Well, I said I'd do it, so here we are... Again.

Before we get started on this fic, I just have a few things to say. Old and new readers alike, welcome to the remake of 'The monster within us', wither or not this fic will be better or not I do not know, but I will complete this thing, even if it takes three years.

Anyway, honestly, this has been in the back of my mind for a long while now, but I've hardly done anything with it. But then I was looking back at my last SYOT, 'Shattered Souls', (an experiment that's a plethora of spelling and grammar mistakes and somewhat satisfying) reading the reviews and seeing the complete marker on it, and I thought to myself, 'yes, I can finish my first SYOT', so here I am.

So really, this remake will be mostly the same as Monster, but with minor changes that had been driving me crazy. Most of those changes probably will go unnoticed by you readers, but, hope you enjoy it neither the less. This time, there will be an interview chapter, as well as a couple of extra chapters before the games start. And the chapter before the games will be when things will be different from Monster. Until then, minor changes.

So for those of you still reading this, there as a couple of other things that I should say.

Before continuing on, you will agree to the facts that I am not perfect, this fic won't be flawless, as there will be spelling and grammar mistakes somewhere (though I will try to keep it to a minimum to the best of my abilities.) and that you can read this in a mature manner that won't involve you wanting to spill my guts. Reviews are appreciated, but not required. Also, you can say whatever you want in reviews, I won't mind.

Now that that's over with... Read and enjoy.

"The tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside of us while we live." -Norman Cousins

Ten years ago

The One Hundredth and Twenty Ninth Hunger Games

District Ten's Druid Ray's POV

I couldn't believe it, I just couldn't fucking believe it. After eight days in Hell, Saddy and I were the only ones left alive. Despite the odds, despite that there were twenty two other tributes that wanted us dead, in which six of them were trained killers that had dedicated their entire lives to this event, we had somehow survived against everything that had been thrown at us. It was nothing short of a miracle.

I know that I said that I'd protect Saddy and lead her to victory, but I never in my wildest dreams thought that I'd make it this far. I expected to die in the final twelve, then I expected to die in the final eight, then in the final four. I never expected that it would just be Saddy and I left in the arena.

It was a good feeling, but one mixed in with sadness as I knew what the future looked like for me.

In this moment in time I could still hear and feel my heart racing as it pumped the much needed blood into my body, feeling its warmth in various areas of my body. I could still feel the air make its way painfully into my chest due to my heavy breathing, my excitement, my joy. My sight was full of multi-coloured blobs that ever so slowly disappeared to clearly revel the scene in front of me.

I didn't need to see in order to see what was in front of me though, I knew that my enemy was dead, I had heard the cannon fire to signal the death of who I wanted dead, but my body still wanted to move, my mind was rushing with a million thoughts a second. I couldn't think straight, and I didn't want it to think straight either, all I wanted to think of was of fighting and only fighting. My body was on a rush, and it felt good, but it also felt wrong. I didn't stop it though, I let it flow its course with little resistance, because this feeling of power, something that was only a dream for a poor farmer boy back home, was overwhelmingly good. I loved it.

I continued to stab my knife into the dead tribute, feeling the resistance of her flesh slide against my knife. It was just like my other fights, I just didn't know when to stop. Or more truthfully, I didn't want to stop, I just wanted to keep going, it just felt so good. Each stab to her chest gave me a rush of joy as I felt the knife sink into her flesh, as I felt her warm blood splash onto my hands, my arms, my chest, and my face. There was no other feeling like what I was experiencing at the moment. I was the one that controlled whose life was to expire. With the simple actions of a stab and slash, a life was at my mercy. I was death's messenger, and the message was that your time was up because I deemed it so.

"Druid," Saddy's distorted voice called out to me, no louder than a whisper, but at the same time, it was one of the loudest noises I had ever heard. "She's dead."

"I know." I said as I continued to sink the knife into her body, feeling the pleasant warmth of fresh blood splash onto my body.

