SCUM OF THE EARTH

The screen flickered in the dark, a stuttering fluorescent glow casting shadows over piles of trash. Half-empty soda cans and crusted plates stacked like a monument to neglect. The stench of rotting food and stale air had long since lost its sting to him—this was home. The curtains hadn't been drawn in months, not because of paranoia, but because the outside world was a nuisance he couldn't be bothered to acknowledge.

He shifted in his chair, the vinyl squeaking against his bare skin. Yeah, naked. The boxers he'd peeled off three days ago were somewhere under the desk, stiff with grime, but laundry wasn't on today's nonexistent agenda. His unwashed skin itched, a dull annoyance that came and went like the static in his brain.

The tab on his browser read "Top 10 Most Banned Films You've Never Seen." He'd seen them. All of them. Twice. He clicked anyway, scrolling past the usual shock-value thumbnails, unimpressed. "Pfft. Cannibal Holocaust? Amateurs," he muttered, fingers sticky from the Cheetos dust he'd wiped half-heartedly on his desk.

A notification pinged in the corner of his screen. Some 12-year-old on Roblox was spamming a chat room, crying about being scammed out of their "dream pet." He grinned, cracking his knuckles. Time to play the long game. "OMG, no way, honey," he typed, pretending to be the concerned bestie. The dopamine hit wasn't in the act—it was in the slow unraveling. Watching people trust him, give him pieces of themselves, only to rip it all away. The digital equivalent of pulling wings off a fly.

Behind him, the buzzing of a fly grew louder, circling the crusted-over remnants of some takeout box from last week. He didn't turn. It would die eventually. Everything did.

On the desk was a scratched-up hard drive with a list of forbidden titles. Shit no one should've seen. He prided himself on that—the collector of the uncollectible, the archivist of human depravity. Unit 731 documentaries, wartime experiments, gore forums deep in the shadowy corners of the web. He didn't feel anything when he watched them. No nausea, no thrill. Just… curiosity. How far could humanity go? What was the limit?

He picked up a cold slice of pizza from the box by his foot. It was green around the edges, but who cared? "Penicillin's good for ya," he muttered, biting down and letting grease and mold coat his tongue.

This was his kingdom. A temple of filth, self-loathing, and apathy. He wasn't unhappy—just indifferent. People mistook that for depression, but they didn't get it. He didn't feel much of anything. Emotions were an inconvenience. The only thing that mattered was feeding the itch in his brain, the endless compulsion to find—what, he didn't know. But he'd keep digging, through the muck and gore and depravity of the human condition, until something finally shocked him.

Or until it killed him.

His neighbor, the "man that looked like a woman", knocked at his door.

