Simon Karnes - d10 - FIN

Sometimes I wonder if anyone can see the monster inside me. I don't think they can, but maybe if they did they would keep away from me. Maybe they wouldn't ask me so many questions. And then there are times when I think the monster makes me look more appealing than the average person just to keep people near me. Maybe my blues eyes are a deeper blue than most. Maybe My blonde hair shines a little brighter or falls in the exact right way. I hope not. I hope no one looks at me and thinks I am ... handsome. I don't want them to think that about someone like me. I want them to see the monster I can become. My dark side is something that s part of me and I can't change it. So if anyone is going to like me, they better not like the illusion the monster creates. I want them to like the whole package. The secrets, the stories, the monster, the angel, the past. Is that so impossible? To ask someone to like me for more than my looks?

Maybe it is. I look in the mirror one day and wondered what others think. Because whenever I looked in the mirror I saw the monster smiling back at me. That's why I shattered the mirror, threw my bedside table, and punched the wall in near my bedroom door. I almost left my room too, but came to my senses before the monster could completely take over. I hands bled, my heart pounding, my breaths coming in shallow and fast. And my window showed me that I was nothing but a maniac that could barely keep control. So I guess I can try to look normal. Brush my hair and teeth, shower, drape myself in clothing, work hard and finish all my chores, eat dinner with everyone, walk like a man, stand tall even when I am terrified, remain strong even when I want to cry - that's what guys do isn't it? They turn into what the world wants, not what they want? I guess I can try to hide myself from the truth like so many others do, but I will forever be looking for that person that wants to see the messed up, dirty, naked, lazy, starving, scared, weeping thing that I really am.

I feel it crawling just beneath the surface of my skin. It threatens to consume my very being - every hour, every minute, every second. The monster inside wants full control. It takes all I have to keep it from eating me, and everyone I am around, alive. I can hear the echo of a door slam and know it is the door to my heart. No entry today - honestly, I don't think there will ever be entry. Ever. The monster is a part of me, one I can't get rid of, one I will have to live with my whole life. The monster tells me he can help me feel better. He says all I need to do is kill again, that blood smearing across a wall and oozing through my fingers will help me feel less angry. And sometimes I nearly consider it because that's what the monster says to do. He is usually right - he is always trying to help me. But then, just before I leave my room, I can hear another voice. They are telling me that it will hurt. If I kill someone at Julia I will regret it forever. That voice tends to make me cry - it makes the monster rage inside me, waling to be free, to help me feel better. But my tears burn in my eyes and I know that the monster doesn't tell me of the consequences. Yes I will feel better but then just a minute later I will feel like I need to kill myself for the terrible thing I just did. I know it. The angel somewhere inside me says so.

How can I look even remotely sane to the people here? They ask me questions, they want to know where I came from, what my family is like but I rarely answer. If I answer with the truth I know they will run from me like everyone else has in the past. So I keep it all inside. All my feelings, everything that makes me who I am has to stay with the monster and angel inside me. I could make up a story for myself, start my life over from scratch, but that would be a lie. And lying is wrong - my parents always said so. Instead I ignore, which my parents also said was rude, but what other option do I have? The monster says I need to keep quiet and make sure not to tell anyone my secrets, but the angel says I should tell someone, that some person here will understand. The angle says there is always love in the world if you look hard enough. But I cannot find that love - I think that for once the angel is wrong. So I give the monster my secrets and he holds them inside, keeping them safe. He promises to keep them safe. But the angel wants them - she wants me to tell. But I can't. I can't lose this new home. I would have no where to go.

I leave my room, but only to work alone in the orchards. I harvest the apples when they are ready and do as I am told in any other circumstances, but I can't stay out too long. Something might go wrong. When I can hear nothing but the monster whispering in my ears I know it is time to go back to my room. He screeches at me when I lock the door behind me, but I do it anyway. He yells at me, tells me that I would've felt better if I had torn everyone here to shreds but I ignore it. Instead I watch everything from my window. It is easier that way. I know everyone here, as if they were my own brothers and sisters, but have never spoken to them. I know everything by watching. I know their names, stories, and secrets by listening. They may think I know nothing about them, that I am nothing but a cold and horrible person when I stay away from them, but they don't understand how much I love them all. They are my family in this new life I have. That is why I stay away - I don't want to hurt them like I did with my last family.