"Then stop doing that." She pleaded with her whisper and shout. It was strange to hear the volume of her voice like that. It confused me. Why did she sound like that? Why did her voice sound twisted up and not like her own?

I stopped, but only for her. If it were up to me I'd still be stabbing this body and continue to feel this rush of pleasure.

I breathed in and out some more, trying to calm myself down, trying to get myself away from my primal instincts and come back to reality again. And as much as my inner self hated me, I managed to get my breathing to grow softer and calmer as my heart slowed down and the spots in front of me slowly disappeared, allowing me to see the world in colour clearly again.

I wanted to continue to feel the much needed pleasure that I had discovered by murder. It was wrong, I know, but it felt so right. I wanted to live in the moment, forever. But I stopped, for her, and only her.

I felt Saddy's hands wrap around my chest as she said.

"Come on Druid, let's go." I managed to stand up with her help, the burning pain of my injuries getting to me now that I was out of my animal like state. Another reason I hated returning to humanity.

I saw the bright red blood on my hands and knew that most of it wasn't mine, it was from the one I had slain.

But the burning sensation that I felt was my own. I looked down to see all the deep cuts that I received in the arms, the one long, wide cut that I received to my stomach that threatened to spill all my guts out of my body if I moved the wrong way even once. I placed my right hand over my stomach to hold in my guts in, or at least keep in as much as I could. My chest was also covered with cuts and blood and holes, I didn't have long to live with all this blood pouring out of me like an over flooded well.

From the sudden wave of pain I was experiencing, the sight of some of my own purple and brown intestines hanging out of my stomach like loose ropes, and the feeling of my right hand touching soggy, slimy, overgrown worms became too much for my body as I felt something build up inside my stomach before it rose to my chest.

I then felt the warm, acidic taste of metallic blood rush out of my mouth as I vomited the thick, crimson liquid from my mouth, leaving a retched taste that I could only describe as warm, metallic, and raw horse liver.

But as I looked beyond myself, I knew that my injuries were nothing compared to the one that laid before me. The girl from District One, also known as Gold, laid in the bloody plain of grass as her blood pooled around her body. The injuries that Saddy and I gave her were much more intense then the ones that I, or even Saddy, had received, but that still didn't mean that the wounds that Gold had given us weren't harmless.

Gold Evergreat had two bloody holes where her eyes should have been, her face was so cut up and caved in that even her mother wouldn't recognize the red paste in front of her. Even her hair, whatever hadn't been torn from her scalp, had turned from the bright sun like colour it had been to a dark red, formed from her own blood, and the blood of her victims. The teeth that she used to smile with, the ones that seemed to sparkle whenever she opened her mouth, were all missing, scattered somewhere in the field around us, leaving an empty mouth filled with nothing but blood, bits of tongue, and flesh. And that wasn't even mentioning the rest of the cuts and holes and guts and bones sticking out of her body like some sort of grotesque Capitol clay art model.

Gold's body looked like it had been chewed apart by wild dogs, about half of her skin was missing, ripped from her bones, while her intestines looked as if they slithered out of the hole her stomach used to be. Her ears were missing from the mess that was her head. Not all of her fingers were sill attached, and what was attached was broken, bits of bone were sticking out. Flaps of skin that had been torn from her body gently moved in the direction of the summer breeze while some of her limbs were twisted into impossible angles. And blood, blood was everywhere.

Even to me right now, it was hard to imagine how the two of us could have possibly done that to that girl. How could we of twisted her body into that shape and form? I didn't think about it too much, this was the Hunger Games, and things like this have happened before. Nothing is impossible in the games.

"Druid," Saddy, her voice much clearer then before, much more normal sounding in volume and identity now, said to me with sadness in her voice. "We're the only two left."

"I know." I told her painfully. We were the only two left, and that meant that one of us was either going to have to kill the other, or one of us was going to have to commit suicide.

