Voidwalker: The Story of Elias

Everyone knew that Elias would die young. His life was cursed from the beginning. When he was only seven years old, his existence was already marked by death and chaos. He watched his mother Grace get murdered by his step-father Tim. He strangled the woman with his bare hands and when she was finally dead he picked up a large kitchen knife and proceeded to stab himself in the chest multiple times until he died of blood loss. Elias locked himself in his room and when he came out the police were already taking her away in a body bag. It’s no coincidence our first album, “Body Bag EP” was called just that. In the early days Blasphemous Requiem started as a garage band. Elias met our drummer, Trill, at our highschool and the two started dropping DMT at Trills house and experimenting with guitars and amps.

The first time I went to a black metal show is where I met Elias. We saw a band called Unholy Entrails play at some abandoned factory in New Jersey. Cherry Hill was our hometown. I’ll never forget it. The band was screaming guttural noises and it was the first time I’d ever been exposed to that type of music. Before I listened to faggy bands like Rush and Pink Floyd. I thought their music was complex from a technical perspective and therefore superior. The factory, which we had broken into, was a vast landscape of abandoned industrial city. It had been a cookie factory back in the nineties, but had been abandoned for close to thirty years. We used a platform as our stage and the band lit the entire place up using candles and LED lights and smoke machines. No one could hear the noise. It was that cut off from the rest of the city. The first time I laid eyes on Elias he jumped up on the stage and mutilated himself with a broken beer bottle and screamed into the microphone “Kill for Satan!” He then proceeded to jump off the stage causing the people to catch him to be covered in his blood. I watched from a distance sipping my beer. When he finally made his way through the crowd, he made his way to another isolated part of the factory and I followed him along with Trill.

“How sick was that?” Elias says to Trill.

“We gotta get you to a hospital man. You’ll need a tetanus shot.“

“Tetanus is for metal poisoning, you coward.“

“Regardless, it doesn’t look healthy. Might need to amputate that shit.” I say, revealing myself from the shadows.

I emerge from a dark point in the building and we lock eyes for the first time.

“What are you, a fucking doctor?” says Elias.

“No. Just a concerned observer.” I say. “I saw what you did. Pretty try-hard…”Elias grabs a blade from his back pocket and starts walking towards me until Trill jumps in front of him and holds him back.

My name is Mike, but you can just call me Raven” I smile.

“What’s your talent then, Raven?” Trill says to me.

“I’m a singer, well I try to be.”

Elias looks at Trill then back to me suggesting some sparks are coming together. He has an idea on his mind.

“What is it?” I ask.

“We’re starting a band. Well, we don’t have a bass player yet, but I do lead guitar and  Trill here is a drummer.” “That’s fun.” I say sarcastically, sipping my beer.

“It’s not fun.” Elias says. “We take our music seriously, dickhead.” “Can you actually play your instruments? I don’t mean to be condescending but it comes off that way.“Kind of.” says Trill. “Well to be honest, not really…” “Call me when you can.” I take out a pen and write down my number and give it to Elias.

That was the start of it. The Band’s formation. We got a bassist some months later. Some kid name Necro. Elias found him one night when he was walking the empty graveyard by himself at midnight. He was getting drunk in the cemetery when he saw some kid who went to his rival school throw an egg at him as a joke. The two initially got into it, but Elias stopped fighting him when he realized they were both there for the same reason. They had both gotten kicked out of their houses. Elias called him Necro because he assumed the only reason he was there was because he was digging up corpses to fuck. I wouldn’t put it past him. I never got along with Necro. The kid just smelled funny twenty-four-seven. I suppose that’s a dumb reason to hate someone, but it was the truth. You can only tolerate the smell of shit so long until you want to stomp it out. But this morning I’m getting a call from him and there’s worry in his voice. “Elias is gone man.” He says.

“What do you mean gone?” I say back over the phone.

“Not like gone gone, but he packed up his shit and left a note.” “What did it say, Necro. Tell me.” “Here I’ll read it to you. It says… It says.”

He’s fumbling for the note.

The abyss calls. Seek me where shadows merge with memory.

“That’s what it says . The fuck does that mean, Raven?” “It means we have a day to find him before he offs himself.” I say.

I went to the house which was on the outskirts of town next to the first baptist church expecting to find Elias there, but he wasn’t.  The place was boarded up and tagged with graffiti.  Whoever last lived there had been evicted. Save for a hole that had looked like it had been taken to with what must have been an axe. I make my way through said hole and enter the basement only to see  candles lit around a pentagram drawn on the floor with spray paint. Elias may not have been here now, but these things indicated to me he was here recently. In the corner of the room is a dead dog with its stomach cut open creatiing a terrible smell all throughout the lower floor. Next to the pentagram I find a book, “Magick in Theory and Practice” by Aleister Crowley. I pick up the book and flip it open only to see a certain passage underlined in red.

