text: [Themes: sci-fi, post-apocalyptic, war]
  
  Obviously they thought they could just stroll in and take shelter here, bad mistake on
  their part...
  
  You calmly point the shotgun at the man caught in the trap and blast him before he even notices you. The little boy now really begins screaming, but the woman just becomes silent and falls into shock turning her head in your direction covered in the blood of her husband.
  
  You don't feel sick like you did last time; you do feel an overwhelming sense of power though.
  
  The woman grabs her son's hand and turns to run, but realizes two seconds later that she's only holding on to his hand and the rest of him is lying on the ground, one arm less, from your second blast.
  
  "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!" the woman screams.
  "Because I can, and there's nobody around to stop me." You say and briskly walk over to the woman. After a pathetic struggle you knock her out and drag her into your new home.
  
  After all, you're not sure when you'll get to see another woman again...
  
  A couple days after the incident with the family (and disposing of all three bodies) you begin keeping yourself in better shape. You start exercising regularly, and fixing up your home. You need to be prepared, in case more people ever show up. You MUST defend yourself and your home. You don't get many, but every now and then another poor soul stumbles across your death lair. You're merciless. Soon you begin to arrange the vehicles of your victims to form a semi "wall" around your home and place some grisly totems as "decoration".
  
  A year passes...
  
  You don't get visitors anymore, though that's probably because of the unfriendly image you've projected with all the skulls you've stuck on the spikes outside. Part of you is glad that you aren't being disturbed anymore, but the other part misses the killing. You begin to wonder if you shouldn't start venturing out more, but you'd hate to leave your home.
  
  One day you're awakened by the roar of motorcycles. You've got visitors again, you ready your weapons. As you head upstairs you hear that inevitable "SNAP!" sound followed by screaming. Yet another victim to your traps, though you hear the typical sounds of distress, you also hear some laughter, taunting even, which has got you more curious than anything.
  
  You check through a little peephole you made and see a bunch of biker types, one is lying on the ground, his leg nearly severed by the hidden bear trap. While one is trying to free him, a couple of the others are just laughing and remarking about how it looks like it really hurts.
  
  "Look are you assholes going to help or not?" one of them asks.
  "Hey, I told you fuckers not to go traipsing into a place that has skulls stuck on stakes. Y'all should've known it wasn't exactly going to be a friendly place."
  "We need fuckin' gas Jim, and this place has a lot of vehicles, and maybe some of them have gas. We had to go check!"
  "Well yeah, but that didn't mean just walking around unaware of your surroundings...shit that leg looks bad."
  
  "That leg is bad. Even if you did get it off of him, he's probably going to lose it to infection. I wiped my own shit on it, not to mention it was developing a nice set of rust on it when I found it. I'd say his bike riding days are over." You say standing your doorway with your shotgun ready. The bikers look in your direction, one looks like he's going to pull his pistol, but the one called Jim stops him. He's obviously the leader.
  
  "You might be right, stranger, but that still leaves you outnumbered one to three. You sure you wanna take those odds?" Jim says.
  "I'll take 'em and I'll enjoy it. It's been a long time since I've killed a whole mess of people."
  "Oh, so you're a REAL killer eh?"
  "Better killer than you."
  "Hah! I doubt that! See me an' the boys here have been raisin' hell where ever we can. Come across a few towns and let's just say we're not real welcome there anymore. It's a brand new world, and only the strong are gonna survive it."
  "Yeah? Well it looks like one of your flock isn't so strong now."
  "Yeah...well you might be right about that stranger...maybe someone should put him out of his misery. Can't very well ride with one leg, that'd be kind of silly."
  
  The biker trying to help speaks up.
  
  "Oh come on Jim man! Clyde here saved all of our asses about a month ago!"
  "Yeah? Well what has he done for us lately? The stranger's right, we gotta put him down, it's the kind thing to do really. You gonna do it, Dan?"
  "No...I...mean...well..."
  "Pussy. Nevermind. Ramon you gonna do it?"
  "Shit yeah! Here hold on, oh fuck." Ramon says pulling out his pistol and then dropping it on the ground. Jim just shakes his head.
  
  "Ramon, its amazing you've even lasted this long with your clumsy ass. Fuck it, I'LL do it."
  
  > kill Clyde yourself, along with the rest of them
  Before Jim can do anything, you take the initiative and splatter Clyde all over Ramon, and Dan.
  
  "SHIT! MY BOOTS!" Ramon yells. Dan doesn't say anything, he just falls backwards on his ass, fumbling to get out his own pistol. Another blast near him, stops him from pursuing that line of action though. Jim has pulled out his own weapon and is now pointing it at you. You're not worried.
  
  "Stop talkin' about killin' and just fuckin' do it." You say calmly.
  "Oh we're gonna stop talking alright, and the killing will be continuing with YOU!"
  "Still talkin'. How about we see how much of a bad ass you claim you are?"
  
  You toss away your shotgun and step out of your home, pulling a big ass knife from a sheath attached to your waist. No don't have any fear whatsoever.
  
  "Holy shit Jim this motherfucker's crazy!" Ramon shouts backing away.
  "I don't give a shit, this dickhead wants to play it this way, I'm more than willing to oblige."
  
