My life has been one long war against the monstrous man who rules above, who cares not for his fellow people but for fame and wealth. I never listened to the lady at the orphanage, I stayed up late and went outside secretly when living with my new parents. These trivial rebellions have trained me to civilly disobey a larger authority, one that promotes bigotry and turns a cheek to discrimination as long as it does not hinder their profits. This parent, I can not tolerate.

He has proved to be a worthy opponent of equality and the bigots stood under his roof, safe from the backlash of the mean boys and girls who were spit upon by the little devils in his house. However, he has won. I, the general, had made a major mistake of putting instances of rage and anger in front of the clear rationality required to lead. I am responsible for the failure of the Civil Rights Movement.

Anco, you fool. You must not get too close to them. They are dangerous! Do you not hear the snarls, their barks, their slobber as the foam rushes down their mouth. Back away! That man can not hold on to the leash much longer. It is becoming loose. It is coming. Anco! Gone. The monster had gotten her.

Her beautiful hair covered in seas of red, her smooth neck within the mouth of the beast that was supposedly tamed. I can not blame your death for my irrationality. Anco. You were the one person I could truly call a friend. You listened to my every words even as white noise filled my head as I listened to yours. You were wonderful. How can I ever be mad at you? I am the monster. I am the untamed beast that killed you. I should know. I am responsible for the deaths of the people who live in the building I lie on. The White Fang is the child I never wanted. I wish I had shot it while still in the cradle.

I wake up. The start of another day, the nearing of the end. I am becoming tired of waking up to the same dreams. I miss Anco, the scene still saddens me, but I feel as if my mind has gone numb to it all and the even is now seen as an inconvenient reminder of my past rather than a haunting nightmare. I know my mistake, I know what I must do to fix it, reminders of it does not help.

These dreams are the beast's method of communication. It loves to toy with my guilt and I wish that it would stop. Its smile annoys me. Its look of amusement every time it glances at me burns a sharp blue pain into my veins. What a nuisance. If only I can kill it from within myself for good, smother it as it sleeps, but to do so would kill me too.

I wish I can kill it for now it hurts me regularly. As I walk through the hallway, the beast stabs me once more the more I look at the buildings around me. He began yesterday night, when I thought that the girl in the family portrait looked very familiar and I looked into the drawers next to my bed to find more pictures of her adolescence and stories of her adulthood. Maria Nimu. She lived in these streets, training under a brooding hunter by the name of Joan Kasnyik. She wished to one day be skilled enough to join Beacon Academy so she herself can be a huntress. What ambition, what dedication, what spirit, what misfortune. She carried a large axe as her weapon and was planning on applying to Beacon after the festival.

"Another body to bear the burden." It snickers. "How many more must fall before you finally see the blood you spilled?"

Since yesterday, the buildings of old, the happy memories, they simply cut and beat and choke and stab. They no longer warm or comfort, but burn and smolder. The little faunus boy is in a cottage thousands of miles away from his home. The adult woman hides in a corner as she hears of the news about her husband's fall by the hands of the terrorists responsible. The adolescent girl lies on the ground, questioning the foolishness of her actions as the monsters draw near her to feast, to tear. The car no longer mattered, nothing did. I am the killer. The bullet just hit today, but I pulled the trigger five years ago, not realizing my fault until the flash had already subsided.

As I walk into the family room, the pain remains, but lighter because of the sight of Cadea humming her tune once more while patting her child within. Her song still glistens bright as the corners of a Ruby and the maternal spirit melts the outer shell of the pain from within. I can not help but smile, just a bit.

I sit down in my usual corner away from the others and pull out a bag of potato chips from my bags. It is not a healthy way to begin a day but it does not matter to me anymore. The damage has been done and all i can do is live to it as the uncertain consequences lay hidden away from my sight.

I open the bag and the smell of artificial family picnics and false happiness floats into my nose. Ah, barbeque, my favorite flavor.

As I pick out the chips with my right hand and place the flat shapes into my mouths, my attention is focused on Kiana. She has her earbuds in her ears and is staring blankly out of a window into the silver skies. I wondered where she came from, if she was born in this neighborhood, where she learned how to use her rifle so well, but I did not want to ask such things now. They were too personal and I lack the energy to deal with such matters now, but I wanted to ask her something to distract myself. I look at her ears. There has been a question about the ears of faunuses that I have wondered about up to now.

"Hey, Kiana." I wait for her to take off her earbuds and look at me, "Can you wiggle your ears without touching them?"

A light rosy complexion appears on her cheeks. "Why do you want to know all of a sudden?"