I cling unto the burning Æthyr like Lucifer that fell through the Abyss, and by the fury of his flight kindled the air. And I am Belial, for having seen the Rose upon thy breast, I have denied God. And I am Satan! I am Satan! I am cast out upon a burning crag! And the sea boils about the desolation thereof. And already the vultures gather, and feast upon my flesh.

Elias often spoke of the murder suicide, sometimes to great detail. It obviously affected his development. I remember one time we were walking through  Essex Mountain Sanatorium during the day. Established back in 1826 in Verona, New Jersey, A new sanitarium was needed to house the city’s population of mentally ill patients. The county purchased 325 acres of farmland right on the border of Verona and Cedar Grove to establish the Essex County Asylum for the Insane as it was known at that time. Now left empty for decades, Elias caught wind of the place and staked it out as a potential ground to shoot photos for our second album, Chainsaw Lobotomy.  There were tales that mental patients ghosts haunted the floors. Elias was looking to capture one with his Panasonic DSLR Camera. We’re walking through the vacant place when Elias turns to me and starts talking about the murder-suicide. Elias is wearing black jeans and a -shirt with the band named VENOM. I walk alongside him wearing my Burzum shirt. We were in the process of growing out our hair long.

“Do you believe in spirits, Raven?” he asks me as he’s snapping photographs of a medical table. “I believe in nothing.” I say. “Satanism isn’t the belief in evil, Elias. It’s just an inversion of Christianity.” “But Evil exists, Raven. I’ve seen it with my own two eyes.”

“What your step father did wasn’t supernatural. Anyone can murder someone. There’s no spirits at play, only humans and the cruelty we inflict upon one another.”

‘I don’t believe that.” Says Elias. “The devil was with me that day. He made it happen.”

“Believe what you want.” I smile at him.

Necro and Trill came stumbling into the place hours later all drunk and sloshed. We lit a few candles and Elias set up his tripod and we got to work on taking photos for a potential album cover. “This is gonna be so evil looking.” Says Necro. “No one will top this shit.”

We eventually take a photo of the four of us standing together in an empty ward and Elias agrees it’s badass looking at picture we will use. We start to make our way out and I walk with Elias as Trill and Necro walk together thirty feet ahead of us.

“You know, when I first met you Raven I didn’t like you.” He continues “But you really brought this band together man. I consider you a true ally.”

“Thanks man.” I tell him being fully honest. “Blasphemous Requiem wouldn’t be the same without you either.”

“Now lets go out tonight and fuck some whores!” He says “For Satan!” He laughs manically.

At the house I found a picture of Elias and I together at some party we went to a few years back. Our faces were painted like corpses. On the back of the photograph, written in ink, there are the words: DON’T LISTEN TO THE LYRICS! I put the photo in my back pocket, exit the house and call Necro and tell him Elias isn’t here. I warn him about the song.

The song was called Malevolent Whispers and the lyrics were written by Elias. It was a hidden track he put on Chainsaw Lobotomy. The lyrics referenced a murder suicide and the subject of the song begins to hear voices prompting him to kill. The lyrics listed as they appear in the album booklet:

A lover’s tragedy

Dance upon the edge of the void

Knife to the heart, kiss of doom

Murder suicide under the pale moons gloom

I hear voices

They tell me to kill

Black Night

Forever in freight

No afterlife

Malevolent Whispers!

X3

On this day, Find me dead

Bullet wound in my head

I crave the void

I cast a spell

Awaiting my eternity in hell

I get a call from Trill who says at the school they’ve found two bodies. Two groupies of ours, wearing Blasphemous Requiem shirts, were found hanging from the goal post of the football field. Trent Bixler and Brad Mays, their necks broken and eyes popping out of their skulls.

“The song is cursed.” Trill tells me. “Fucking Elias, man. He out evil-d us all.”

“This isn’t a joke.” I tell Trill. “We can’t sell anymore copies of the album. This is the sixth suicide this year.”

I tell Trill to grab Necro and meet me at “Circle of Despair.” Circle of Despair was a hangout for members of the black metal scene. In the early days we had found an abandoned bus stop that we later turned into our randevu. We often rehearsed there and drank beers there on Friday nights with some neighboring bands. The police caught wind of it, but so long as we weren’t doing anything illegal, they let us set up shop. This was Elias’ store. He often sold merchandise and albums from the basement to fans and girls that would come by looking for a copy of Chainsaw Lobotomy.  We also used the place to bring back girls to fuck and oh, man were they willing. Our band had become something of a cult hit, an underground phenomenon. Even the jocks at our school wanted in on the scene. We kindly told them to fuck off, but we were willing to sell them copies of the album. Necro and Trill come down the stairs and when they do I’m already waiting on the couch trying to text Elias but getting back no response. They sit on the couch across from me.

“Well?… “says Necro. “You think he’s dead?” “No.” I say. “He’s still out there. I can feel it.” “He doesn’t have the balls.” Trill chimes in.

“Had he wanted to kill himself, he would have done it at the site of the murder.” I say. “Isn’t that what the note implied?”

“Maybe he’s got something bigger up his sleeve.” Necro says.