I turned around to look at my district partner, my friend, the girl I loved, and saw that her face was full of pain. The pain on her face wasn't from the fact that her left cheek had been torn from her body, revelling that side of her mouth, or the fact that her face had a huge diagonal slash across it, or from the other numerous cuts across her body. No, her pain was more from sadness than pain, and I bet I had the same painful look on my face as well.

I knew what this was about, because I had the same thoughts rushing through me head as well.

"We have choices Druid," Saddy told me with tears building up in her still functioning eye. Her gorged out eye dripping out bloody red chunks that looked like crushed grapes. I knew what those choices were, but that didn't mean that I wanted her to say or do any of them. I had already made up my mind long ago. "We can either fight to the death," She said as I clutched my bloody knife tightly, only half listening to what she had to say. "One of us can kill themselves so that the other will live," I started to lift my knife up so that I could get the deed done. I wanted it to be over, for the both of us. "Or we can die together." She said.

I stopped raising my knife in surprise. This was unexpected.

"What?" I asked her, wondering what she was thinking. This was just too odd.

I saw her pull out her own seven inch combat knife and held the point to my throat. I could feel the cold steel, mixed with some warm blood, on my skin as she began talking again.

"We can kill each other," She told me calmly, like she wasn't talking about the both of us dying in the next minute or so." If we both can't go out, then none of us should win this damn game."

"Is this a joke?" I asked her with deadly seriousness, not looking at the knife against my flesh, but towards her. I wasn't afraid of death, I was afraid of something else. "If it is I'm not laughing, you think that we can just pull off a Katniss and Peeta stunt like that? You think that I'm stupid? Am I a Peeta to you?" I shouted that last sentence angrily at her. It was so loud that I could hear the echoes perfectly, even after the first three echoes, until it disappeared completely, somewhere in the grassy plain that seemed to stretch forever in every direction.

Last time someone pulled a stunt like this was back in the seventy fourth Hunger Games, a sixteen year old bitch called Katniss Everdeen and a sixteen year old lover boy named Peeta Melark were supposedly in love with each other, but it turned out to be one sided. While Peeta Melark loved Katniss Everdeen with all his heart, or so it seemed, Katniss Everdeen was nothing but a manipulator and a heartless bitch. When they threatened the Capitol with a double suicide, the Capitol accepted their challenge, and won. Couldn't say I was surprised.

It turned out that fire bitch didn't really love camo boy. The berries proved it. Peeta ate the nightlock berries, but Katniss didn't. She manipulated everyone in order to survive.

Was I about to know how Peeta felt when he went to where ever the hell he went? Was I about to be betrayed by the girl I was trying to save?

I... Didn't know how to feel, so I let the emotions come to me without hesitation. I felt anger and confusion.

"I'm not fooling around Druid," She calmly, gently said as she looked down at my knife. I looked down at my knife as well as she grabbed it with her free hand and raised it to her throat. "I'm serious about this, wither you, or the Capitol approves of this, I'm not a Katniss Everdeen, and you're not a Peeta Melark. I'm Saddy Norris, eighteen, resident of District Ten, and your Druid Ray, Seventeen, resident of District Ten and the best kid I know." My heart filled with joy hearing those words from her. But I still had my doubts.

"What makes you think that I should believe you?" I asked, still feeling anger and doubt in my mind. "Katniss said the same thing before making Peeta commit suicide."

"Because I promise you," She simply said. "And when have I ever broken a promise to you?" Never. You always kept your promises, even in this hell hole, you kept your promises. Something that rarely ever happened. And one of the reasons that I never betrayed you and always trusted you watching my back.

"Okay." I told her, satisfied that she wasn't joking, before she lowered her knife to my stomach.

"At the same time." She said, lowering her knife to my stomach.

"Yeah." I told her, knowing what to do.

"I promised," She said to me. "Now what about you?" After all this, there's no way that I'd not do this.

"I promise you." I told her with every feeling that was inside me.

"Good," She replied happily. "I'll count down. We stab each other on one."

"Sure." I told her, not caring how we did this. And even though I believed her, I mentally crossed my fingers just in case she pulled a Katniss stunt on me.

