La ambición de Poe por controlar a las personas se hacía mucho más grande. Verlos sufrir sus tramas y morir con pasión por sus letras era una sed insaciable. Al ver que ya no quedaban personas en su colina, comenzó a hacer tertulias virtuales para enganchar foráneos.

Consiguió que sus seguidores vinieran de todas partes del mundo a participar en las macabras tertulias nocturnas en su cabaña. Algunos, infelizmente, eran parte de un trágico desenlace, mientras que otros sobrevivían y eran los que se encargan de divulgar la experiencia.

Así se escribieron cientos de tomos de literatura oscura y macabra. Hasta que una mañana, al revisar sus redes sociales, Poe notó los titulares que anunciaban un escritor que intentaba imitarlo al otro lado del mundo.

El hombre enloqueció. Parecía una tromba marina lanzando todos los objetos de su escritorio por toda el estudio. Agitado y cansado por su demostración de ira, juró vengarse de aquel que intentaba imitarlo.

Al principio pensó no darle el gusto de leer ni una sola letra de aquel farsante, pero luego pensó que era la única forma de conocer al impostor.

Tomó su teléfono y descargó el último tomo publicado por su rival. Poe se quedó aterrado en aquel sillón de la esquina de su habitación.

No podía creer lo que sentía al leer. Era como si las palabras vinieran a él como un recuerdo. Como si cada letra fuera suya, pero era imposible, no podía recordar haber escrito esto antes.

Confundido y molesto, tomó su equipaje y abandonó la colina después de muchos años encerrado en la cabaña. Fue a buscar a aquel que tenía la osadía de copiarlo.

Contactó con el misterioso imitador y pactaron un encuentro en un almacén abandonado cerca de un muelle.

Poe llegó muy puntual y cuando entró al lugar estaba húmedo, oscuro, al fondo se escuchaba una ópera, pudo reconocerla porque era su favorita.

Subió unas escaleras oxidadas y mugrientas. Al llegar al piso de arriba había una silla ubicada justo debajo de un foco de luz amarilla y lúgubre. Había un libro envuelto en una tela blanca manchada de sangre.

Poe abrió la tela y se acomodó en la silla rechinante para leer aquel manuscrito. Pensó que en esos trozos de papel podría encontrar las respuestas que necesitaba.

Mientras leía sentía que su cuerpo se movía solo. Era como un títere de aquellos párrafos y pensó en lo que le había hecho a sus lectores convirtiéndolos en sus personajes.

Continuó leyendo sin poder despegar sus ojos del papel mientras podía sentir el dolor encarnado en su pecho, la traición y el delirio por perder a su amor y la locura por no saber como enfrentar la situación. Cada párrafo era un escalón más al final del personaje.

Sumergido entre el drama y el suspenso, finalmente Poe tomó un cuchillo que estaba detrás de la última página y lo deslizó rápidamente por su cuello.

Fue un corte precioso. El cuchillo tenía tanto filo que no tuvo que hacer mucha fuerza para cortar capas de piel, arterias y casi hasta hueso.

Poe se inclinó hacia adelante y se dejó caer sobre el manuscrito. Mientras la sangre vinotinto empapaba las hojas y desaparecía las letras, con su último instante de vida pudo leer la firma del autor de la obra exquisita que le arrancaba la vida: Edgar Allan Poe.

Poe's ambition to control people became much greater. Watching them suffer his plots and die with passion for his lyrics was an unquenchable thirst. Seeing that there were no people left on his hill, he began to hold virtual gatherings to recruit outsiders.

He managed to get his followers to come from all over the world to participate in the macabre nightly gatherings in his hut. Some, unhappily, were part of a tragic outcome, while others survived and were in charge of spreading the experience.

Thus hundreds of volumes of dark and macabre literature were written. Until one morning, while checking his social networks, Poe noticed the headlines announcing a writer trying to imitate him on the other side of the world.

The man went mad. He looked like a sea squall throwing all the objects on his desk all over the studio. Agitated and tired from his display of anger, he vowed to take revenge on the one who was trying to imitate him.

At first he thought not to give him the pleasure of reading a single letter of that faker, but then he thought it was the only way to meet the impostor.

He took his phone and downloaded the latest tome published by his rival. Poe sat terrified in that armchair in the corner of his room.

He couldn't believe what he felt as he read. It was as if the words came to him like a memory. As if every letter was his own, but it was impossible, he couldn't remember writing this before.

Confused and upset, he took his luggage and left the hill after many years locked in the hut. He went in search of the one who had the audacity to copy him.

He contacted the mysterious copycat and they arranged to meet in an abandoned warehouse near a dock.

Poe arrived very punctual and when he entered the place it was damp, dark, in the background an opera could be heard, he could recognize it because it was his favorite.

He climbed some rusty and grimy stairs. When he reached the top floor there was a chair located just below a yellow, gloomy spotlight. There was a book wrapped in a white cloth stained with blood.

Poe opened the cloth and settled into the creaky chair to read that manuscript. He thought that in those scraps of paper he might find the answers he needed.

As he read, he felt his body move on its own. He was like a puppet in those paragraphs and thought about what he had done to his readers by turning them into his characters.

He continued reading without being able to take his eyes off the paper while he could feel the pain embodied in his chest, the betrayal and delirium of losing his love and the madness of not knowing how to cope with the situation. Each paragraph was one more step to the end of the character.

Submerged between drama and suspense, finally Poe took a knife from behind the last page and slid it swiftly across his neck.

It was a beautiful cut. The knife was so sharp that he didn't have to use much force to cut through layers of skin, arteries, and almost to the bone.

Poe leaned forward and dropped onto the manuscript. As the vinotinto blood soaked the leaves and the letters disappeared, with his last instant of life he could read the signature of the author of the exquisite work that was taking his life: Edgar Allan Poe.