PROLOUGE
Everyone has the capacity to be a monster. Circumstance. Complicated or simple events in life can create the monster… some people just handle the darkness better than other's.
When she lay on her belly that day she knew she was giving in to the monster – she didn't care. There was a thing about being a monster, it could go three ways. It could have become self-inflicting. It could have gone on to harm others. This kind of monster was going to bite the one who made it that way.
Dissociation helped. It had been learned after months and months and now as she waited under the cover of foliage outside. It kept her from noticing how badly it was raining, the muddle of mud in which she lay soaking through her cheap cotton clothing to her skin underneath. She couldn't feel the bugs crawling across her skin or the starving hunger in her belly clawing at her insides or how badly she needed to go to the bathroom or the way her eyelids where becoming heavy after days and days with only a few hours of sleep, too afraid to close her eyes.
The rifle in her grip was the only thing that kept her grounded.
She had hours to wait. Enough time for her to argue with the monster. Was this the only way? Was she completely sure she could do this? Was she sure she would not get caught?
In the end the answers didn't matter, because the monster growled back: 'for them.'
She readjusted herself on the cold wet ground, ready. Because the monster was right. This wasn't for herself. It was for them, and she'd never stop protecting them.
When it was over she cleaned up and made sure there was no evidence. She returned to them. They had no idea what she had done for them, and they never would. Later when she was alone the dissociation would end and it would hit her what she had done, the monster no longer around to protect her. She would be afraid, and angry, but furthermost she would ask herself a question:
Could she do it because she was strong? Or did she give in to the monster because she was weak?