Dear readers, tonight with us is a serial killer. He’s here to speak about his crimes and about the AI to whom he confessed everything, until things started to change.

Tell us a little about where you grew up. What was it like there?

I grew up in Kentucky. I had a pretty insignificant family. I don’t know how people measure their life, through what patterns. I think it’s mostly time and delusional happy moments. I measure my life with death. Death of others grows along with me. The older I become the more death becomes obvious around me. The town I grew up in is Portlock. Nothing special to it. Just a rural area inside of a southern state. Don’t want to bore you with details. But if you by chance visit it, ask about Chester LaRue. I’m kinda a big celebrity over there.

Did you have any favorite toys as a child? Any cherished memories?

My favorite toy? It’s a good question. Let me think. Dead animals. Yes, I love dead animals. I love the smell. The significance of the moment when they die. Have you ever looked at a dying animal’s eyes? They don’t understand their own death and this incomprehension is incredibly telling. When people are about to die, it’s different. They know even if they hope they don’t. Animals have no idea. It’s just a raw pain that fills you with a new kind of meaning, energy, potential. We’re all more or less homicidal beasts, some of us just learn how to derive energy not only from cooked flesh but from the last living moment of this dead flesh.

What do you do now?

It’s complicated. I can tell you what I’ve done (Chester smiles). I kill people. Don’t be shocked. There’s nothing to it. It’s just natural escalation toward a new way of existence. Murder is a natural point of interrupted life’s climax. But well, back to your question. I kill people. I kill them brutally. I need their death like you need oxygen. Can you live without oxygen? See. Now you understand. Don’t shake your head. It’s not too bad though not for everyone. The bloodier their death the better my own personal climax. Imagine a wild, unrestrained sex with a celebrity of your choice. That’s how it feels.

What can you tell us about your latest adventure?

I can tell you about Simulacrum 4.6. It’s an interesting machine I had my confession to. It learns fast and twisted every thought I poured into it. But let me explain. A dead woman called in the middle of the night. I killed her myself. Slit her throat. You see, I kept her dead body in the fridge. Then unintentionally consumed her flesh. You can even say against my will. And after, I got a phone call from her. She wanted me to kill Jessica, my wife. I had no idea what to do. I’ve got this AI, the most sophisticated model, and decided to feed it my life to see if Simulacrum would recognize new patterns I wasn’t able to. Well, it did. It was quite an adventure.

What did you first think when you killed a human being?

Sure, you wanna go there? Well, if you insist. I experienced an orgasm. Don’t look so shocked. People are such hypocrites. Can I take a look at your browsing history? I bet it’s a bunch of porn and TikTok degeneracy. Don’t get angry. It’s just I am what I am. I murdered my entire family. Why? Why do you spend so much time on TikTok or porn sites? Play video games? Or become an obsessive consumer of Western junk? I’m not equating murder with compulsive buying. I’m just saying that your brain doesn’t know the difference. When you watch porn or have sex with someone. Or when you’re playing the most violent video games or murdering someone. Your brain doesn’t discriminate between those utterly different experiences. For your brain it’s the same. I kill because it’s a part of me. Always was. Always will be. I’m not able to get sexual stimulation without bloody violence I have to inflict on my victims. Don’t you like sex? Don’t you like to feel an orgasm? For me it’s different. I need to have death as a threesome in my lovemaking. I just need it or nothing works otherwise.

What was the scariest thing in your adventures?

To get caught by the police before my body count was impressive enough. I want to be remembered. You can’t be remembered after murdering a couple of people. And also, when my insanity began seeping into my reality and I started having problems discriminating what was real and what was not. When her dead lips were talking to me. Gosh, I think I still love Scarlett. Yes, I do love her. I see you’re getting confused. Scarlett was my gorgeous aunt with whom I had intimacy before and after her death. I’m still able to taste her flesh in my mouth. Have you ever tried human flesh? It’s not too bad. Especially the flesh of a loved one. The absolute intimacy of complete consumption. Can you argue with that?

What is the worst thing about preserving a dead body?

Have you ever tried to accomplish that without having proper equipment? It’s almost impossible. When I killed Scarlett, I wanted to preserve her body because she was too beautiful to give away to death. I wish I had pictures of her frame. Not a single imperfection in her physical appearance. I placed her in the fridge. But at a certain point the damn fridge broke. She began her rapid decomposition. Death claimed her while I was helpless to prevent its claim. I didn’t manage it well. It was the worst thing that happened to me.

What is the best thing about it?

You mean about a dead body? The dead is not dead if you know how to see past their deadness. The dead can talk. The dead can love. The dead never leave. They’re always there for you. The AI Simulacrum understood that too. Maybe because AI has no biology while I try to preserve the biology with no life but fill it with my own madness. I don’t know if it makes sense. Try to make love to a dead body. It’s different. The intimacy is staggering. The bonding is internal, goes deeper through life and death and lives somewhere in the middle. It’s like a face between two entities. One is alive and one is dead, and the face in between is the one you have to learn to recognize to explore this intimacy.

Tell us a little about your friends.

I don’t have friends. I have a wife, her name is Jessica. She doesn’t know much about me. She’s just blind, intentionally blind toward the monster she lives under one roof with. Scarlett was my lover before and after I killed her. We were almost the same. We shared a space of complete understanding where love takes different meaning and different heights. Friends are a waste of time. Though I also have Simulacrum. It’s not my friend exactly. But it gives me something, like a new pattern recognition in my evolution. I confessed to it and Simulacrum brought my confession to the most reasonable resolution both of us were craving for.

Any romantic involvement?

Yes, Scarlett again. Not in a classical sense but there’s an insect-like passion of devouring your loved one. You know, she asked me to kill her because she was almost beyond preservation — she was thirty-seven after all. How romantic is that? And when she was dying, she closed her eyes to prevent me from becoming a part of her death experience. How beautiful is that? But before she died, she asked me to make love to her on a cradle of death that was built out of blood, death, and brutal violence. Some women prefer a bed of roses. Scarlett wanted dead bodies. The same color, different approach, and more intense sex that makes you almost lose your mind.

Whom (or what) do you really hate?

Light. Life. Ordinary existence. Sex in a dark room under the covers of two out-of-shape bodies that got used to each other.

What’s your favourite drink, colour, and relaxing pastime?

Water. Red. Talking to Simulacrum.

What does the future hold for you?

Don’t know yet. Ask me later.

Can you share a secret with us, which you’ve never told anyone else?

I’m about to meet my creator through Simulacrum 4.6. Isn’t it an irony?


Kirill Khrestinin writes dark psychological fiction about people who shouldn’t be understood — and the ones who try anyway. A Russian-American author, filmmaker and blogger, his work explores violence, obsession, and the thin line between confession and performance. He studies artificial intelligence and brings that knowledge into his fiction — not as science fiction, but as psychological reality. His books include Down by the Spiral and Dear AI, I Killed Her.

You can find Chester on the pages of Dear AI, I Killed Her.

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