Something in his brain clicks.  “I was married!” he shouts.  “Good Rick, good.  Now, what else can you remember?  Think family Rick, think family.”  He racks his brain relentlessly.  “AHA!  I have two kids.  Okay Rick, now when do you see them?”  Rick thinks for a while then shocks himself.  “Oh my God,  I am a monster,” he murmurs.  “I remember now.  I remember it all.”
Rick grew up in the Catholic religion.  He never felt like he fit in at church.  He felt it was hypocritical.  Instead of going with everything taught at church, he looked at the general overview of it all.  In doing so, he saw a completely corrupt religion and drifted away at fifteen. 
Hobbies he had always had, starting at five, were illegal activities.  It was all strategic to him.  He started out by shoplifting at a very young age and from there it led up to drug trafficking, robbery, murder, and assault with a deadly weapon.  The one illegal activity he refused to do was to be involved with prostitutes and prostitution rings. 
His mom was a single mom and she had been involved in it.  He remembers her saying that she’d do anything for him.  He loved his mom.  She was shot in a prostitution session gone wrong.  It broke his heart.  Rick was only seventeen, and an only child.
Rick was a mastermind.  He could get away with anything.  Eventually, he began engaging in illegal activities in the open public.  He didn’t do it as much to hurt other people, but to show law enforcement that they should step up their game instead of eating donuts and drinking coffee.  It was a game. 
In his early twenties, he met a flawlessly confident young woman whom he married.  Ten years later they had two children, two girls:  Valerie and Violet.  Rick adored his family.  He loved them unconditionally.  Always, always he would be home around four o’clock every evening.  He made sure there was a fine line between his “job” and his family.  He cherished his family too much.  This is also why he turned himself in. 
Rick couldn’t stand living another life behind his own family's back.  When he turned thirty-three, Rick turned himself in.  Gang tattoos, bulging muscles, physically muscular, and of course a sleek black pony-tail was Rick’s style.  He had a very widely known reputation underground of someone not to mess with.  When he was put in prison, his two girls were both younger that four. 
His wife, Lacey, filed a divorce and full custody as soon as he was sentenced to two life sentences in prison.  Being in prison, Rick is very worried about his family.  If anything were to happen to any one of them, they would be up for a brutal beating from Rick.  Rick had and still has no tolerance for threats against his family. 
Rick hasn’t heard from his wife or two girls since he was sentenced, eight years ago.  Rick is in his early forties and not a day goes by that he wishes he could start over and have absolutely nothing to do with the illegal underworld.  He knew he could have his family longer if he kept doing these illegal tasks, but he wanted to have no secrets between him and his wife.  He had to come clean. 
Rick comes out of his vivid visions.  He knows where he is.  And he knows he deserves it all.  He’s in a distorted version of hell.  He can listen and see everything around him.  But, he cannot eat or taste, touch, or speak.  He has no ways of communication.  He is cramped in a rock form, completely isolated yet entirely in plain sight .  And he cannot eat or drink.  The man comes to realize that this is his fate.  Rick’s head begins to feel heavy on his neck as he relives one of his most lurid crimes.
It was early fall, two weeks after Rick’s engagement, when he got a call.  It was a man who had got tipped off by an “unknown” source looking for Rick’s service.  Immediately, Rick went into business mode.  Little detail was spoken over the phone for confidential reasons.  In fact, little was said at all.  A meeting place and underground codewords were all that was necessary in that twenty-second phone call. 
That night, he and the man met at an abandoned cottage alongside a woodland swamp.  This cottage was a good fifty-seven miles away from where the phone call took place.  The midnight winds carried the scent of blooming algae and everything was still damp and muggy from yesterday’s downpour.  Rick opened the rickety wooden door with only the natural darkness to guide him inside.  That was a night he won’t ever forget. 
An older man sat on a wicker rocker near a lowly lit fireplace.  “Ah, I see you made it.  Come, have a seat,” he offered in a raspy voice. 
Rick’s eyes adjusted rather quickly to the eerie darkness.  Before taking a seat, he quickly skimmed the room.  A dust layered frame of Jesus was hung crookedly behind the man.  Beautifully hand crafted wood crosses were hung from the ceiling.  But the most shocking part was yet to come.
Rick took a seat on a firm wooden chair.  “I see you’re quite the religious man,” he observed.  “The crosses are beautifully sculpted.”
The old man smiled proudly, “I molded those old things when I was only six years old.  Grew up in a strict Catholic church yeh know.  Hah! Them nuns wouldn’t let’yea have an extra biscuit if yea begged twelve days for it,” the aging man cackled. 