"Ten." She started. "Nine." Did she really mean it though? How do I know that she wasn't manipulating me like Katniss did with Peeta? "Eight." No, she wouldn't, she never breaks a promise. But Katniss did act pretty damn good when she pretended to be in love with her district partner. "Seven." Was this all an act? Had I fallen into her trap? "Six." I loved her, but did she love me back? Did she really love me back? Was this all fake? "Five."

Had she just manipulating me this whole entire time? How did I know that any of this was real?

Feeling that I was being used, I stabbed her in the stomach before twisting the blade and ripping the weapon out of her gut without another thought.

I gasped at what I had just done as the situation dawned on me like a stampede of animals trampling all over my body.

I felt terrible, I had just stabbed her on a whim. A stupid, fucking whim upon impulse.

I dropped my knife in shock as Saddy feel to her knees.

"Saddy!" I shouted as I grabbed her and hugged her tightly with my arms. What had I done? "I'm sorry Saddy!" I cried to her, feeling the tears in my eyes burn me as I felt my heart getting caught in my mouth. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Why did I do that? Why did I stab her like that? She was the one that I had protected this entire time. She was the one that was supposed to live, the one that was supposed to get out of here alive.

We had only known each other for the past two weeks or so, but I felt closer to her then I ever felt for any other girl.

I protected her from every danger in this whole damned arena, I killed people, other kids, to protect her. We were supposed to kill each other at the same time, and yet, I stabbed her so soon.

All this time I was worried about her betraying me, but in reality, I was the betrayer.

Why? Why did this happen? How did this happen? Why was I such a fuck up?

I grabbed the knife in her hands and pulled it, but it wouldn't come out of her hands. I tried again, but she held on to that knife with an iron grip, despite the fact that she was rapidly losing life. "Let go Saddy!" I shouted. "I need to make this right!" I tried to pry the knife from her, but she continued to stubbornly hold.

Let go damn it! I need you to stab me! I need to let at least your knife stab me!

"Druid," She said weakly, but happily for some reason. "You did make it right."

I was confused by her words, what did she mean that I made it right? I betrayed her, how was that making everything right?

"Wha-" I said confused, losing my will to fight for the weapon. "What do you mean?"

"Because Druid, I'm not ready to be a Hunger Game champion." She explained, her voice getting raspy. "Or rather, I simply can't be the next champion."

"But," I thought we were going to kill each other, it was her idea after all. "We were going to die together."

Saddy gave out a weak cough, sending out a small amount of blood from her mouth, to my arms.

"Druid," Her voice now struggling to produce clear words. "I'm not strong enough to survive in this world anymore. You however, are." She then gave out a weak laugh that sounded painful for her to even do. No doubt it was my fault. "This is probably the worst time to say this, but I really do love you Druid, even though we've only known each other for fifteen days."

I cried even harder. This was too much for me to handle.

"I love you to Saddy." I told her.

"And Druid," She weakly said. "I was never going to stab you anyway." Her saying that, only made me feel worse. "Because some promises... Need to be broken."

I held on to her for the last seconds of her life before she expired. Her cannon fired, telling me that she was dead, because of me.

She was smiling, smiling even in the face of death and betrayal. But I couldn't see any reason for her to be smiling. She shouldn't of thanked me, she should of shouted at me, let me stab myself with her weapon, let me bleed out into the grassy plain. I deserved nothing less.

Her being angry at me would have been easier to bare with.

"I now give you the winner of the One hundred and twenty ninth Hunger Games," The announcer's stupid voice boomed through the arena as I closed Saddy's eyes, saving her from looking at me and what I had become. "Druid Ray!"

I had won, but at what cost? I thought I was protecting her, so my actions were justified, that's what I thought when I killed my first victim. I told myself, you're protecting Saddy, they were trying to kill her, and you have to protect her from these monsters.

But looking back now, even just a minute ago, I saw that I was also a monster. I started out as many of the other kids back home, scared and unwilling to kill anyone.

