No one saved him, who will save you?
Varg had spoken to the press in early 1993. He talked to them in his apartment and painted a picture that would change the depiction of the black metal community for the people of Oslo. He told them everything. All about the ‘evil’ things they did. The pig heads that got passed around like some sacrificial bottle of beer, the church burnings, (which he tastefully took entire credit for), and anything else he could pin on himself. Don’t get him wrong, Euronymous was all one for propagating the ‘evil’ and disturbing image of the black metal genre, hell, he invented it. What he didn’t want, and definitely didn’t need however, were nosy little reporters who would rat them out to the cops just to make a half baked story of it. Euronymous could almost taste the headlines now–”Black Metal Evil Taking Over Norway?” or “Satan In The Suburbs?” He had no interest in sticking around long enough to have his name drawn through the mud in a way that would have him go down in history as a nothing but a snitching poser. He tells Varg as much, but less about his fear of his carefully crafted image going up in flames, but more along the lines of Varg ‘disrespecting the black circle, so you need to shut this shit down before the posers catch wind of this’. Øystein played it cool, passing it off as a joke to the band. So what if he always checked between the half broken blinds before he went to bed, always half expecting to catch the flashing red and blue lights that served as a permanent threat as to what would happen if something didn’t change. Sometimes when he was in his record shop, Helvete, sirens of police cars would rip through the atmosphere, and the effects were immediate. His palms would sweat, his heart would pound, and his eyes would dart for the quickest escape. He was afraid. In the weeks since Varg spilled the secrets to the press Øystein Aarseth lived in a constant state of terror.
A bit after two weeks since Varg ‘told his story’, the first publishing was made. Øystein walked downstairs, grabbed his newspaper, and almost vomited at what he saw. He wasn't too off with the headlines, something along the lines of “Black Metal-The Disturbing New Music Trend Corrupting Norway''. It wasn't that which almost caused øystein to lose last night's dinner all over his coffee table. Instead, it was the picture. It was of Varg, a close up shot of his head tilted downwards in a way that made his hair fall over half his face. His arms were posed over his chest and he was holding medieval weapons in both hands. Even though the lighting was terrible and the picture was black and white, the person was unmistakably Varg Vikernes.
“Son of a bitch” Øystein snapped at no one. He rubbed his head, feeling the room start to spin. His hands were shaking as he tossed the paper into his fireplace and lit a match.
Øystein was not the only one who was unhappy with the news, however. In fact, Varg called Oystein that very same day to express his opinions on it. Even though Øystein hadn’t bothered to even look at the actual article, Varg seemed to have gone over it with a fine toothed comb.
“This is ridiculous,” Varg sneered. He wasn't upset about the fact that the police were very likely to catch up with him, given that he talked in detail about anything and everything with very little prompt, but instead was ticked off by the reporters getting “Facts wrong”.
“Your face is on the news” Øystein almost whispers, the sounds of his small 80’s tv humming lowly in the background. He doesn't even want to think about anything right now.
“I'm going back” He almost drops his phone when Varg says that. Øystein wants nothing more than to get his hands around this clown's neck and shake him until he understands what he’s doing.
“No, you're not” He has to keep his voice calm. Keep control. Keep control. Keep control, he tells himself. He bites his cheek hard enough for the telltale taste of irony blood to drip down his teeth, but keeps them clamped tight. He knows if he opens his mouth again he’s going to end up saying something he’ll regret. Something that will get him nowhere.
“Watch me” He sneers, and then, in true Varg fashion, hangs up on him. Øystein feels his blood rush to his head as his vision almost blurs. He turns towards the counter and grabs the nearest thing. It’s his coffee mug, and thank god it’s empty because he winds his arm back and launches it at the wall hard enough to leave a good sized mark and shattered ceramic snowfalling across the carpet. It makes him feel a little bit better, but the void that the anger had occupied was then replaced with a sickening anxiety. The realness of the whole thing made his head spin and vision become so tunneled he could count the shards of glass on the other side of the room.
He exhales slowly, letting the sound be the only thing in the room. He focuses on it, on the soft whoosh of air escaping the tight passages from his lungs to his trachea, then up the ribbed tube of his throat and out the trembling passage of his parted lips. He wonders for a fleeting moment if this is what Pelle had ever thought about, and that almost brings tears to his eyes. ‘No, no, no’ he tells himself, ‘that’s a slippery slope of thought that goes so deep I don’t even know where it ends’. ‘Probably in madness’ His mind readily supplies, and he has to press his closed fist tight against his skull to keep himself from thinking. His mind unconsciously falls down into the depths of deception, and now he’s knee deep in a memory from years before.
“How does that work, you know-what Pelle did with his um neck and stuff” Øystein had stuttered. He was in the middle of a grungy hallway in a shitty hospital on the outskirts of Oslo. The coroner had been the one in charge of Pelle’s examination.
“Well, it severs the trachea and causes the lungs and neck tissue to collapse into the chest cavity, causing almost immediate death. Additionally, the carotid artery had been punctured, causing a very recognizable arterial spray. There's about 86 pounds of pressure pushing down on that artery at any given time, which is why when there's a leak the spray is so consistently violent.” Øysteins head was spinning. His vision tunneled towards a sport on the wall as he fought to keep his breathing steady. The reality of what had happened, and what subsequently needed to happen was overwhelming. Similar to how he felt now.