  Jim tosses his pistol away and pulls out a knife as well, at which point you grab the pistol from your back. You shoot Dan in the head first, knowing that he's currently still the biggest threat, then you quickly shoot Jim in both of his legs.
  
  "ARRGH! FUCK! TREACHEROUS BASTARD!" Jim says holding on to his kneecaps.
  "Aww, look at that, looks like you won't be able to ride either; you know what that means...that's right."
  "Ramon kill this fucker!" Jim yells, but Ramon's already run off to get on his motorcycle. He manages to get it started and go a couple feet, before your bullets to his back cause him to fall off and dump the bike which skids out of control and slide noisily across the empty road. Ramon's still alive, but he's not going anywhere, you turn your attention back to Jim, who's attempting to retrieve his weapon, but you prevent that from happening with a couple more shots.
  
  Finally you go back over to Ramon's bloody limp body. He begs for his life pitifully.
  
  "Please...don't...shoot...me..."
  "I'm not; I've wasted too many bullets on you fucktards this day; I'll be finishing you off with my knife."
  
  Four more bodies. While these types at first seemed like "kindred spirits" they really weren't. They were just more victims. You hack off their heads and put them on stakes as is your routine. You place them a little further from your home this time, as if to stretch out your "domain" a little more.
  
  After this distraction, you go back to your usual solitary existence of talking to yourself and laughing at your own macabre jokes.
  
  4 more years pass...
  
  It's been five years since you embraced your mad hermit ways. Over the years you haven't had many visitors, at least not directly. You started getting bored and began venturing a bit further from your home, not too far though. For the most part you never really found anybody, except the odd bandit, or lone wanderer. You started torturing most of these people before killing them. Not for entirely for pleasure, but more for information, since you began to get curious about what else was going on in the world, or at least in your area, you found most of the information fascinating.
  
  Apparently to a few towns, this area is considered a dangerous area inhabited by mutant cannibals and everyone advises all right thinking people to stay away! Nobody thinks it's just one person killing everyone. Some how that fills you with pride.
  
  However, you also hear about some new organization called The Combine, attempting to "tame" the wasteland. It seems they're in some sort of war with another organization called the Cybernetic Evolution. From what you heard, neither one seems to be a shining beacon of light in this dark world, and that sort of reassures you too. It means that civilization won't be making a come back anytime soon, you LIKE the way things are.
  
  Of course there are drawbacks, to the strongest of the fittest ideology and that's the fact there's usually someone always stronger; one day you get more direct visitors again. This time you're awakened by the sounds of a couple of vehicles and several people. You prepare you weapons and head upstairs, watching from your peephole before acting.
  
  You see a bunch of paramilitary types; they're armed and look a lot more prepared for combat than your past visitors.
  
  "Whoa! Watch that trap Steve! This whole area seems to be filled with them."
  "Roger, why the hell are we here anyway? We should be fighting those fucking cyborgs. We've got them on the run!"
  "Because Harry said the towns around this area are worried that due to their loss in man power from the current war, they'll be defenseless from the mutant cannibals that live here."
  "Since when does Harry give a shit about the Combine citizens?"
  "I dunno Leonard; he doesn't...though I have noticed a slight change in his personality ever since he hooked up with Marina. He's slightly less of an asshole now that he's getting some every once in awhile. Shit, I'm glad he sent us here, I was sick of killing cyborgs. Mutants would be a nice change of pace. Probably easier to take out as well."
  "I don't even think there's any mutants here. I mean come on, some of you guys went to the city, and other than there and a few of them wandering around the outskirts, have you ever heard of any organized mutant presence anywhere else? It's probably just a really vicious biker gang, look at those bikes over there."
  "Well that's a good point Vivica, but I doubt if its simple raiders or bikers. Those types actively attack towns, not linger in one place, though I suppose it's possible."
  "You know what I think? I think its just one crazy fucker killing people in the area. I mean look at all the vehicles here. If it was mutants OR raiders, we would've come across some of them by now, and besides, since when do either extensively use traps? Nah, this is some sort serial killer survivalist. He's probably listening to us right..."
  
  You open up the door and blast the current talkative Combine soldier with your shotgun, spraying his skull and brains all over the place.
  
  "RUN!" Robert shouts, as all of them scatter. The one called Leonard scatters in the wrong direction though and falls into a pit trap. From his screams it sounds like the sharpened poles inside didn't kill him immediately.
  
  The Combine soldiers hide behind the various vehicles and fire upon your position, but you've already closed and locked the door at this point, staying low to the ground as bullets begin finding their way into your home.
  
  After the barrage of bullets, things go silent for a moment You look through your peephole only to see them all throwing grenades at your home! You immediately retreat to the backroom of the store, as the grenades explode behind you giving the Combine soldiers a way in.
  
  > descend into your underground lair and ambush them there
  You fling open the trap door and quickly climb down; you figure as soon as they attempt to come in after you, you can easily pick them off.
  
  Unfortunately the Combine soldiers are a little too smart for that. They've been fighting cyborgs for so long that their usual response to a tricky situation is throw explosives at it. Which is exactly what they do.
  
  They dump a few more grenades down the hatch, you see them and get cover just in time, but the explosion causes a weakening of the foundation and ultimately causing part of the store to collapse in on itself. Your murderous ways are finally put to an end when a wooden beam falls on your head and the rest of the debris buries your unconscious body forever.