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Main The Film |
You're probably wondering why this exists...Just know that you're not alone.One day I was watching the news, and saw something that just didn't sit right with me. Why would something so horrible happen? Why them? It was too quick for most of the residents to get out, so, like... it couldn't have been just a kitchen fire spreading, right? Or even a busted wire or something getting a wall and going from there. Everyone is baffled and I wince at the mention of 'arson' every time it gets brought up. It's so unfair. They were good people. But then I was reminded of some stuff I've been reading online. It all seemed so similar, so familiar, that I decided to put this all together in one place to look at. Are you too afraid to light the flame? Da igual, tío. Es muy fácil encontrar el sabor de la libertad, pero si tienes demasiado miedo para romper con todo... ...entonces soporta el dolor, el odio, el sufrimiento y las cosas viles que la vida tiene para ofrecer. Solo vivimos para sufrir. Solo vivimos para morir. Corrompidos y mancillados por todo lo que nos rodea. Purificate con la llama y elige tu momento. |
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Main The Film |
A narrative of Detective Amaldo, the first detective on the case to connect the Arson Murders to 'Piromano del craneo', or the 'Skull Pyromaniac' The video was clearly taken with an older digital camera, quality fairly low and the ability to capture movement in the darkness within the initial scenes next to impossible. However, it was steady and consistent, and the only real evidence Detective Amaldo had to the latest batches of arson homicides. There had been at least six in the last three months in his city, and five from other locations within a days' drive away. How the video itself made it to him was still under investigation, as he did not remember putting the flash drive in his bag nor where he had even been recently that someone could slip it in– but his crew had deemed it safe to check out the data on it. When they did, it had pulled his case from a steep decline right back into action again. 'Pirómano del cráneo', as the community was calling him, had been particularly difficult to track down with only two known images captured of him and only internet forums' discussions to work off of. To say he was like catching smoke was not an unfamiliar analogy, and it was quite frustrating for those working the case. Detective Amaldo sat back and hit the 'Play' button again, letting the video start over once more on the screen of his department-borrowed laptop. This time... this time, maybe he would be able to catch something else. More details, more information. Anything to catch this guy and stop the next bout of flames and death he knew was likely to come. The camera is turned on, flickering briefly as it records a glimpse of a tree and ground. Then it is moved, rotated and held out by the shape of a person. Too dark to see more than a dark blob and hints of a skull-face shape, bobbing very slightly as if they were walking while holding the camera facing them. Too dark to get much from these parts until the tech crew were able to successfully work on brightening the image and adjusting the contrast. For some reason, the file didn't want to cooperate with most of their programs; it almost seemed to want to hold onto the secret of the one who filmed it. "Aquí tenemos otra casa de dolor y sufrimiento." (Here, we have another house of pain and suffering.) The camera is turned just before there could possibly be any light to shed on the figure. The voice speaking was deeper, masculine- yet had a raspy husk to it that sounded like someone who either smoked often, or inhaled too much smoke in other ways. On film was an older looking house, no electricity running but candles going inside. The wailing of a child can be heard almost distantly through the cameras mic. "El padre bebe porque no logra ganar suficiente dinero para alimentar a su familia. La madre se ha rendido. El resto de la familia está compuesta por niños y ancianos, enfermos y hambrientos. El más pequeño tiene solo tres años." (The father drinks because he cannot earn enough money to feed his family. The mother has given up. The rest of the family consists of children and the elderly—sick and hungry. The youngest is only three years old.) The camera is held up as the stranger steps closer to a window of the house. That candle light shows little furniture, a man snoring in a seat, two kids sitting on the floor at his feet reading an old picture book. Two women in a kitchen barely seen beyond this 'sitting' room are murmuring in low voices, though one of them is pacing. A child coughs and they all fall silent aside from that crying from yet another room. "Esto es una desgracia. Esto es el infierno. Están atrapados en una situación en la que no pueden hacer nada. No es culpa suya." (This is a tragedy. This is hell. They are trapped in a situation where they can do nothing. It is not their fault.) This part, Amaldo finds... strange. The filmer's voice sounds as if he is speaking normally, yet none within the house seem to hear him. The crying child was not that loud, and he can see that one of the windows he is filming through is slightly cracked. But not even the neighbors he had spoken to said anything about seeing anyone anywhere near that house, that night. Almost like this was filmed by a ghost... but ghosts did not usually start fires, let alone multiple ones that had killed over thirty people. The video is paused, rewound a little bit and paused again. Right there- one window is open, likely for a breeze. If they had no power, they likely did not have any fans blowing and it had been hot the last few weeks. If he squinted enough and leaned forward in his seat, he swears he could even see the slightest bit of a reflection off the one filming, a black shape on the glass that was proof he was physically there. But there were no other details he could decipher off of shadows on glass, so the Detective hit 'Play' again. "Esto es una desgracia. Esto es el infierno. Están atrapados en una situación en la que no pueden hacer nada. No es culpa suya." (This is a tragedy. This is hell. They are trapped in a situation where