"I had a faunus friend back when I was in college that would unconsciously wiggle her ears whenever she got excited. I just want to know if all faunuses can do that."

She looks at me blankly. I turn to the others who also join her gaze at me. Though they mean no ill will, their dumbfounded expressions irritate me. I want to leave the room, but I do not. She finally looks at the floor, her head tilted at an angle so I can clearly see. The husky-like ears stay still for a while and the others watch her in silence to see what will happen next. Her body begins to shake slightly and her ears wiggle left and right. She allows a large sigh to burst from her mouth. Less than two seconds of ear wiggling uses up this much energy, I never knew. Cadea giggles slightly as a rose garden blooms on Kiana's cheeks.

"Wiggling your ears for that long tires you out?" Vanya asks in a voice half teasing and half insulting..

"I assume that humans moving their own ears is much easier then?" Kiana retorts.

"Hell no, I just thought it would've been easy for you since his friend does it whenever she gets excited which is probably a lot; right?"

"Yeah." I say softly as my throat begins to dry. "She got really excited easily." My chest hurts. "Every day, she'd tell me a story she learned in class about some hero or heroine who saved humanity and kept the grimm from destroying us all." A desert forms in the back of my nostril. "I wasn't too interested in them, but her passion for them always attracted my attention to whatever she was talking about." the dam within my eyes crack. "She didn't deserve the fate given to her. None of it was supposed to happen."

The beast is a clever one. He had managed to hurt me enough so that I may bleed, but I stop myself before the others could see blood. Every part of my body is still dry or hurt, but the dam has been fixed and that is all that matters.

"She was really important to you, huh?" Luther asks, his voice cautious about treading my personal waters for good reason.

"No, not really." I lie. "I barely knew her." The lies break through my teeth. "I just liked the way she told stories and I missed our little conversations." The beast resides as he watches me break my own dam. "I just don't think she deserved to-" My mind goes white for half a second. I come back. "Lose her home to the white fang. Her father worked hard for her to keep that house."

The others were silent for a while as they take in my story. The pain in my chest intensifies greatly as I worry about the plausibility of it all. Cadea raises her head at my direction, "During times like these, everyone has no choice but to leave. You should just be glad that she is alive." Her bright smile cuts open my heart and mercilessly rips out the darkness from within. The beast joins her, but I keep it away.

"Yeah. Once I get out of here, I'm going to find where she lives and visit her, just to see if she is all right."

"Maybe we should all visit her." Luther says suddenly. "She sounds pretty interesting."

Vanya laughs, "Aw Luther, you just think she sounds kinda cute, dontcha? C'mon, a faunus girl that wiggles her ears whenever she gets excited, that's probably the only thing you want to see from her."

"N-no, I just think that her passion for stories is rather fascinating and that I'd like to hear some of them."

"Yeah right you sly dog, just admit it, she's so cute you want to scoop her off the street and take her to a church."

Their conversation about my imaginary Anco fades from my attention. I do not know why I lied so fiercely. Maybe I just wanted something to grasp, to live for, to wake up to. I think I was in denial when I thought of us as friends. I think I just wanted to see her again. It is working, I see her talking to Luther, telling him one of her many stories, going to dinner, having fun. Then, Luther asks me for advice, I yell at him, he yells back, we argue, we fight, I win, I lose her. How fitting. It might have been better that she died, but I've already painted her image. I must continue from the portrait.

four knocks on the door interrupts everything as the world remains silent. I look at the hallway, everyone does. I look at the others, them at each other. Another four knocks. Nothing. Another four.

"Hey, can you please help me?" the voice on the other side asks. They know we are here.

Luther points at Vanya and Kiana, then to the closet where our arms are. He looks at Cadea and places an imaginary gun behind him. He looks at me and requests my gun. I pull it from the backpack and place it in his hand as the others do as Luther tells them to.

He signals me to follow him and Vanya leans against the wall near the hallway entry and Kiana hides in her own room. Luther and I walk to the door, his gun hidden, our lives behind our backs as we hope that Cadea and Vanya knows what to do if our lives are in peril.

"Who is it?" He asks loudly since there is no peephole to see.

"Please let us in, we just need a place to stay for the night." the voice on the other side explains. A man

"How did you know we were in?"

"I saw the back of someone's head through the third floor window when I looked up." The man says. Though Luther's head did not move, I know his eyes turn to me.

"Do you have any weapons on you?"

"Just a fire axe I found.."

"Do you have any of food?"

"Enough for me so I won't have to freeload."

"There's no one else beside you, right?"

