We walk a long time before we get to a weird work shop. We go in and the brown man, no Andi starts talking "Grandpa I'm home! I brought Amelia."
There is an old man at a desk with a bunch of brown boxes and glasses. "Oh really I thought that dead beat son in law sold her to the orphanage."
"He did"
The old man stops and looks at me in fear then to Andi "are you crazy we can't have a little sister here when the big daddy comes…"
"Her big daddy is dead, and I'm not going to let her end up the same way" Andi interrupts
The old man looks helpless "fine just keep her away from me, I don't want to be around when this blows up in your face." He starts to go back to his work "oh and do forget to do some recording, you may be my grandson but you still have to earn your keep."
"Yes grandpa" Andi leads me to a small room and puts me in bed "I have to get some work done you stay here and rest. And don't worry I'll take care of you" he touches my face with his hand and I hug it with mine as I cry. He smiles "good night Amelia"
I look up "Good night cousin"
A few days pass and cousin Andi is taking good care of me. He feeds me and keeps me clean, at first he doesn't want me to look for angles but I was getting sick so he let me go out. He never lets me go out without him and he always carries his gun with him. At least he's better keeping up then Mr. B.
I notice something about cousin. He always smiles at me or when he's working on the weird boxes. But he always looks angry when he's not. One day I ask him "Cousin why are you so angry?"
He looks down at me "oh I'm sorry, I just miss the surface" I don't get it "hee hee, you don't even remember the sun do you?" I shake my head he sighs "I don't like it down here, we aren't even supposed to be here. I'm only here because grandpa needed some help. It was supposed to be uncle but he's a dead beat. Probable dead in some ally right now serves him right."
"Why don't you like it here?" I still don't under stand
He smirks "Amelia why do you like me?"
That's a silly question "you feed me, clean me, let me look for angles, keep bad men from me, you take care of me!"
He smiles "that's right, and I do it because you're my family and I love you. We have to stay together. But Rapture isn't like that, everyone is only in it for themselves. 'No gods or kings' my foot all they did was make themselves gods, plasmids are proof of that." He walks over and looks out a window "if I could I would take you and get out of here, but no one leaves rapture" he goes back to his desk and starts working. I feel bad because he looks so sad.
A few days later cousin is taking me looking for angles. He has his scary face on and has his gun to make sure no bad men gets me. I find an angle and get to work. I try to hum a happy tune but I hear the people around talking "who is that?" "Does he think he's a Big Daddy?" "I wish I had my own sister" "why would he guard that monster" "those eyes ick like a monster." "monster" "Monster" "Monster!" "MONSTER!"
I finish and run to cousin and gap his leg "OK shows over clear out!" he shouts while waving his gun around.
We start walking home I turn to cousin and ask "am I a monster?"
He looks down "no"
"Then why do they call me that" I say near tears.
He kneels down "you have a slug in your body and it makes your eyes glow. I can't take it out, but it doesn't make you a monster, only your choices do that." He sees that I don't understand. He sighs "remember those bad men I saved you from?" I nod "they didn't have to do that, but they chose to take adam, they chose to let it consume them, they chose to keep their pride instead of getting help, and those choices made them into monsters" he stands up "a monster is a person that chooses to do a bad thing just to make themselves feel good then does nothing to make it right"
We start to walk again "cousin how do you know if you make a right decision?"
He thinks about it "morality is hard to teach especially down here, but ultimately it comes from inside you"
"You mean my slug?" I ask
He laughs "no silly I mean your heart" then he lightly pokes me in the chest. We smile the rest of the way home.