I made my first kill on the first day of the arena, back then, I was a scared kid that was horrified when I killed Cane Kellar, the boy from District Nine. Back then, after I killed him, I just couldn't believe that I killed another kid, it haunted me, it sent chills down my entire body to think that I had taken another kid's life.

But I had changed from that scared kid that I once was, to someone that would murder and mutilate another teenage girl so badly that her mother wouldn't recognize her before stabbing the girl that I loved, simply because I didn't trust her for a second. I was a murderer and a betrayer.

I now realized that I was a monster as well, and protecting Saddy didn't justify anything.

I now realized that while I was worried about her becoming a Katniss Everdeen, I was actually the fire bitch in another body. This entire time, I had played the game with my own selfish reasons guiding me.

I also realized now, why decent people never win the games.

The worst part? I still felt a part of me telling myself that I was happy. Not only for living, but for the violence, and death of Saddy.

One year later.

I watched the third quarter quell for the... Who knows what the number is? I just know I've watched it many many times, watching the former victors go back into the arena because the Capitol wanted to show that even the strongest couldn't take down the Capitol.

Everyone that thought they were safe from the Capitol's reach, were actually now the ones in danger.

Wither it was just a fluke, or because President Snow changed the quarter quell card I did not know nor care, but it the perfect time to kill Katniss Everdeen, the girl who manipulated the Capitol.

I read in some Capitol history books that Katniss was still kind popular in the Capitol, even though she betrayed the boy who loved her, and had an influence in the increasing levels of rebellious acts throughout Panem. Even though she was a lair, traitor, selfish bitch, she was the icon of a new Panem for the short while she was still alive.

It made me sick to think that this girl was the influence of the, not even started, or at the very best, short lived, second rebellion. There were so many things that could of started a rebellion, and this girl was the catalyst? Not the hunger? Not the deaths? Not the Capitol? Not the games? But her? Sickening.

What did she do that was so special? Love in the arena? No, that was fake. Try and challenge the Capitol with those berries? That had been a failure. Showed pity for her little ally, Rue? Others had done it before her.

Maybe it was when District Eleven sent her a gift for showing that she cared about Rue, or maybe it was what the twenty four victors did during the interviews of the third quarter quell, held each others hands like a chain that was linked together, to symbolize that the districts were once one, and they could be one again if they all worked together. That could of been it, but Katniss wasn't the one that should be credited for that piece.

I just couldn't understand how she could of started something so big.

On screen, I watched the bloodbath for the seventy fifth Hunger Games begin with barley above mild interest as I had seen it time and time again. I knew what was going to happen as the events played out in front of me.

Some tributes dived into the water immediately after the gong sounded, others were hesitant, but they all jumped in eventually. After all, they couldn't stay where they were forever.

The tributes that reached the cornucopia soon discovered that the only supplies it held were weapons. The Capitol was going for a quick game, no messing around with backpacks of food, water, medicine, or protective shelter, they wanted the games to be done and over with as quickly as possible.

I could see why they needed to do that, Capitol history says that the third quarter quell was unpopular among the Capitol audience, as they were going to miss their precious victors, idols, sex toys, and so called friends. But they were also trying to kill Katniss Everdeen in hopes that it would put out the fire she started.

The bloodbath took out the weak, the old, the drunks and the drug addicts while leaving only the strong left to fight.

Among the strong were two main alliances, the anti-careers that consisted of District Three's Beetee Micro and Wires Coil, District Four's Finnick Odar, District Seven's Johanna Mason, and District Twelve's Katniss Everdeen. The other alliance, the careers, consisted of District One's Cashmere Sparkle and Gloss Sparkle, and District Two's Brutus Maximums and Enobaria Vice.

District Four's Mags Kale, District Seven's Blight Oak, and District Twelve's Haymitch Abernathy, I suspected, were going to be in the anti-career alliance, but Mags got speared in the back by Brutus while Blight ran into the force field as blood rain fell from the sky while Haymitch easily got disposed of by the District One twins.