I only have one book in my room to read. It was the one my sister was reading when I killed her. I found it just outside my bedroom door before I ran away. I think I have read it over a million times now, but I have to keep reading. Not because it is all that great but because I think it might change. And if that story can change, why can't mine?

You should be afraid of me. But somehow everyone wants to be near me, wants to know me. So I lock myself away from the world in the hopes that no one will ever find me there. I throw the key away but somehow, it is always found. And then, just when I think that someone can understand, just when I think that they might forgive my terrible sins and learn to love the broken, mangled thing that I am - They run from me and leave me all alone. But it's my own fault for believing in them. I can only blame myself for trusting people - I should know better by now. Anyone who has committed murder - murders - should terrify people. You should run away from me, before I kill you.

- - - - - - - - - - -

I wasn't meant to be the devil. My parents were angels and raised me as such. But you can't change fate, and the day I was born, mine was already set and stone. I grew up in an apple orchard. It was a little awkward compared to all the dairy farms and poultry farms in the area, but my parents were a bit eccentric. That's what I loved so much about them - they were never afraid of the criticism they might receive for being different. So when they decided that a very large family was essential, even during a time where the government killed children, I wasn't surprised. But the family didn't start with me, the family started with my three older siblings. First, the eldest, my sister, Samantha. Then my brother, Seymour, Jr. Then my other sister, Sadie. Then me, Simon. But my parents weren't even going to stop at four children. They still thought more would be suitable. So then there are the twins, Spike and Summer. And then - finally - the youngest, Sapphire. And if you were curious, my parents names are Seymour and Sally - it was another one of their neat tricks to make all our names start with the same letter. So the final tally for the family came out at nine members when my parents decided they had had enough. We were one, big happy family. With all the kids within about a year of each other in age, we were all very close and were at the point of doing anything for each other.

My childhood was filled with long walks through the orchard, jumping from apple tree to apple tree with Seymour and Spike, eating so many apples with my sisters that we almost puked, and let's not forget having the whole family cram into the kitchen to bake apple pies. And my favorite memory of it all - stories. It was something my parents thought was important in order to let children learn life lessons and have some imagination. Every night, we would gather in the living room, waiting for my dad to get in from checking the orchard to tell us a story. Sometimes he would read chapters from old books, and sometimes he would create a story all on his own. During the winter, all we did was read and read and read. Everyone in the family would take turns making up a story or reading part of a book and finish by eating apple pie. But we were all young then - I wasn't old enough to ruin lives just yet. Everybody is pretty innocent when they are 10.

But as I got older, things started to change quite a bit. We kids - we were no longer children, no longer compliant to every wish that our parents had, no longer interested in the same things. The bonds that held us strong at one point in time were not enough anymore. Samantha was 18, and right after the Reaping and she was done having to deal with the horror of becoming a tribute, she left. She was ready to move on with her life and become something. And when our parents protested, she only told them that the petty little things that worked on her as a child would no longer work on her. Stories, apple pies, and family - were for babies. And that was it. She left that night and never came back. Seymour Jr., was devastated. Being so close to her and having her call him a baby just because he loved his family and reading changed him. He started being disobedient and running around with the wrong crowds at school. I wanted to be around him, my big brother - my fucking idol - but he tossed me aside, telling me I was too little and was nothing more than just a little child who still listened to fairy tales. My parents couldn't control Seymour and blamed themselves hundreds of times over when a Peacekeeper came knocking at our door to let us all know that Seymour had been drunk and drowned in the nearby river. We were all a wreck - and for about two seconds, we were a family again. Everyone united to fight this one loss.