He is silent for a brief moment. "No, it's just me."

Luther turns to me, "He's by himself." he whispers, his voice shaking a bit.

"I know, but he might be lying." I tell him.

Luther looks around for a quick second, as if he thinks he will find his answers through the sheets of Kiana's bed and the walling paint on the walls. "I'm gonna open the door, stay sharp in case he tries to fight."

"Got it."

Luther turns back around and opens the door without any hesitation. The man before us is an aged man whose dim, weary eyes shine brightly. He has a scruffy beard on his face and a backpack on that appears to be weighing him down greatly. The axe he mentioned is on his left arm, hanging without energy.

"Thank you very much." He says.

"Don't mention it, come in." Luther replies.

The man walks into the hallway, his eyes shine as if he had never walked into a house before in his life. He walks slowly into the living room, looking at Vanya as she holds her rifle with both hands in a relaxed manner. He walks to the family portrait and stands in front of it. He stares at the image as Kiana walks into the room. Though his statement was silent, I can hear the one word he mutters under his breath and beneath his throat as he gazed into the picture. "Family".

He turns around and sits down under the portrait, glancing at each of us before finally speaking. "My name is Joseph Yok. My group was attacked by grimm two nights ago when one of our members killed another over a personal conflict. I don't know what happened to the others since I ran away while they fought off the grimm. I just need a safe place to stay for tonight. I promise I'll go tomorrow morning." His voice is deep and filled with gravel that shakes as he talks.

"Were you able to find a place to stay yesterday night?" Vanya questions him.

"I got about four hours of sleep before I was awoken by some grimm that were circling around me. They tried to attack me but I was able to run away." His eyes fall gently to the floor. "I ran with all the might my body could spare and when I was about to just drop, some woman in black and a man in white lured them away from me. I looked back but they screamed 'keep running' and so I did for a very, very long time."

I do not know how believable Joseph's story is, but he looks much too harmless to actually be dangerous. His arms are too tired to hold his axe much less swing it and his pale complexion makes it seem like he has already fainted from exhaustion. He begins to breath heavily and it appears as if he is about to faint now.

"I'm sorry, but can I borrow one of your beds? I'm just too tired to even talk."

"Of course." Cadea says, "Sleep in mine; it's the first door on the right."

"Thank you very much madam." He puts his flat cap on the floor by his axe and drops his backpack by it before he stands up and follows Cadea.

"Sir, your backpack-" Cadea begins before Joseph interrupts her.

"Leave it. I'm too old and tired to worry about anything anymore. Hell, you can even kill me in my sleep and I won't come back to haunt you." He chuckles at his own statement. We all remain silent as the wind howls along with him at his act of jest.

I sit in my corner of the room and I see the unrest everywhere I look. Luther leans beside the wall in front of me. Kiana sits next to Cadea as she rubs her own baby for comfort. Though he is sleeping in Cadea's room and Vanya is watching him to ensure he does nothing dangerous, I can not help but think of him as an enemy to us all. His loose behavior when it came to talking about murder heavily implies that he has gone mad from the world he had been dropped into, that the darkness of the grimm has enveloped all his humanity and hope.

Kiana walks over to his backpack and looks inside it. She shuffles his belongings around for a while as Cadea and Luther look in slight disapproval, but not saying anything about her act. She lifts her head to Luther, "He does not have much food or water; only four granola bars and two cans of soda."

He looks at my back pack as well as his own. "We should give him some of ours when he leaves."

"I don't trust him." I say out loud. The others look at me. I could not help it, the beast pushed the words out of my mouth.

"Why don't you trust him?" Cadea questions me.

"He looks deranged and insane." He is too tired to think straight. "His trauma could make him a very dangerous person." His bitter past still controls him today. "And he looks as if he does not care about anyone or anything anymore: he's become a sociopath." His dead passion makes him bitter of everyone and everything. Dear God, a mirror.

"You are judging rather harshly toward a man you have just met and irrationally as well since it seems that you have forgotten where we are." Kiana retorts.

"What do you mean?"

"The buildings around us are dead and the streets no longer breath life, but house the dead as a mass graveyard. The grimm have infested every corner of the neighborhood and those who survive are either exhausted, grieving, melancholic, hurt, fear death, or will die. Those of weak will shall fall under the pressure and lose all hope while those of strong will shall morph into a different entity to maintain their sanity. That is why I listen to music, Cadea sings to her child, Luther draws in his room, Vanya adds more images to her arms, but all you do is sit there in your corner and ponder of your past, so deep in the darkest depths of your thoughts that you probably had never realized that Luther draws or that Vanya paints. Now, you do not even trust your fellow man. Malcolm, it appears you have turned into the sociopath."