“Seek me where the shadows merge with memory…” I whisper, referring to the note Elias left.

“What does that mean?” Necro asks.

“I would’ve thought it was the murder site. I went there and found the place broken into, a pentagram on the floor, a copy of a Crowley magick book, a dead dog and a photograph of Elias and I. He was obviously there hours before, but he must have left.”

Trill and Necro look at eachother with profound uneasiness.

Trill speaks “You don’t think Elias would ever hurt anyone, do you?”

I take a moment to think about it. The kid was unhinged. Ever since the day I met him. He was always trying to out evil us. First in school it was putting gum in some poor disabled girls’ hair. Then it was setting fire to a nearby church which Elias never took the fall for. Then it was taking our album picture in an old mental asylum for lunatics. Was he stepping up his game? Would I find him and would he reveal to me that this whole search party rescue mission was a practical joke played on us. I thought about the two suicides that happened this morning at the football field. This wasn’t a joke. Whatever was happening, Elias was planning something big.

Our first gig was held at a school stadium on Halloween. We only had a few songs at that point, but Elias entertained the idea of covering a few of his favorite songs. He was going to do vocals for our first show and I took up the mantle on his guitar. The gym is packed and heavy with anticipation. It’s dark and lit red by the LED lights we’ve set up  and I’m on stage holding my guitar letting my amp let out a humming noise. Trill is on drums tossing his sticks in the air and Necro on bass making low strumming noises. Elias is nowhere to be found. The crowd starts making booing noises.

“Faggots gonna blow our first show.” I say to Necro “What’s he doing, changing his tampon?”

Just then Elias emerges from the fog, his face in corpus and covered in blood. He steps up to the microphone. The crowd goes silent. He looks determined and speaks into it.

“Good evening, maggots.” Elias says to the crowd. “We are Blasphemous Requiem. This is a cover song. It’s called ‘Black Tears’ now choke on your own blood and fucking die.”

Trill hits the drums in a machine like manner and I start shredding on my battle-axe guitar. The crowd immediately starts moshing and screaming positive feedback. Elias steps up to the mic screams “YEAAAAAAHHH” and sings:

When I’m in this state of mind

I’m wishing I was blind

Sometimes life is more than pain to me

I feel the power of my grief

Death would be such a relief

All the secrets that I hide would die with me..

Some girl takes off her shirt and her tits flop around. Pushed against the front row are people clad in black leather and spike accessories banging their heads holding up their fists. Elias grabs a cross from his jacket and inverts it and sets it on fire using a small lighter he has. The crowd is  swaying, lost in a trance. Elias reaches the chorus and we both grab the mic and scream into it:

This fluid on my cheek

It drains me, I get weak

My heart is cold and bleak

Black Blood, Black Tears!

Each note dripping with malevolence, bodies colliding together in chaotic ecstasy. When the song ends Elias looks dumbfounded, as if he can’t understand how we managed to shred the places to pieces. I give him a hug and the curtains close. The crowd disperses, their souls forever marked by Blasphemous Requiem. That was our first show.

After the Circle of Despair, That night I stop by the record shop “The Crypt” to see Thorn, the owner. Dark ambient music is playing from the sound system. Thorn did five years in prison for the attempted murder of a homosexual man who came onto him in a bar. I approach the front counter and he sees me for the first time in months.

“What’s up, Raven.” Thorn says.

“It’s Elias. He’s missing.” I tell him rather somberly.

“That’s not good.”

“He didn’t come by here, did he?”

“Why would he? Kid hates my guts. Claims I owe him money on his records I sold, but I already paid him twenty percent. That was the deal.”

“They found two kids hanging this morning at the school.” I tell him. “I want you to do something for me. Stop selling our records.” “Why?”

“One of the songs…” I say. “It’s too evil.” “That’s a laugh.” he cackles.

“No it’s true. I think Elias is wrapped up in some black magic that he’s woven into the lyrics.”

“ Hey, whatever you say. It’s your money.” Thorn tells me.

“Do me a favor… If you see Elias, tell him I’m looking for him.”

I get back to my apartment and make myself some gross hot pocket that I don’t finish. On the news is a report about the two suicides. I crack open a beer and watch said report and when I do I think to myself that wherever Elias is he must have heard the news. I go to phone my girl,

Jenny and when I do it rings four times before she finally answers.

“It’s me.” I speak into the phone.

“Elias is gone.” Jenny says.

“How’d you know?”

“It’s the talk of the town. Cops are looking for him too. His halfway house said he didn’t come home the other night.”

“Do you think he’s up to something?”

“I think you made a huge mistake ever befriending that creep in the first place. Dude has problems.”

“He was fucked from the get-go.” I tell her. “Who wouldn’t?” “Do something for me?” She says.

“What?” “When you find him, kill him. He’s a menace and he’s going to hurt someone.”

“That’s heavy.” I retort.

The following morning I grab a bite to eat from a cheesesteak place and walk the cold Jersey streets hoping I’ll catch Elias doing the same. I go to Jenny’s place for a quick blowjob and she’s more than happy to service me. Afterwards I start making my way back to Necros parents house where his mom serves us coffee and we tell her about Elias.