they can do nothing. It is not their fault.) The video continues to film the family and their movements for at least five minutes. One of the women go to check on the crying child while the other comes over to bring the other two children a glass of water to share. Everyone looks so thin and worn, and it was clear they were all trying to keep quiet- to not wake the man, or perhaps to not wake anyone else sleeping within the house. Eventually, the camera starts to pull away. No words are spoken, but boots crunch on dirt as it is held by one hand- not pointed at anything in particular. Darkness and noise. Walking. The figure moving something. Liquid sloshing in a container. "Pronto estarán libres de esto. Libres del dolor del hambre, libres del sufrimiento causado por la enfermedad y el maltrato. Ya no tendrán nada que temer." (Soon they will be free from this. Free from the pain of hunger, free from the suffering caused by sickness and abuse. They will no longer have anything to fear.) The voice is more distant now; the camera was put down on something while the noise of his actions are recorded. More liquid sloshing, being poured out; more steps being taken as he made his movements. "Recuerda que debes morir. Pero la vida es solo el primer paso de todo, la primera etapa de la eternidad." (Remember that you must die. But life is only the first step of everything, the first stage of eternity.) Amaldo pauses again and looks down at his notes. 'Memento Mori' was what he could find of the first part- but everything he had seen on that leaned more toward life. Even on message boards and in dictionary depictions of the phrase, it was a reminder that people lived only one life. Everyone would die someday, so to live the best of their abilities with what they had... Evidently, el Pirómano looked at it very differently, and this recording was not the first evidence of it. Fortunately, they had been able to keep it out of the news, but every site of each arson had something similar depicted at them. Burnt paper, or carved out in the dirt in front of one house. The nursing home must have been quite a big job for the arsonist, as he had written 'Recuerda que debes morir.' in stones out on the lawn presumably before starting the fire. Maybe they should let it slip out, just to see what the public pulled from it. 'Play' was hit again, and the video continued on. The sound of liquid being dumped out finally stopped, and the footsteps returned to the camera. Again, that shadowed face could be seen with so very little detail to it other than the contrast of black and white fighting with the darkness of the night. "Tras el sufrimiento de esta vida, nacerá una mejor. El fuego los purificará de esta miseria y los llevará allí." (After the suffering of this life, a better one will be born. Fire will purify them of this misery and lead them there.) A lighter clicks on, and finally the face of the stranger blooms into view. A mask, skull-like, covers most of his face while it seems like makeup covers the rest. Long, dark hair frames it all in around a set of eyes looking directly at the camera. If they could get the color set right, the Detective would like to know the color of those eyes. They looked black in the lighting, but with something lighter around the edges; possibly brown? He had stared into them as they had stared into the camera for... it had to be at least an hour, the first time he watched the video alone in his office. It bothered him a lot. Those eyes... looked soft. Warm. Welcoming. Hopeful? The eyes were the windows to the soul, and these windows seemed to show someone who was looking upon the audience of the video in kindness. Even if his voice did not- could not?- reflect it, from looks alone the skull-faced arsonist, 'Pirómano del cráneo', seemed to think he was doing something good here. Or maybe he was so twisted and fucked up that he found a sense of peace in what came next. "Cree en las llamas. Llévate contigo todo lo bueno y escapa del dolor. Solo vivimos para sufrir. Solo vivimos para morir. Corrompidos y mancillados por todo lo que nos rodea. Sé limpiado por la llama y elige tu momento." (Believe in the flames. Take all that is good with you and escape the pain. We live only to suffer. We live only to die. Corrupted and tainted by everything around us. Be cleansed by the flame and choose your moment.) The lighting shifts as the camera is turned. That lighter is set to a trail of glimmering fluid on the ground, which then lights up and leads right to the house. It was almost impossibly close to the one setting it, as if he didn't feel the heat from it as it licked at the air and flickered at his feet. From his still-crouched position, he filmed it all: the fire reaching the house. The flames crawling up the sides and over the roof. Some preparations must have been done for it to kindle so quickly- or the house itself had just been in tinder conditions from the start. The family did not seem to notice. Not until it was too late. No alarms went off, no neighbors saw. A house burning in the night and only when the screaming started did someone notice. By then, the one holding the camera had stepped backward slowly, both catching more of the scene in front of him and slipping off into the night. "Su dolor es solo temporal... su libertad es eterna." (Their pain is only temporary... their freedom is eternal.) His voice is hushed, and the camera is lowered from filming the scene of the crime and back down to the ground at his feet. It shifts as he walks, then turns off as sirens wail off in the distance. Detective Amaldo sits in the silence afterward again, mulling over the scene and the words and details he could gather from it. The whole family had perished, but somehow the flames had not reached over to their closest neighbors' home despite the intensity of it by the time the fire brigade had arrived. A family of eight in a two-bedroom house, gone in one night, with nothing but a cryptic video to work off of. It would happen again. And again. More fires, more deaths. The Detective eventually passed the case over to someone else, worn thin by the stress of it all, and retired early. His body would be found a month later, charred to the bone, with his wallet nearby and a note that simply said 'Memento Mori.' |