caspian reinhart {d8 - fin}

I've been building since my hands could hold tools. It has always been our family trade, not that I know very much about family. My grandparents have graves, I've never met my mother, and I never had brothers or sisters. It's just been me and good old dad, who taught me how to build as soon as my toddler hands could wield something as heavy as a hammer. I still ended up breaking my own fingers.

We weren't the most popular business. My father didn't have the skills to build entire houses, so we made our money designing useless things for frivolous people. My first project was a birdhouse. It was a disaster, but the lady thought I was adorable so she bought it off of us for fifty cents. She probably tossed it in the trash after she left. I don't even care; anybody willing to buy something as stupid as a birdhouse isn't worth much to me. I don't like people who can waste their time doing pointless things. We built a doghouse for somebody once. How privileged are you, thinking your dog needs its own house? Is yours not good enough?

Most of what I contributed were trinkets. Tiny wooden bird statues and animals that could be strung on necklaces. They were actually kind of cute. I didn't see much value in them until now, but it's all about sentiment. It was always the kids wanting them, tugging on their mom's pant leg and pointing while I sat in my corner carving away. I have one of my own; it's shaped like a bat. The animal, not the weapon. I like them because I can hear them when I'm up late at night building outside. I can hear crickets too, but I don't want a goddamn bug hanging from my neck.

It's hard to say when my dad starting losing his mind. He was the type of guy you didn't look at twice because he didn't stand out in a crowd. If you did, it was because he was weird. His clothes never matched and he muttered under his breath a lot, usually about the sky or how "He" was watching. I never knew who "He" was. My dad just mentioned him sometimes, like when I bruised my fingers or ruined a project. He'd turn to me and say "Everything happens for a reason. He decides what that reason is" and if I asked who, he just smiled at me like I was naive. He definitely wasn't the best fatherly figure. Grades didn't mean shit and neither did my life. If I stopped breathing, he would've never noticed.

This made me a prime candidate for his growing obsession. Now that I can sit in our lonesome house and reflect, I realize the subtle changes I hadn't noticed in him before. He stopped smiling altogether, the light in his room stayed on for longer after my curfew, and breakfast came in smaller portions. Eventually, he didn't show up to the workshop anymore. I had to take over the business and explain to the customers that my father wasn't there. I fabricated more and more believable excuses as time passed.

"He's sick."

"His hand is broken."

"He's in mourning, his sister just passed away."

"He's teaching me a lesson about business management."

I managed to score a few pity tips in our tip jar. Call me a liar, but I couldn't explain his stupid obsession with worship. He isolated himself without warning and left me in the dust to suffer the consequences. I polished my skills as a sculptor and started selling lower quality junk for lower prices, because I'm a fair guy. It's better to have fewer customers than none. I would've starved.

He became more reclusive as months passed, to the point that I was hardly acknowledged. If I said hello, he continued his mumbling and kept walking. I didn't know how to approach him, so I lived with it. The door to his bedroom was always locked. Meals consisted of soup and bread if he ever bothered cooking, and he often forgot to prepare a portion for me. As far as I was concerned, I was fending for myself.

On Reaping days, he never said goodbye.

I was basically an adult with no training, winging it and hoping for the best as I kept my crooked fingers crossed. Maybe he would snap out of it. Maybe he would realize that his life was a waste, that his worship was meaningless. I waited for too long, accepting signs as they passed. The dead rabbit and bloodstains in the carpet should've been enough to drive me off, but what was I supposed to do? Live in the streets? Crazy was something I could deal with if I didn't have to see it, so I made the decision to stay exactly where I was. I think most people would've done the same.

I have a scar on my chest where he tried to cut my heart out.

He made breakfast that morning, and I guess I was dumb enough to believe he had suddenly changed. Snapped back like a rubber band. All I remember is biting into the best pancakes I'd had in a long time, then fuzziness. The world tilted and faded to black. He fucking drugged me, the maniac. I woke up bound to wooden pegs in the middle of the woods, the sun too bright for my eyes. Whatever drug he used, it numbed most of the pain but not all of it. I could feel the tight ropes around my wrists and ankles, and the knife when he made an incision into my chest. I was too disoriented to actually know what the fuck he was doing, but I heard the word "sacrifice."

People don't believe me. They tell me it was a nightmare, but all it takes is a lift of my shirt to cut their bullshit short.

The only reason I'm alive is because some kid in the woods found us. I have no idea who they are or what they look like, but they must've warned the Peacekeepers. By the time I was of coherent mind again, I was surrounded by them. White coats and creepy helmets everywhere. My chest was on fire and they carried me to the medical center, because apparently he hadn't cut deep enough to kill me yet. They said it was inches away from heart muscle.

I'm alive because of luck, and I hate it.

Taking control of your own life feels pointless if something as stupid as coincidence can change it in a split second's time. Life toys with people like they're all practical jokes, and honestly I think a few of them are. The Peacekeepers tried to send me off to live in an orphan house for a year. That was also a joke. I was a few months shy of eighteen!

I convinced them to leave me alone, so here I sit in the confines of my dad's workshop while he rots in the Detention Center. I build for customers and spend my nights in a silent house.

Not much as changed.