Unmasking the Devil's Game

The editor leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the desk. The creak of the wooden frame echoed through the empty newsroom, but he didn't hear it. He was staring at John Greenfield's last column.

"""No one has ever seen this creature, but thousands of people have reported seeing it. From all over the world, from different cultures, from all walks of life, with very little in common. All that remains is speculation: the shape, size and color of the creature vary greatly from report to report. Some people claim it can predict future events; others say they are haunted by it; some believe it is a sign of impending doom, while others say that these sightings are a myth.""

"So?" he snorted after a moment. It was a stupid article, and even more stupidly written. The grammar alone made his eyes hurt. But then again John was far from an eloquent writer - he wasn't even eloquent in general. Sure he could be funny sometimes, but this time he hadn't even been funny! So what? A bad column doesn't mean anything. And he had never written anything else like this before - not that anyone could remember or prove anyway.

The editor glanced down at John's photo on his desk: there was a small hole burned into his forehead where someone had shot him two days ago. Not quite a perfect circle, more like a 2-year-old playing with crayons and burning the paper. It was just as obvious as 7-year-old kids drawing death threats on their notebooks at school - except for one thing: nobody had claimed responsibility for John's murder yet. Not a *single* person had made any reference to it - no one even seemed to notice that he was dead. They were too busy being outraged about some other article John had written three months ago, when everyone thought he would die of liver cancer any day now anyway. Nobody seemed to care whether John himself lived or died anymore, they only cared about being able to blame him for something and get away with it without consequences - such as by killing him without getting caught themselves.

The editor sighed and rubbed his forehead tiredly with his hand: why did he have to be stuck with this job? It wasn't really fair to call it work anyway - nobody paid him, so technically he should be called an intern or volunteer or something instead of an employee. Who could possibly want this job anyway? Being responsible for approving or denying public opinion articles before publication couldn't be fun - especially now when nobody paid any attention to who wrote what anymore and often didn't even read the columns before sharing them on social media! Everybody seemed to think they could write as well as John - even though they obviously couldn't since they hadn't been killed yet! No wonder nobody wanted to do this job anymore...

The editor glanced up again at the black-and-white photo on his desk: his predecessor had been killed just like John too... And all because he had been "too lenient" by allowing such a popular column like "John Greenfield's Opinionated World" to exist in the first place... That had certainly been one mistake! Nowadays you couldn't let people express their opinions publicly without facing serious consequences - especially if those opinions were controversial or unpleasant... Or if you were making unpopular decisions yourself! After writing that column three months ago, John had stopped bringing in enough money for them by dying as soon as everybody had predicted he would anyway... And now this new article about some other mysterious creature nobody had ever seen before? *Who* knew what kind of nonsense might come out of that one? Maybe somebody needed to remind everyone how dangerous it was to have a journalist who cared about things so much that they might write about them... Because who knows what sort of trouble that could cause?!

The editor's eyes wandered wearily upwards towards the ceiling above him: if only they hadn't taken away his power somehow! Back in his day you didn't have to worry about silly little things like murder because you could just fire your employees whenever you felt like it without having to worry about losing your job yourself because you knew your boss wouldn't punish you either! You could get rid of anyone who annoyed you easily by pushing them off a roof or poisoning their lunch or whatever else you felt like doing! You didn't need special permission back then, either... Even if the employees had done nothing wrong themselves yet! What did it matter if the other guy was innocent when *you* were *sure* he wasn't?! You were allowed to act first and ask questions later then! Just like that time with that annoying little kid who kept bothering everyone by asking irrelevant questions everywhere... The editor smiled wistfully at the memory: back then he hadn't even needed evidence against him because everybody already hated him for living in their neighborhood... And now look at everyone around here today - always asking questions like "What did John do wrong?", "How can I complain?", "What proof do we have?"... Well why don't you prove yourself useful and figure out what *I* can do about it?!

He sighed again and continued rubbing his forehead tiredly with his hand while staring dejectedly at John's photo on his desk: why did everything have to change so much nowadays anyway? Why did everyone keep questioning everything constantly? Why didn't anybody trust anybody anymore? Wasn't there any way around all this madness? Couldn't they return to how things used to be back in his day...?