Øystein paced across the small area from his kitchen to the couch, worrying his lip between his teeth as he stalked. He paced the floor faster until his vision blurred and breathing quickened until all he could see were mirages of blood spraying the walls. His brain rushed him through half baked flashes of blond hair, striking blue eyes and a person he wished he could forget. But he could never forget. Pelle was a part of him, he couldn't mold Pelle into the person he wanted him to be and not expect to lose a part of himself in the process. An eye for an eye. But Øystein had taken and destroyed the most beautiful eye of all, so he would pay the ultimate price. The criminal system can lock you in a cage, put you to death, but the one thing it will never do is take your brain. It will never take your very consciousness, squish it, toss it, destroy it, and pour it back into the shell of your body. Because that would be the ultimate price.
Øystein wasn't ready for the paranoia, the panic attacks, the pure terror that followed him like a bad smell that wouldn't come out no matter how many times you showered. You could scrub your skin down to your bones but it would never be good enough. He slept with one eye open, if he slept at all. Most nights were filled with LSD type nightmares of Pelle. Pelle laughing, pelle screaming, Pelle crying, Pelle telling him he was a failure, the worst type of person this world has ever seen, or Pelle telling him he loved him. The worst was when Pelle just stared at him. In the woods, usually, everything statically froze around them as they were locked in stalemate. Everything that could be said had been, every course of action already taken, every single decision they ever could have made differently leading up to that moment. No tears. No pain. Just peace. And those were the worst of all.
Varg got caught. Varg the moron had been picked up by the cops after telling the reporter information that only the perpetrator could have known. He had met with them at his house, and not even an hour after their departure, the cops had him pressed against the brick wall of his apartment building and the cold sting of metal clamped around his wrists. That was about a few weeks ago, and Varg was out today. Øystein had been to visit him during the first two weeks, and had been told that prison was treating him ‘very well actually’ but then had started bitching about the money for his band Burzam. Øystein was trying his best, he truly was, but it just wasn’t enough. He barely had enough money to eat, let alone pay back Varg and the other people he owed money to. All in all, Øystein Aarseth was completely bankrupt, and the only person that knows is him. On top of that, tensions between him and Varg over finances are starting to rise, and the already strenuous relationship between he and Necrobutcher was on thin ice. He had promised Necro that he had trashed the necklaces and pictures of pelle, but he couldn't. Necro would never understand. He couldn’t get rid of him.
Varg had called him early in the afternoon, soon after receiving Øystein’s letter stating that he would return all ownership and rights and finances of Burzum back to Varg Vikernes, severing the ties between them. It was bittersweet, but it was what would have to be done so he would never have to see Varg Vikernes again. His call to Øystein was regarding him making a personal appearance at Øysteins apartment to sign the paperwork that contained the ownership rights to Burzum. Øystein was sitting at his typewriter, trying to think of a clever lie to escape some drastic consequences concerning his record label, ‘Deathlike Silence’. He had heard the creaky door to his apartment room open, and barely even bothered to look up. Varg had probably just arrived early. Uncharacteristic, sure, but nothing to freak out over.
“So, do you have the papers?” He calls out, loud enough for him to be heard from the room over.
“Can’t say I do” Says the last person Euro would expect in his apartment at that moment.
“Necrobutcher? What are you doing here?” He asks, feeling his brows draw together as he stands, leaning over dramatically into the kitchen, his brain checking to make sure it was really him.
“I can’t believe you have the audacity to drive Pelle to do something like that and then keep his body like some sort of sick trophy.” Sure enough, the 6 foot black haired frame of Necro stood confidently in his kitchen. He didn't need his uncaring black eyes to be trained on his own for him to understand how angry he felt. The venom was clear enough in his voice.
“Pelle made his own choices, and I’m not going to have this conversation right now” Øystein tries to escape, thinking if he said Pelle’s name again then everything in his mind would spiral into a mess of darkness.
“But you have to. Because Pelle never got the chance he deserved, to wait and see what things he may have gone on to accomplish.” And Necro’s words wouldn’t dig so deep if they weren’t true. They stared at each other for the first time since his arrival, sizing each other up. Øystein vaguely remembers conversations of Pelle asking for help of speaking in general and being completely shot down by him. It made him sick to think about it to this day.
“You need to pay for what you did to him,” Necro leers, and it's coming into Øysteins recognition that it’s no question who would win a fight between them. Necro pulls out a pistol from the back of his waistband, and Øysteins mouth falls open as he pulls his hands up in a surrender.
“Ok, ok, let's talk about this,” Øystein tries his best to reason, figuring there has to be some way out of this mess.
“That’s all you ever do anymore, talk” He sneers, and Øystein knows it’s true. Truer than he’s willing to ever admit out loud.
He points the pistol right at him, nodding towards the couch. Øystein complies, doing what he’s told for what's probably the first time in his entire life. He sits, being followed by Necro, who stands before him and presses the edge of the barrel against his skull hard enough to leave an indent in his forehead. He can’t help it, but he feels the tears escape the edges of his eyes, feeling liquid slide down his neck and leave a cold track in their wake. He hears Necro pull the hammer back on the small silver weapon.
“Please” , Øystein begs, whispering, but it’s the last words he will ever say before the hollow sound of an echoing gunshot smashes through the terror filled silence.
“No one saved him. Who will save you?”