Slowly, one by one, for the next three days, the careers killed off the anti-careers and anyone else they could find.

The anti-careers main fighters were Katniss Everdeen, Finnick Odar, and Johanna Mason, those three were the front line warriors while Beetee and Wires were support.

The anti-careers had been planning something, as they were setting something up before the careers attacked them.

The epic fight between the careers and the anti-careers was quick and brutal, but both sides took major casualties.

Katniss, taken by surprise, was useless at close range as she got bitten in the neck by Enobaria. I watched with satisfaction as Enobaria ripped out a bloody chunk of her skin while also ripping out a red string attached to Katniss' neck as blood sprayed in every direction, painting Enobaria's face with liquid red.

Enobaria was then skewered through the head by one of Finnick's tridents. The trident was shoved through her head so hard that it cracked the back of her head open before spilling out chunks of raw meat.

At the same time, Johanna single handedly fended herself against the District One twins, trying to keep the two of them back with her hatchets.

The twins attacked as one, and while District Seven's only living female victor managed to defend herself against one attack, the other got through to her and managed to stab her through the side of her skull.

Gloss, having a second mouth appear across his neck an instant before it started to drool red, started to bleed out as he choked on the thick blood. Cashmere, momently stunned by her brother's unstoppable death, got stabbed in the back by Finnick.

The final showdown between Finnick and Brutus was the climax of the quarter quell. Finnick, despite being younger than Brutus, just couldn't fight the sharp reflexes and over whelming strength of the older victor.

After killing Finnick with his own Trident by stabbing him through the mouth and severing his spine from his brain, Brutus gleefully murdered the District Three pair, bashing their heads in with his fists, claiming that he never liked them anyway.

I shut the T.V off and sighed.

"And that's," I said to myself. "Is how you kill the second rebellion." I said that every time I finished watching the third quarter quell, it was like a tradition for me now. When I had started I couldn't remember, not that it matters I guess.

As I sat in my victor house, I thought of what the events of the rebellious acts of some of the districts, mine included, did for the districts of Panem.

Because of that girl, that fire bitch, the districts only became worse then they were before. I don't know what happened to the other districts, but I know that just by my home, things have gotten worse. My grandparents, who lived through the changes following the rebellious acts of the district, said that poverty in the district became higher, starvation rates soared while the number of peacekeepers increased and more people were whipped, tortured, and publicly executed. Methods of punishment became more creative and brutal.

Our lives had gone down the drain because of that girl.

But in a way, I was glad that it had happened. After all, it was bound to of happened at one time or another, since the tension was high before. The rebellion was done and over with, and now we were suffering even more, but at least we all knew that it was impossible to defeat the Capitol now.

We weren't going to go on any rebellions, we weren't going to make our lives any harder than they already were, we weren't going to sacrifice more lives in vain, we were just going to live.

Now here we are, living like nothing had ever happened. The Capitol continues to rule us, and the Hunger Games continue.

Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire. A fitting name for her since she was the one who created wild fire across this damn country. They said she was a beacon of hope, but all she really was was an unsteady oil lamp that fell and burned her home before spreading its inferno to her neighbours.

But for all she had done to everyone, Katniss Everdeen somehow remained a symbol, an idol, unforgettable. While Saddy, who was a better person than Katniss could ever be, was nothing more than another forgotten tribute in the arena.

Guess the only tributes that get remembered are monsters.

No. We're all monsters in our own way.

Hell, even Saddy was a monster for letting me kill her and leaving me in this dreadful world. And while I did want to join her in the afterlife, I wasn't going to let her gift of life go to waste.

With anger quickly building up inside me because of that thought, I gave the under side of the table a hard kick, a kick hard enough to send it airborne before it loudly crashed back onto the floor. The shattering of glass occurring almost musically.

Saddy may of let me live, but she certainly didn't give me life. The things that I have to live with, the things I have to do and the people I have to deal with along with the conditions I'm under. All of those added together with me living in this shittacular world made it a living hell.

Dying would be easier.