“Kids never had a day where he wasn’t getting in trouble.” She exclaims. “Billy, I told you to stop hanging out with him before he brings you down too.” “Mom, don’t call me Billy in front of Raven.” Necro says angrily.

“Now do you boys want some of my homemade sheppards pie?”‘Sure. Thanks.” I say smiling. Necro hates to be called Billy.

That night Necro and I take a bus to the graveyard where Elias and him first butted heads. Once again, Elias wasn’t there.

“This is where they buried her..” He says. “Elias’ mom.”

“Show me the gravestone.” I tell him.

We walk around going my alphabetical order until we find it. I’m immediately unnerved as I notice a letter has been placed on the stone, duct taped to it.I take it off and read it to Necro.

Dear Mom,

Coming to be with you soon. I know you’re not in heaven and neither is Dad. I’ve found a way to be with you but it’s going to take some planning. Did you ever think your son would be such a troubled kid? Sometimes I hope you’re watching over me, but I know this shitty world exists in one of two outcomes: You either reside in flames or have been sent into the void. Either way, I’ll see you soon I hope. And If I don’t see you, well, we will soon be a part of the same abyss.

To eternity,

Elias.

“Oh shit this is bad.” Necro looks at me in fear.

“He IS planning something.” I scream angrily. “Fuck, Necro.”

“What could it be?” “He’s going to murder her…” I say softly.

“Who?”

“Karen.”

Necro looks at me in terror for me to suggest such a thing but quickly swallows said thoughts in fear that I’m right. Karen was Elias’ ex-girl. The two had a rough split. He met her at one of the shows and things were going along great until Elias told her of his rough past. Karen was always a cunt. I think when he opened up to her emotionally like that she lost attraction to him. At first, she saw him as this pure evil boy, this rockstar, but after said reveal she looked at him as sort of a victim and no longer wanted to associate with him. The two got into a heated argument and Elias threatened to kill her with a knife. She got a restraining order against him and said he was a bastard child who was just like his father. Elias took it pretty hard. Karen was the only girl who ever had a fancy towards him. “I’m doomed.” he told me. “Raven… No one loves me. Even my girl doesn’t care about me.” I looked at him with sympathy. I hired some whores for him to cheer him up, but there was no undoing the betrayal Karen set into motion. Elias was embittered and Karen was the main culprit. I phone her and get no answer so Necro and I start making our way to her parents house.

When we get there there’s already cops at the door. Karen’s parents are talking to them at the front door. The mother is screaming and crying and hitting the two officers. The husband has tears in his eyes as well but is trying to detain her from attacking them.

“We’re too late.” I say to Necro. “Fuck!”

Just then a body is pulled out of the house in a bodybag. The mother goes to grab it and hold it dearly. It’s Karen. I approach the police officer and tell him my name is Mike and he gives me the rundown on what happened. Karen was sleeping in her bed when someone came through the window. She was then brutally stabbed to death over twenty three times. The perp left through the same window and when the parents came home they found Karen half-way alive choking on her own blood. She was finally dead once the medic arrived. Given the restraining order, there is now a statewide manhunt for Elias. I think about letting the cops handle it, but then I realize Elias is a master when it comes to lurking in the streets. He was always getting kicked out of his halfway house. He knows how to avoid cops and lurk in the shadows.

“Did he ever say anything about hurting her?” the cop ask me, taking notes on his paper.

“No, but this morning I got a phone call about a note he left for my buddy, Necro. See we’re in a band-”He cuts me off.

“What did the note say?

Necro chimes in “It read: ‘The abyss calls. Seek me where shadows merge with memory.’

“And what do you think that means?” the officer says.

“I don’t know the place he could be referring to. We thought it was the murder site of his mother. He’d clearly been there hours before I arrived, but otherwise he’s on the move. I think he’s referring to somewhere else.” “Think hard champ.” The cop says.

I draw a blank. I can’t think of anywhere else and I tell the cop we will keep trying to reach out for him. The crime scene goes on all through the night and when we go to leave the cop turns to us and calls my name.

“One more thing.” He says.

“Yeah?” “What’s your band name?”

“It’s um… Blasphemous Requiem.”

“My son liked you guys. He was a big fan.” He laughs.

“Was?”

“Yeah. He OD’d last week on percs. A suicide is something you’ll always grapple with. Trust me, I know.”

Two days go by and the band and I start putting out missing person fliers for Elias. We posted them up on every street corner, every alleyway. I didn’t have many photos of him where he wasn’t wearing face paint so I just went with his highschool yearbook photo. Only a few hours later did I get a call from Rita Macintosh, our local librarian. She said Elias had come in and stolen some book and left as quickly as he came. “What kind of book?” I ask her.

“I didn’t see.” She tells me. Her voice is rather frail and weak.

“Can’t you see what’s missing from your inventory?”

“That’s a great idea young man!”