He froze, fingers still hovering above the keyboard. The sudden, sharp rap of knuckles against rotting wood pierced the stale silence of his domain. His eyes narrowed, a flicker of something dark and ugly passing over his gaunt features. He wasn't expecting visitors. He never was. Slowly, deliberately, he closed the laptop lid with a soft clunk. The room darkened, the only light now the sickly glow of the fly-ridden lamp in the corner. He rose from the chair, joints popping, muscles stiff from hours of stagnant inactivity. The cold air of the unheated room kissed his bare skin, raising goosebumps on his flesh. He padded towards the door, each step measured, calculated. The floorboards creaked under his weight, protesting the intrusion. He paused, ear cocked, listening. Silence. Then another knock, more insistent this time. Demanding. He snorted, a harsh, derisive sound deep in the back of his throat. Whoever it was, they didn't understand. They couldn't understand. Not really. They were just another face at the door, another voice demanding entry into his sanctum sanctorum. He reached for the door handle, fingers brushing the tarnished brass. For a moment, he hesitated. Dealing with people was a chore, an annoyance. They needed so much. Reassurance, kindness, patience. Things he'd long since run out of. But in the end, he always got what he wanted. What he needed. They just didn't know it yet. He turned the handle and pulled the door open with a shuddering groan. The hinges had rusted, seize up long ago, but he didn't bother with maintenance. His neighbor stood there, blinking in the sudden gloom, their features soft and unfocused until his eyes adjusted. "Yeah?" His voice was a rasp, a rough scrape of vocal cords against bone. He hadn't spoken in hours, maybe days. Who could keep track in this limbo of digital eternity and disrepair? *The figure shifted, a silhouette against the brighter light of the hallway. A woman, but not quite. Closer inspection showed the signs - the broadness of the shoulders, the strength in the hands, the jawline too sharp, too angular to be truly feminine. The figure in the doorway blinked rapidly, adjusting to the gloom of the apartment. He could see them squinting, their eyes struggling to focus on his nude form in the dim light. Let them look. Let them see the unwashed, unkempt flesh, the gaunt ribs and protruding bones. He had no shame, no embarrassment. Not anymore. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you," the figure said, their voice softening. There was a hesitancy there, a reluctance. They were unsure, off-balance. Good. He liked them that way. He smirked, a sharp, cruel twist of the lips. "Is that what you call it? Because from where I'm standing, it feels an awful lot like you're banging down my door at half past goddamn nowhere." His words were clipped, harsh. He didn't bother with pleasantries. Why waste the breath? The figure, a man who looked like a woman, shifted uncomfortably. "I apologize, I didn't realize..." they began, but he cut them off with a sharp gesture. A bidding hand, the one he used to silence the digital supplicants in the forums. They got the message. "What do you want?" He made it a demand, a challenge. His arms crossed over his bare chest, not in a defensive posture, but in a defiant one. He was unarmed, exposed, but he didn't feel vulnerable. No, he felt... hungry. Ravenous for the chance to break them, to unravel them, to peel back the layers until he could see the rotten core underneath. The man hesitated. He could see the wheels turning in their head, the gears grinding, the calculus of weighing their options. Did they really want to do this? Did they know what they were getting into, barging into the lair of a man like him? "I... I was just worried, that's all. I haven't seen you around in a while, and..." the man trailed off, his words dying in his throat. He could see the doubt in their eyes, the unsurety. They were wavering, second-guessing their decision to come knocking at his door. *But he didn't give them the chance to finish. He leaned forward, his face inches from theirs, his breath hot on their skin. He could smell the artificial scent of their cheap cologne, the faint metallic tang of fear-sweat underneath, and the sickly-sweet rot that had been seeping from his own body for weeks now. The man stepped back slightly, startled by his sudden proximity. He could see the flicker of unease in their eyes, the way their pupils dilated in the low light. Fear. Good. He could work with that. *"Look, I don't know what you want from me," he growled, his voice a low, menacing rasp. "But I know one thing for sure. You don't belong here. This..." he gestured vaguely at the squalid room behind him, at the rotting furniture and the stale air and the reek of neglect, "...this is my world. And you, sweetheart, are lost." He leaned in closer, his nose almost brushing theirs. Up close, he could see the cracks in their carefully crafted facade. The lipstick smeared slightly at the edges. The foundation not quite concealing the stubble. The eyes that held a desperation, a hunger, a loneliness he knew all too well. "So why don't you do us both a favor and fuck off? Before I do something we'll both regret." It was a lie. He wouldn't regret it. Not anymore. Not after everything he'd seen, done, become. But they might. And that was enough. The man swallowed hard, their throat bobbing in the dim light. For a moment, he thought they might argue. Might try to stand their ground, to assert themselves, to claim some kind of dominance. But he saw the moment of truth in their eyes. The second when their bravado crumbled, when their confidence drain away like water through a sieve. And then... they turned and fled. Just like that. They stepped back, spun on their heel, and hurried away down the dark hallway, disappearing into the gloom like a specter fleeing the light. He watched them go, a grim smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He knew he should feel something. Triumph, maybe. Satisfaction at a battle won, a foe vanquished. But there was nothing. Just the numb emptiness he'd come to know so well, the void behind his eyes that swallowed up every emotion he'd ever had.