Rick chuckled.  “I got a call from someone telling me you were trying to find me.  Is that so?”  he asked.
“Ah, yes.  Of course, let’s cut to the chase shall we?” the wrinkled man joked.  “I grew up straight on God’s word.  The Catholic religion was, and still is, m’a entire life.  Yea eat, sleep, and breathe God’s word.  And I’ve been a priest ever since I can remember.”
Rick had his poker face on but couldn’t help to wonder why exactly a priest was reaching out to a sinful man as him.  But he didn’t question it too long.  He was there to work, not analyze.  He continued to listen to the priest.
“Well, there’s this boy, a younger one like you.  He’s a son of one of the members of m’a church.  His father came to me the other day in great anger.  His boy is claiming to be gay.  Now, as you know, this religion does not tolerate black magic such as this.  This is a capital sin, to God and to the church community.  This young man refuses to allow us church members to force this evil spirit away.  Therefore, this leaves me with no choice.  This boy has to pay for his sins and I need you to do it,” the priest muttered angrily.  “This is an embarrassment to my church, an outrage!  I have cash payment, as much as you request.  I need this boy taught a lesson.”
Rick, being the obedient, no questions asked man, agrees to the job at hand.  The priest trusts him enough to pay him up that very night with no hesitation. 
“The instructions are written inside of this,” the priest insisted.  “Where you will find this boy and what time this will take place is all scripted inside this note.”
Rick takes the note from the priest as well as the bag of cash.  “I will make sure the job gets done quick and efficient.  I assure this of you.”  The old man shook hands with Rick and led him to the half hinged door.  Rick got him his pickup truck and got on the highway.
Rick pulled over at a gas station.  It was three in the morning.  The crumpled note was still in the palm of his hand.  He took the note in both hands and smoothed it out on the steering wheel.  “‘He will be at this address:  237 Chestnut Drive.  Take him to the church basement in Mayflower.  There, you will fully disgrace him.  I have provided holy water in the left corner of the basement and you are to splash that on him while repeating these words: You are a disgrace against God!  An outrage to the community!  You and your kind will burn in the fiery pits of Hell.’” 
The key turned in the ignition, and Rick screeched out of the gas station parking lot and onto the highway.  He knew exactly where 237 Chestnut Drive was.  Forty-five minutes later, his pickup truck turned onto 237 Chestnut Drive.  Everything was still and quiet.  All the lights in the private street were out and a false blanket of protection covered each house. 
In precaution, Rick clicked his truck lights off with a swipe of his hand and parked.  In his pocket, there was a hypodermic syringe and a small vial of a thick liquid.  Rick steps out of his truck and walks to a beautifully Victorian architectured house.  He walked behind to the back door, which of course, was unlocked.  Once inside, Rick made his way around the house.  He passed a master bedroom, a living room, a few scattered closets, and a kitchen until he found a bedroom that was isolated from the others. 
“This is the room,” Rick, though, putting the layout of the house together.  He swiftly unwrapped his needle and pricked it into the small bottle of halothane.  “Come on Rick, you don’t have all day,” he told himself.  Every last drop was sucked right out to fully top off the syringe.  Rick didn’t hesitate one bit.  Every split second was extraordinarily valuable.  “Never open a door without my old mama’s secret,” Rick smiled to himself.  She was a prostitute and whenever she left during the night, she had to make sure they didn’t hear her.  He silently grabbed the door and yanked the door upwards toward the hinges to avoid any creaks or noises. 
Rick wasted no time.  This was clearly the room he was looking for.  With the capped off syringe in his hand, Rick bound light footedly to the bed and punctured the needle in the boy’s neck all before the boy even knew he was there. 
The boy was rather thin and therefore didn’t weigh much.  Rick put the empty hypodermic syringe back in his pocket as he swung the unconscious boy over left his shoulder.  Without making the bed or shutting the door, Rick broke out of the house, just as he broke in.  Except this time, he had one extra thing:  the boy.
Rick kept his quick pace and flung the body in the back of his truck, covered with a tarp.  From there, he jumped in the driver’s seat and calmly whirled back onto the highway.  He was headed straight for Mayflower. 
It didn’t take more than ten minutes and they arrived at the church.  Rick scooped up the boy and carried him to the basement of the church.  There, Rick began to set up.  He echoed the priest’s note in his head.  Rick dropped the boy in the center of the rectangular basement while he went to snatch the holy water. 
To Rick’s surprise, there was a note on a box next to the blessed water.  “‘Use these.  I can imagine you know what I’m talking about,’” Rick read to himself.  Inside of the medium cardboard was braided rope.  “Well, he’s got that right,” Rick mumbled.  “I sure do know what to do with this.”