Trill, Necro and I showed up at the library. Rita was on her computer when we arrived and by said time had a list of books that went unregistered. “How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dan Carnigie” She says. “That one is missing.”

“I think someone else stole that one.” I tell her. “What else ya missing?” “Let’s see.” she cracks her fingers.

She pulled up another one: The Satanic Bible Anton Szandor Lavey.

“That’s it.” I say. “Do you know where I can find another copy?”

“Check out our larger library in Trenton.”

Hours later I had taken a bus to the grand library in Trenton with Trill and Necro. They had a copy of the book and we cleared a space in the study hall to crack it open and start studying it.  It was a collection of essays, observations, and rituals published by Anton LaVey in 1969. In The Book of Belial, one of the sections, LaVey details rituals and magic. He discusses the required mindset and focus for performing a ritual, and provides instructions for three rituals: one being destruction. It went on to describe rituals and magic. There were also references to books of ritual magic such as Crowley’s Magick: Elementary Theory, the author Elias was fixated on. The Four Crown Princes of Hell” (Satan, Lucifer, Belial, and Leviathan) and of They are the names that, according to LaVey, are most useful in Satanic rituals.

One section read:

Satanism is a blatantly selfish, brutal religion. It is based on the belief that man is inherently a selfish, violent creature, that life is a Darwinian struggle for survival of the fittest, that the earth will be ruled by those who fight to win the ceaseless competition that exists in all jungles—including that of urban societies. On that score, the Church of Satan may be justly criticized, although even its critics will have to admit that its philosophy is based on logic and real conditions that exist in the world.

In one section on magic the text read:There is indeed, great power in magic, but one must be prepared to take advantage of this power. If a person is a perennial loser, they cannot be expected to know how to safeguard their success, if and when it should arrive.

I closed the book. Elias was in many ways a loser even though everyone in the scene looked up to him in the early days of the band. What was he planning to do with magic? He already killed Karen, but had not yet killed himself? What was his big vision? I look at Trill and Necro who seem utterly clueless and stumped. “Wait” I said. “I know what he’s going to do.”

“What?” says Necro.

“Malevolent Whispers….”

“Our song? What about it?” says Trill with curiosity.

“He’s going to try to pull off a mass suicide using the record….”

I go see Jenny again and reveal to her what I think Elias’ is planning.“Where is he gonna gather a crowd?” She says. “Dude has like one friend, you.” “Don’t underestimate him Jenny. You don’t know what he’s capable of. Like you said, he’s unhinged.”

“It’s time to go to the police.” She says. “Tell them about the song.” “Yeah, the cops will laugh in my face. A song that prompts people to off themselves?”

“He’s obviously well versed in magic and dark arts.” She yells. “He’s using his lyrics as a way to drive people to suicide and corrupt their minds.”

We drove out to Elias’s halfway house. The police are hosting a stake out just in case he comes back. I go to meet the woman, Devon, who runs the place. She’s a middle aged black woman who smokes like a chimney. Elias had a substance addiction for alcohol and was treated here. They tried to give him social support but he kept clashing with the other residents and wouldn’t do his chores. He was often kicked out only to come back in again on some government law because the poor kid would have been homeless as a teen otherwise. Devon informs me of his situation.

“He is a problem candidate, that’s for sure.” She says “He never came in during curfew hours. I assumed he was hanging with you.”

“He likely was.” I point out.

“Then some months ago he would never leave his room. He would stay up there all night reading books and listening to this weird, ambient music. We tried to get him to socialize more but he is the most antisocial person I’ve ever met.

Devon tells me a story of one night where she heard commotion from Elias’ room. She heard chanting and loud bangs. “It sounded like something out of ‘The Exorcist.” She tells Jenny and I. “Kid didn’t have normal hobbies.” “Did he ever say anything about wanting to hurt others?” I finally blurt out.

“No, but sometimes I did hear him muttering to himself and it scared the bejeebers out of me.” She continues “One night I went into his room and it smelled of death. I checked under his bed and underneath was a dead, rotten racoon that he had brought in from the cold. I don’t know what to make of that.” We wait a few hours and Elias’ predictably never shows. I tell Devon he’s a menace and not safe to be around and I’m scared he’s up to something malevolent.“He murdered someone.” She cackles. “Tell me about it.”

A week went by and still no word. I sat in my apartment and smoked cigarettes hoping the police would eventually pin him down and take him in. How long could he live out there in the cold, fending for himself? Then I remembered, we were dealing with Elias and he was no weakling when it came to survivalism. On the news there’s another suicide. A girl by the name of Hannah Bridges blew her head off with a shotgun. In her diary, she wrote that she began listening to our band’s music and in the weeks that followed she had intense nightmares of murder and depressive thoughts. Prior to finding the record, she was a normal girl. Not happy, but never depressed according to the family. I get a call around ten PM and it’s the police. They want to talk to me down at the station and something tells me they’ve already pulled Necro and Trill aside.

