The Last Victim by Jason Moss, Jeffrey Kottler

people that I just didn’t feel like it was enough of a challenge any longer.
    Looking back, the real reason I quit was that I was afraid of being second best. There were other boys who were bigger, stronger,
     and faster than I was. Before long, they’d be able to perform better than I could, no matter how hard I worked. I just couldn’t
     stand the thought of that. I’d rather not play at all than face the prospect that I wasn’t the absolute best.
    The following year I took up the trumpet, eventually ascending to second chair in the school band. The music teacher felt
     that I had great potential as a musician, but I soon lost interest in the instrument. I just couldn’t see myself in a high
     school marching band. I intended to be the star football player.
    Along with these athletic pursuits, I also had a number of hobbies, especially collecting things. When most boys my age were
     collecting baseball cards, I became a dealer. I got a job in a card store just so I could have a first look at anything new
     that came in. On occasion, I would also accost younger kids on the street to try to buy their collections.
    Before that, it was a huge coin collection. I taped coins to every spare sheet of paper in the house. I attended coin shows,
     wrote to family members all over the country recruiting their assistance to search for particular pennies I especially coveted.
     I visited the mint in Philadelphia to get more rare and unique coins. And just like everything else I did, once I felt I’d
     met the challenge, I moved on to something else.
    When I was fifteen, I took up weight lifting with a vengeance. I became completely obsessed with bulking up my body. I worked
     out two, even three times a day, to the point where I was huge—over 200 pounds at five feet, eight inches tall. I reached
     a point where I was eating dozens of vitamin supplements, taking weight-gainer fuel, as well as eating half a loaf of bread
     for breakfast each day.
    Eventually, this, too, became boring, so I moved on to kickboxing. Again, I became totally focused on being the absolute best.
     I went to school, then to the gym, then to kickboxing, and finally fell into bed exhausted each night. This used to drive
     my parents nuts.
    “Jason,” my mother would vent, “is there some reason why we have to live with that pole thing in the yard?”
    That “pole thing” was a gigantic stake I’d sunk into the ground to use for toughening up my feet and legs for tournaments.
     I’d kick it for hours at a time.
    “Come on, Mom, you know I need it to get myself ready.”
    “I just don’t know what to do with you. You use those bottles to rub your shins till they’re raw. You—”
    “I told you a hundred times. I have to deaden the nerve endings on my legs—”
    “Don’t use that tone of voice with us!” my father would object.
    “Look, Jason,” my mother would warn, “we’ve had just about enough of this stuff!” and the lecture would continue.
    As a little boy, I continuously lived with fears of being abandoned, as well as being kidnapped. I cried a lot. From kindergarten
     onward, I presented an image of being well behaved but unusually vulnerable.
    My parents tried to shelter me as much as possible. Whereas my friends were allowed to see scary movies, I was never permitted
     to do so. In fact, even certain news shows and documentaries were ruled out.
    At age seven, I remember lying in bed one night, trying to get to sleep, and hearing the sound of the television in the other
     room. By the sounds of the screaming and music, I could tell that my parents were watching something frightening.
    I snuck out of bed and peered down the hallway to see what was being broadcast. It turned out to be a film about the Holocaust.
     I sat in the darkened hallway, huddled on the floor, and witnessed Nazi soldiers beating and killing people. I saw dead bodies
     being moved around and piled up in stacks. I couldn’t figure out why anyone would treat