Rick kicked the box to the middle of the room while carrying the sacred water.  He set the water down and began picking up the rope.  The tranquilizer would only last another thirty minutes, so Rick had to act fast.  He was ordered to disgrace this boy in his late teens.  And that’s just what Rick did.
Rick stripped the boy stark before he tied the boy  tight.  Once the boy’s clothes were scattered in various directions, Rick pulled out the long ropes.  The boy, still unconscious, laid in an exposing position.  His ankles and thighs bound tight and his wrists and upper arms bound as well.  The rope binding the ankles and thighs had a longer rope connecting the ankles to the wrists so that if he tried to get up, he could only walk on his knees.  But Rick kept on setting up, following every instruction from the old man.  The boy, coiled, still pressed against the cold church cement. 
The boy started to come to.  Rick noticed right away.  Then, Rick’s violence switch flipped.  He was on a mission and he needed to finish it.  The boy began to realize he was tied up and not in his bed.  His eyes bulged out of his eye sockets, unable to talk due to a cloth shoved into his mouth secured with duct tape.  Rick took charge with no hesitance. 
Relentlessly, Rick beat the boy. “God will find a way to get you back worse than this,” chuckled Rick with a wicked gleam flashed in his eyes.  He lashed the boy with a leather strip that was in the old basement.  “You see, this is what happens to naughty boys like you.  Not even Holy water could cure that malicious and disgraceful condition of yours,” Rick spat at the boy as a spray of spit landed on the boy’s naked body.  “The old priest here sent me to teach you a lesson, did yea know that? Your own father was so disgusted with you that he set this up.  Did he tell yea that?  Huh?” Rick bellowed as he brutally kicked the boy, compassionless.  “Get up you sick bastard,” snarled Rick. 
The boy couldn’t move.  His humanity trickled down his bruised and bleeding face.  Unprotected and vulnerable, the exposed boy whimpered for his life.  His right leg had been dislocated from the murderous beating.  Gaping flesh wounds covered his face while thick scarlet blood slithered from his body in escape.  The cement floor now branded with an innocent boy’s blood. 
“I told you, to get the hell up!  NOW,” Rick ordered the life drained boy.  The boy couldn’t move.  Rick then took matters into his hands.  “So you don’t wanna obey me, huh?  Well, bless the Lord on high that I’m here to help with that.”  Rick’s lip curled into a sinister smile, his eyes flashing with power.  “Get up pretty boy,” he snarled as he grabbed the rope connecting his wrists and yanked upward.  The boy squealed in agonizing pain, his eyes locked with terror.  “Ah, here we go.  What’s wrong? The little gay boy doesn’t like to be manhandled?”  chuckled Rick. 
Rick jolted the boy up and down like a yo-yo.  Rope burns etched deep into the boy's skin.  Completely detached from all emotions, Rick slashed and punted the boy, cursed the boy, and pelted objects at the boy. 
“You know,” Rick scoffed with a sneer, “God’s got a greater plan for you.  And I can tell you right now, that plan ain’t got nothin’ to do choirs of angels and fluffy clouds.” 
By now, it has been a solid three hours of pitiless torment.  The boy is hanging on by a thread and Rick continued to verbally shred every ounce of pride that was left in the severely suffering boy.  Realizing that it is now growing earlier into the morning, Rick finishes off the job with a life snatching blow to the head.  He flicked Holy water on the boy, wrapped him in an old carpet, and out to Rick’s truck they went. 
The priest said he’d be responsible for the church’s basement, so that was checked off the list.  The last empty box that needed a big fat check mark?  Getting rid of the kid’s body.  But being the pro that Rick was, that wasn’t a problem.  Right away he got in contact with one of his close “business associates.”  Within thirty minutes, Rick and his buddy met up at a park and ride.  The body was handed over to Rick’s associate, who ironically was planning on going south to Georgia.  The dumping of the body would be no problem.  They reunited for a few minutes then shook hands and went their own ways. 
Rick returned home, still managing to get home before anything was suspected by his fiance.  Once he pulled into the driveway of his home, it was almost like everything he had just done had completely vanished.  He never thought about it, he never questioned it.  He just moved on with his life, doing horrific things to not so horrific people.  But the sickening part is that he never once felt remorse or even any emotion.  It was like all his crimes completely disappear after they’re done.