I go down to the station and ask if I’m under arrest. They tell me I’m free to go after we conduct said interview. I’m sitting in an interrogation room. The walls are all white and above me in the corner is a CCTV camera. I think about getting a lawyer, but I don’t have the money so I waive my Miranda rights even though I’m not being charged with anything. At this point, finding Elias is all I care about anyway.

“So, tell us more about your band?” the officer ask me, a fat, bald middle aged man built like a linebacker. He’s sitting in the chair across from me, a table between us.

“What’s there to tell?” I smirk. “We play loud and hard and we rock the socks off people everywhere we go.” “Are you really Satanist?”

“Elias obviously is. For the other guys, they didn’t delve into it much. We haven’t committed any real crimes other than your minor disorderly conduct. We’re actually pretty nice people.” I avoid telling him about the Church Elias burnt down in fear I could be implemented.

“Why do you think so many of your fans struggle with depression?” “I think the music helps, or helped, rather. Now….”Pause. I lean in close to him.

“I think one of the songs on the record has real occult shit attached to it from Elias. He’s not just being edgy. He’s crafting lyrics from an occultish standpoint.” “And the goal of that being?” “He wants to push people towards suicide. He’s always trying to one-up himself on evil shit he can do.”

The cop informed me that sales of the record were now strictly forbidden after the suicides. They had been completely removed and confiscated from store shelves. A copy of Chainsaw Lobotomy is brought into the room by another cop and the officer I’m speaking to holds it up and brings it to my attention.“Let’s take a look at the tracklist.” “Okay.” I say. “Track one: ‘The Seventh Key’ Key to what? He throws his hands up and makes this stupid confused expression. It’s hard not to laugh.

“Well, Elias wrote most of these songs. I was reading a book the other day that the seventh key is  is  used  to  invoke  lust, pay  homage  to  glamor, and  rejoice  in  the  delights of the flesh.”

“Okay.” He sighs and becomes overwhelmingly frustrated. “Tell me more about some of the darker lyrics.”

“Well, one song written by Elias is called Malevolent Whispers. I think it was inspired by his mothers murder.” The lyrics go:  A lover’s tragedy, Dance upon the edge of the void, Knife to the heart, Kiss of doom: Murder suicide under the pale moons gloom

“You think this is the song that’s prompting fans to kill themselves?”

“Yeah” I try to smile, but then realize I look like an idiot so I straighten my face out.

“I’ll look into this further.” He says. “For now I want you and your band to stop making music. I want you to completely undo yourself from this black metal shit. Listen, you’re a good looking, nice young man. You’re throwing your future away by embracing such trash. You’re still young. Plenty of time to find a job and start a life for yourself.” “I’ll think about it.” I quip.

Later that night I got a phone call from Necro. He told me to turn on the news. In only twenty four hours, the officer who had interviewed me shot himself in the head in his squad car. Funeral arrangements would be made within the week. Elias was winning.

The next day the community was in shambles. Still no trace of Elias. I think to myself what place could he be referring to in his note and why did he have to be such a cryptic edgelord asshole all the time? Why couldn’t he have just spelled it out more clearly? Karen’s funeral was held. I attended despite hating the bitches guts. I mean, no one deserves to get murdered, but if you told me Karen was murdered by someone other than Elias shit wouldn’t surprise me. In many ways, having wronged so many people and generally being a stuck up, holier than thou bitch, she had it coming. Elias was just the first to have the balls to do it.

The casket is lowered and the priest says some words. I stand out like a wolf in sheep’s clothing given I’m still wearing my spiked black leather jacket, but no one confronts me. From across the way I hear the ever faint sound of music. My music. A band of groupies drives by in a Toyota pick up truck and shout out the window “Long live Blasphemous Requiem!” I take that as my cue to leave and when I do it starts raining and thunder rolls across the sky.****

In the early days, Elias had come to me about his depression. I guess he thought I was depressed too because at the time I didn’t have a girlfriend and was having problems with my family at home. He looked me square in the eye and said “Raven, do your parents love you?”

“I think they do. Yeah, I mean, they keep a roof over my head so I guess that means something.” “What’s it like to have someone who loves you?”My heart broke for him. Here’s this kid who’s never experienced true love in his life. He had no one. Even Karen never uttered the words to him. His mother, while arguably his closest confidant, was never overwhelmingly warm either. But I still think Elias felt something for her because she was the closest he ever came to true affection.

We changed the subject and got to talking about our album. Elias was the visionary of the band, I must say. His next album, which we never got to make, was a concept album. He had ideas for music videos and live performances that blew my hair back. I must say, I was quite taken back by his artistry, something Necro and Trill never really had. They were just stand-ins. Elias was the real heart and soul of Blasphemous Requiem. We got back to talking about girls and sure enough one night Elias wants to go to this whore house in the heart of Cherry Hill that hadn’t been busted yet. We pull up to the place and Elias told me he would pay for me. He had the money. How he got it I’m not sure, but we were having fun. I was having fun. Despite what Jenny says, I did really see Elias as a friend. Others may not have liked him, but I guess I always kinda saw myself as his older brother since I had no siblings of my own. We go into the whorehouse and it’s all Asians. Elias is thrilled. “You know who loves the asian race?” He says.“Who?” I ask, honestly not knowing.

