if something had been used to get you into an unconscious state? Those gelatinous legs of your soon gain stability.

He throws you some overalls and begins to make his way to the exit of the room. You briefly eye up the knives again before putting the overalls on. What else is there for you to do now but follow this man who indeed is simply known as The Butcher? As you prepare to leave the room you notice a number of elemental units which are in place to keep the room cool, indeed there is refrigeration in place.

Out in the hallway right outside your room, there is red carpet lining the floor. How appropriate you think since red is the colour of blood. You find that you are about halfway down a long thin corridor, a corridor which has access to many rooms. The Butcher has moved off to the left. 'Why left?' you wonder, 'why not right?' is there even a difference? He is waiting for you.

'Are you coming?' he asks with a confidence that suggests he already knows the answer.

Strangely you are somewhat intrigued and are not quite sensing the panic or immediate danger that you were feeling only moments earlier. You are compelled to follow. He leads you out of one corridor and down through an adjoining corridor. Both these corridors do indeed have many rooms. Many of the doors to these rooms are open. Inside these rooms are the remnants of what once was life, remnants which went through what no man or woman should ever go through.

There is a lot of blood, so much so that the smell of it is overwhelming. Other stenches fill your nostrils. There are guts and intestines dripping off from tables not all unlike what it was you had been laying on. There are limbs; arms and legs, there are hands and feet just lying upon the floor within these rooms. Blood, there is a lot of blood. How many people have been killed and dismembered within this building?

For some reason or another, you feel quite calm as if all of this is something you are meant to see, as if you are on some kind of field trip or some kind of mission with which you always were meant to be a part of. Once the corridors are cleared you are taken into a rather large room void of all colour apart from grey and white. This room looks like the floor area to many an active factory only at this particular moment there is no activity.

Any and all machinery is inactive, switched off for the time being. You can imagine this place being a hive of activity at the best of times, if such a thing can actually be said. This is a meat factory, only the meat which passes through here is human. You can almost see lifeless bodies hanging on a conveyor rack. That thought makes you smile rather than offer you any kind of feeling that should on any other day have you find such as repulsive.

Just how many people are involved in all this death and dismemberment? So far and since your moment of waking, you and The Butcher are the only two living persons you have seen.

It really is as if you are being taken on a tour, a tour where few or no words are needed. Again, there is the thought, the question, why you? It kind of hits you. You are being prepped for something, breed for something, set up for something. What does this Butcher want? An assistant? An heir? At the moment you have this realization you notice that he is looking directly at you. You have it, you are spot on. The Butcher is looking for a successor, someone to pass the torch onto.

You actually feel sick and disgusted at first then when that passes you feel honoured, proud, you feel a sense of achievement and it is safe to say that all this surprises you. You are not a murderer, you do not kill, you cannot kill, and you cannot be a successor for a maniac. He is not a maniac, is he? He can be a mentor, a teacher, someone you can impress, and someone you want to live up to. A side of you that you did not know existed is emerging. Has it always been there? Did he know of this existence?

You remember now how you came to be in this place where you so happen to be. You were out in a secluded part of town, it was late and there was no one around, no one apart from someone you perceived to be a homeless man. He, the homeless man, collapsed and you went to his aid. It was at this moment you were tranquilized and abducted. Next time you woke was when this whole particular incident began.

That homeless man, he was not a homeless man at all, he was of course, and is The Butcher and he has had eyes on you for some time. This is all crazy, this is all nuts, and this is all perfectly… Normal. You and he have actually met before and met numerous times before, yeah you recall those hidden moments.

Two men crossing paths on occasion and by chance only it never had been by chance. Your preparation time began long before now. He is in your head and has been for some time. The message had been passed to you and through you subliminally.

As a young child, you had an incident, beaten by a school bully, you remember that, don’t you? How you laughed instead of crying like a regular child would, then the vengeance you made good upon years later, beating that boy to a bloody pulp.

Yeah, there was laughter then, there is laughter now, it echoes through the room you are currently within and you are surprised to discover that it is you who is laughing. Are you ready? He thinks you are. Your journey, your tour has only really just begun. He leads you back down the corridors from which you came. You both come to stop at a closed door. He hands you a satchel of your own, one you can develop and personalize in time.

He opens the door to a darkened room. Inside this room, there is a living person strapped to a table. Your first victim awaits. Are you ready to go to it?

Well… Are you?