“I have done horrible things to undeserving people,” Rick says petrified.  “This has to be nothing compared to what I put those people through,” he says as a tear dribbles out of his eye.  “I deserve this.  What I have done is not fixable.  I have ruined so many lives.”  Rick reviews everything he has ever done.  Tears drip down his face, and in every tear, his pride.  Rick has no pride anymore. 
The squirrels snicker at him as they watch him suffering as if a movie.  And Rick takes it.  He has nothing to prove than that he is okay with this ending.  Malnourished and parched?  Of course, he is.  But, Rick recognizes he can’t do anything about it now.  It’s too late.  Everything in the forest tries to taunt him, fishing for his weak spot, but Rick is at peace.  This is his new home, and Rick is okay with it.

Rick begins to hear something, a muffled voice.  He isn’t quite how, but the voice sounds familiar to him, almost like someone he knew.  But who?  The voice is chopped and staticky.  It almost seems like it’s coming from far away, leaving a very distant echo.  But the harder Rick concentrates, the clearer the voice becomes.  Until, Rick finally can understand the words.  “Richard, listen to me.  It is not your time.”  The voice flows as smooth as silk, soft and welcoming.  Rick doesn’t understand. 
“What?  If it wasn’t my time, then I wouldn’t be here.  I deserve to be here!”  he said crossly.  Then something smacked him right on the head.  “Oh my God, that was my wife’s voice.  She’s calling for me!” Rick pieces together.  Within a matter of seconds, everything turns black and silence sweeps across him.
Rick’s eyes suddenly don’t have a deathlock pinning them shut  He shoots his eyes open.  No tunnel vision, no vertigo, no blurry shapes and figures.  What he sees is incredible, impossible.   He was laying in a  firm hospital bed.  An IV deep in his left hand and his right handcuffed to the railing.  Frantic voices of doctors and cops echo down the hallway, but they are muffled due to the sliding glass door in his room. 
A young nurse stands to Rick’s right, replacing his IV bag.  She turns her head, noticing he woke up, and smiles sweetly.  “Hey there,” she whispers, “how are you feeling?” 
Rick rolls his neck to face her, “I-I’m alive?”  Rick is overwhelmed with shock.  A sharp gasp comes from the other side of the room.  Still dazed Rick shifts his eyes toward the curious noise.  His wife stands up and rushes to the side of his bed.  “Mel-me-Melinda?” he stutters in astonishment.  “Is this real?  Am I alive?” Rick squeaks.  Had he really been given a second chance at life?
His wife gazes into his tear welling eyes.  “I love you, Rick,” she says in a softly shaken voice.  Her kind eyes bloodshot and waterless.  The red veins in her eyeballs seem to pulsate with her heart.  She is a wreck.  Her hair’s all frizzy and her clothes are not clean.  She had been next to Rick’s side since she got the call.  He had a heart attack in prison.  The doctors still aren’t sure what caused it. 
“I need to talk to my officer,” Rick blurts out.  “I have to tell him, I have to.”  Rick begins to panic.  “I have to tell them everything.  I can’t live with this burden of all those people’s deaths, their families have got to know,” he races through his mind.
Within an hour, Rick’s assigned officer talked to Rick in his hospital room.  There, Rick confessed to everything.  He gave a full verbal confession, including great detail.  When he was initially charged, they had a feeling he had done more than he “admitted” too but could never find the proof or evidence to connect him to other crimes.  Once stabilized and okay to leave the hospital he had to give a written confession as well.  In addition to the confessions, Rick wrote each and every family that he had hurt or destroyed a letter exposing himself.  In this letter, he included his drastic life changing event, details on each of their loved ones, and of course, a truly sincere apology. 
Since Rick had made extravagant and miraculous changes in himself, he was retried with the new and full confession.  The jury decided to transfer Rick to a special needs/disability unit within the prison.  This was enforced due to his massive cooperation as well as taking his personal safety seriously from other prison mates with grudges.  As for his sentencing, it still remains a double to life sentence with no choice for parole. 
Melinda has ever since dropped all restraining orders and brings their two daughters to visit Rick in his new safe group in the prison.  His two young beautiful daughters adore him and beg Melinda to take them every day after school.  Rick and Melinda began to work on their relationship and so far, all is going very well.  Obviously, they understood that rekindling their family would take a lot of time, but they already got a promising start. 
As for Rick?  Well, he can see clearly now through the power of God.  Never again will Rick miss a church service.  He takes his study and faith in the Lord very seriously.  He takes not one day for granted, knowing all of what God could have taken from him with the blink of His eye.  He was given one more chance to rebuild his life, and Rick was not about to toss it out the window.  They say that people never change.  But, maybe those who tried didn't try hard enough.  Anything is possible.