“Hitler.” He laughs maniacally.

Two girls approach us and we both choose who we want to go with. I honestly prefer the one Elias went with, but since he’s paying I’m more than happy to go with the other girl. Elias slaps four hundred dollars on the counter and we each go back to separate rooms. I tell him I’ll see him soon to which he responds “Not if I see you first!” Not sure what that means. I have sex with my girl and it’s great. Elias comes out ten minutes later with a big smile on his face.

“I love whores.” He says drunkenly.

“Me too, my friend.”

“Keep selling our records and we’ll have enough whores at our fingertips to rule the world!”

That night Elias went home and wrote a song called “Pussy Vortex.”

In the morning I get a knock on my window and I look outside to see it’s Trill. We go into an alleyway to score some smack and when we do he tells me he’s depressed about having to break up the band.

“You don’t break up Blasphemous Requiem,” I say angrily. We are not broken up. You can’t separate us. We are a family. We just have to chill on the making of the music side of things for a while.” “Hell yeah” Trill takes a sip of his beer.

“Besides, Elias is the leader and he calls the shots.”

“Still no idea where he is?”

“If you were Elias, where would you go?’

“He likes the mall, I think.” “Why would he be at the fucking mall, Trill?” “I don’t know man you asked me, Raven, goddamn.”

“Come on, think, where would he be.”

“I’m at a loss, really.”

Pause.“Wait” I say. “The fucking whorehouse. The FUCKING whorehouse. He’s hiding out with the whores. At the Whorehouse.” “Yeah, you said it. The whore house….” He looks at me worried.

I grab him by the face. “Hey, get off me man.” Trill grabs my arm and removes it.

“Should I call the cops? No. No. Stupid. Stupid. It’s Elias. I’ll go there myself.”

I leave Trill behind and pull up to the whorehouse on sixteenth street. I go inside and a madame greets me. I push her aside and shout “Elias! Elias! It’s me, Raven.” Nothing.  The inside is decorated with a christmas tree and christmas lights that line the ceiling. The woman sits herself in a chair and I apologize to her and tell her I’m looking for my friend. Just then Elias comes out of one of the backrooms.

“Friend?” says Elias.

“Elias! You’re here”.He says nothing. He just looks at me with this evil, dead monotonous expression on his face. He’s wearing a black leather jacket and a black t-shirt.

I quickly remember what he’s done and I promptly punch him in the face where he, half my size, falls backward into the hall. He looks at me, his nose bleeding, shocked.

“What the fuck are you doing man. There’s a state-level manhunt after you looking for your ass, you lunatic.” I scream. He gets up off the ground, wipes his nose and promptly takes another swing back at me. I take the hit rather well but don’t go down.

“You fucking poser.” He shouts. “You were not supposed to find me here. That wasn’t the plan.”

“Where was I supposed to find you?”

He says nothing and whips out a gun and aims it at me. “Some friend. I thought you were all together enough to figure it out. The Abandoned Factory, the old cookie place . Where I first met you.”

“Oh shit” I exclaim “Yeah I was gonna go there next.” I lie.

“Listen, meet me there tonight. Don’t tell anyone where we are meeting and don’t bring the pigs.” He continues “I’m leaving. Don’t follow me.”

He puts the gun in his black jeans and starts walking out the back door. “Wait, Elias.” I yell.

Too Late. He closes the door behind him and disappears into a back alleyway and just within seconds of meeting him he’s already out of my clutches again.

I turn off my phone in case Trill or Necro calls me assuming they’ll ask me about if I met up with Elias. I don’t want to lie to them. I take a bus to the factory. On the way there I stop at a firearms shop and buy a hunting knife. I can’t get a gun and I don’t know how dangerous Elias is but I get something just in case. I walk the two remaining blocks and arrive at the place and make my way through an opening of a fence that’s been pushed down. When I go in, the place is all lit up with LED lights and I call for Elias, my voice echoing through the factory. Silence. In a minute’s time, he emerges from the darkness shirtless, looking hunted.

“What’s this all about man?” I say exhausted.

“Do you know what today is?” he says.

“No.” “Anniversary of moms death.”

“Is that what this is about? You’re going to kill yourself on your moms murder anniversary?”

“That’s part of it.”

“What’s the other part?” “I was able to interfere with the radio broadcast signal for our local stations. I’m gonna play Malevolent Whispers live on air tonight and take as many people down as I can with me.” “Why would you do a thing like that?”

“This world is evil, Raven. Everyone you know are pathetic little maggots.”

“Cut the shit, Elias. Our band was going along just fine until you had to take things to the next level.”

“This isn’t a game to me, Raven. I’ve always taken Blasphemous Requiem seriously. You on the other hand always saw it as a joke. You, Trill, Necro. You’re all a bunch of privileged clowns.” He continues “I, on the other hand, have had a lot to deal with.”

“Woe is me” I roll my eyes.