And then we grew back into the rebellious family of misfits. The twins couldn't stand each other any more and Sadie and I were no better. The only kid that didn't seem to bother anyone of us was Sapphire. But everything was s tense. We weren't making our quota of apples an my parents were becoming unable to manage such a large farm and had to keep selling bits and pieces of land away in order to keep the house. They fought a lot of the time. I could hear their screaming through my bedroom door. And as I got older, I started noticing changes in me - and not the good kind that every boy wishes for. I felt so angry. The smallest things made me upset - Sadie asking to have her stupid ass boyfriend over. Or Spike not knowing an answer to a math problem. Or Saph wanting me to tell her a story. In total, I probably broke 3 windows, a lot of vases, shattered tons and tons of light bulbs, and ripped so many of the books apart that we only had a few left that were salvageable before I left home. My parents tried to help me, but nothing really worked. I still got mad, I still couldn't control it. And when I was 16 and ended punching Sadie for telling me that she was running away with her boyfriend, I was scared of myself. My parents never knew that I had hit her before she left and wept for her for days - knowing that it was all their fault once again. And I had guilt on my shoulders, knowing I hindered her choice to leave the most. I was now the oldest child in the house.

And then I had to leave ...

- - - - - - - - - - -

My room was getting warm, but I didn't care. The book I was reading was to intriguing to stop reading it just because I was sweating a little and my room was the only place in the house that I could concentrate. Mom and dad wouldn't be back from their daily walk through the orchard for another half hour or so, and I was going to enjoy being in charge by showing that my authority meant I could ignore them. No twins or Saph for me. Then a knock sounded on the door and a tiny voice came after. "Simon? Are you in there?" I rolled my eyes, trying to ignore her altogether. "No." There was a small pause before she spoke again. "Can you help me figure out what this word is?" "Saph, no - go ask Spike or Summer. "I already did. They don't know either. Please Simon?" And then that thing that controls me snapped. I slammed my book shut, threw it against the wall and screamed. I flipped my bed, my bedside table, ripped the curtains away from the wall, and smashed the glass of my mirror and window. It felt good - but it wasn't enough. I was still pissed off. And then I remembered how great it felt to punch Sadie in the face and turned to the door where Saph was screaming. "Simon!! Simon, stop!! Remember what mom and dad said!? You need to relax! I'm sorry, okay? I was just asking ... I swung the door open and lunged at her, making her screams more insistent as I drug her through the house by her hair. I flung her into a corner and kicked her a few times, sweating now dripping off of my clothes and onto the floor. She cried out but had enough bite to bite my ankle. Seeing my own blood made me angrier - I wanted to kill her. I wanted to kill my little sister. Blood pumped through my veins and I laughed as I grabbed the knife that was sitting on the counter with the apple pie. And letting my anger drive me forward I stabbed her - again and again and again. And when I finally grew tired and couldn't push on any further I flopped to the ground and let myself laugh and laugh and laugh. And when I finally noticed Spike in the corner, a look of complete panic and fear all over his face, I realized what I had done. I just killed my sister. All because she wanted her older brother to help her figure out what a certain word meant. Spike looked at me then, still scared no doubt, and said a single word. "Amour."

- - - - - - - - - - -

I ran away then. I couldn't face my parents, I could barely face myself. I killed my sister because she wanted to know what the word 'amour' meant. It was a sign that I never deserved the meaning of that word. As I ran, I cried. I cried for months. I jumped from orphanage to orphanage, only to find that when people found out what I had done that they no longer wanted me there. I got kicked out of 3 different places and nearly turned into the Peacekeeper's on one account. I was lost and no one wanted someone like me around. So after the third try of being open with people, I decided to keep everything locked away and just stay away from everyone. But at the fourth orphanage there was a girl that I couldn't stay away from. I thought it was true love, like the kind in books, but found out that when I told her what I was she was just like all the rest - she hated me. She feared my presence. And I left one more orphanage before walking straight into an apple orchard. I fell to my knees and cried at the edge of the property for almost an hour before climbing a tree and snatching an apple. And the memories that rushed back into my brain were o the happy times I had. Of my family, whole and filled with dreams and full of stories to tell. And I knew I had to stay there. Julia Orchards was my new home. And no one, no one was going to change that. So I took a key and locked everything away. I would not fall for any sweet love tricks, no awesome roommates, no parental figures - they would all turn their backs on me if they knew the truth.

So they will never know. I will never tell.