“I salvaged you guys because you’re like brothers to me despite being posers. I told you on the picture not to read the lyrics. That’s because deep down I care about you.”

“I’ve read them and I’m not having suicidal thoughts.”

Pause.    “I killed Karen.” He says. “I know.” I respond.

“I know my mom is burning in hell. There is no heaven. And if there’s no hell, there’s only void, eternal sleep. Darkness. No more pain, no more running. You’re not hearing me clearly. I want out and I want everyone who ever wronged me to go down as well.”

“Come with me, Elias. There are a lot of people who care about you.”

“I can’t return to the normal world. They’ll put me in a cell for the rest of my life.”

He guides me to the center of the room of which stands a pentagram and a group of candles surrounding it. A dead dog near the floor where the entrails have been spilt. Next to the floor is a device called an SDR dongle with an antenna he intends to use to broadcast the song. Elias speaks. “ Did you know Satanism has been frequently misrepresented as “devil worship”, when in fact it constitutes a clear rejection of all forms of worship?”

“No.”

“Indubitably, Magick is one of the subtlest and most difficult of the sciences and arts. There is more opportunity for errors of comprehension, judgment and practice than in any other branch of physics.” He continues “Magick is the Science of understanding oneself and one’s conditions. It is the Art of applying that understanding in action.” “When did you get a PHD in this?” I say.

“ I read a lot.” he says “Man is capable of being, and using, anything which he perceives; for everything that he perceives is in a certain sense a part of his being. He may thus subjugate the whole Universe of which he is conscious to his individual will. “And that’s what you plan to do tonight?”

“My will is to put an end to the wor;d. In my experience, it’s better to never have to been born than to be alive. If hell awaits me so be it, but likely I’m thinking I shall walk into a void of eternal nothingness.”

He hits play on the machine. The song starts.

When Elias is not looking I go to stab him in the back and when I do he intercepts said lunge with his elbow. We tumble to the ground and down a cement staircase into another room. I can hear the song still playing.

A lover’s tragedy

Dance upon the edge of the void

Knife to the heart, kiss of doom

Murder suicide under the pale moons gloom

He gets up and takes out his gun from his back pocket and fires five shots, one of which hits me in the abdomen. I am wounded.

I hear voices

They tell me to kill

Black Night

Forever in freight

No afterlife

Malevolent Whispers!

X3

I go to take cover behind a wall and Elias runs off. I shout to him “Turn it off. Stop it. Now Stop it.”

“Too late, old friend. You tried to fucking stab me. Fuck you coward. You’re just like the rest.”

“I don’t want to Kill you Elias, but you can’t do this. This is too much.”

I get myself up and pull out my knife again. I run to the other side of the room and he fires another two shots at me which miss. I lock myself in a bathroom stall. Elias walks in, gun in hand, as I peer through the stall door. When he approaches the door I swing it open hitting him in the face causing a rush of blood to exit his nose. I go to stab him and the blade catches his arm, cutting him. He runs off and when he does I wait twenty seconds before hearing a single gunshot from the other room. I go to investigate and I see Elias sitting on the floor, gun in hand, with a bullet wound in his mouth that exits out the top part of his skull. Blood is pouring out like a faucet. The song ends.

On this day, Find me dead

Bullet wound in my head

I crave the void

I cast a spell

Awaiting my eternity in hell

I call the police and they put him in a body bag and take him to the morgue.

The next day I woke up to nightmarish insanity in the streets, Elias’ horrifying chaotic vision turned real. Cars turned over. Fire hydrants busted. Homeless people hanging from crossing lights. A cop had shot his wife and kids and turned the gun on himself at a diner. Overdoses in the alleyways. Multiple carbon monoxide poisonings. Families who set their houses ablaze and died in fiery agony. Elias had won.

Necro was dead too. He was listening to the song that night and slit his wrist in the bathtub. I met with Trill who says we are gonna leave New Jersey and start a new band. Blasphemous Requiem was over. And I wondered to myself what new nether regions Elias had found himself in because wherever he was going it wasn’t going to be up. The funny side of this story, if there is a funny side, is that we started the band with the intention of having fun. And it was for a while. I considered Elias my best friend. But what he did changed the landscape of metal forever. Though he was buried under some power lines, to this day satanist fans still visit his grave to pay their respect. I guess that’s what I never realized about metal. Some of the people in the scene, for them, it’s more than just music. They truly wish death and destruction upon the world. Elias had got what he wanted, to be a martyr, and I suppose his legacy will outlive mine. I remember he once told me instead of Elias he wanted to be called Voidwalker. I always thought it was kinda cheesy so I shot the idea down and told him to stick with Elias. But in a way, that’s what he was. In his short life he walked a tightrope along the brink of death, fascinated by it, channeling a dark void to come bring him home. Home was nowhere, but in the end he finally got what he wanted: To be erased from existence.

Robert Gabe is a thirty one year old writer who resides in Pennsylvania. This story is a work of fiction. Any relation to real life individuals is purely coincidental