The beast hears Beelzebub's name and stirs restlessly from within. "What did I say about using that name?"

"There it is, your denial returns. You hate yourself for your past actions so much that you do not want anyone else to remind you of it. We are prohibited from talking about your speeches, your campaigns, and even simply calling you by your name. You can only tell yourself that the past never happened for so long before you lose yourself in your own self pity."

"Do you really think I am that pathetic?"

"It depends, Malcolm, how much are you willing to change without actually doing anything? You want things to be different so you paint over the ugly colors with your own. Your little trips of escapism is ridiculously pathetic; in fact, that faunus girl you told us about is most likely not even alive like you wanted her to be."

I reach into my pants to pull out the knife. It glistens beautifully. "And what about you Kiana? Did you enjoy your life before this?"

"Where is this coming from?" The first swing only grazes her arm.

"You sit in the back of the room, isolating yourself with your music and only talk to us when you know that you trust us. It is almost as if your introvertedness is a defense system. Did someone hurt you before?"

"That is none of your concern and completely irrelevant to our conversation." She backs away, scared, cautious.

I assume that Luther and Cadea are saying something, most likely to me, but it is simply white noise. "Your ability to expertly hold a gun and shoot it with pinpoint accuracy intrigues me. Who taught you to shoot and why did you want to learn? Was it for self defense, for a future goal? Was it for revenge? Was it to fulfill a fantasy of power? Was it to feel great on top of the bodies of those who hurt you badly?"

She is silent. Her eyes are wide as her pupil thins itself to a speck within a sea of white. I have struck a vital organ. She is remembering, she is bleeding.

The blood, the fear, the anger, the embarrassment, it is great, it is exhilarating I want to see more, I want to swim in a river of red. I want to bring Adam in front of me and stab him in his disgusting eyes. For ruining my movement, my revolution. My rebellion has ended because of you. Take that mask off, show me the fear in your eyes you coward! Show me yourself so I may kill you and end the madness once and for all! I will bring equality to everyone, I will bring forth a revolution!

I raise my arm, I open my mouth to swing more, but the rush ceased to a halt as my face hurt once more like from two days before. I float up to the ceiling as my head hits the floor. What a familiar feeling. I feel my sanity slip back into my mind as my body embraces the cold ground once more. What have I done?

My hands push me back up as I look once more into the eyes of a flowing red river. It is surprisingly calm, not running with rage, but flowing slightly faster than neutral. The river looks down, its yellow eyes filled with melancholy as they face someone they respect.

"No looking back policy, remember? You thought of it." Vanya growls at me.

I look to Kiana, her eyes heavier, dimmer. The beast sighs from within, dissatisfied with how little she hurts. I want to apologize, I want to make her stop crying within, but I say nothing. I do not want to hurt her more than she already had. "Yeah, you are right." she whispers, her voice shaking. A sharp pain hit my chest as I hear her voice. "I am young and stupid. Emotions are still a new concept to me. But I fix my mistakes." She looks at me, her eyes a pure shade of black. "Do you like hunting down Mockingbirds, Malcolm? If so, then I'm your first damn catch." She looks into my eyes for a while more. She wants to see nothing, but her eyebrow raises slightly. She sees something.

She trudges to her room afterwards, each tiny footstep I hear, strangling me. "Why didn't you stop?" Luther asks, his voice heavy.

"I guess-" I open the cage for the beast. He hesitates, he looks up at my eyes as I tell him he can come out. He walks beyond the cage, free as the wind, free at last. "I guess I was liking it." I do not need to look at the others to see their confusion and anger. "I've been silent for so long, I just wanted to win something."

"You talk all the time though." Cadea says in a voice of foolish innocence and ignorance.

I hesitate. I do not want to tell them, but I must. I swallow what little pride that remained in my body. "I lied. I didn't want to hurt anyone ever again. The beast had to be locked up."

"What beast? You're not making any sense." Luther asks, impatient.

"I'm tired of lying. I just don't care about anything anymore. He took away everything from me the moment he sat on that pedestal for the revolution. I didn't want anyone else to see the wrong mirror again, so I hid and kept silent about my beast."

Vanya looks at me with her red eyes once more, the river is still, it is not moving for once. "You never should've done that, man."

"I am no 'man', call me by the name my mother gave me at birth, the one I thought I could out do because of all her hard work for a failed revolt."

"Everyone has their demons, Malcolm, but we can't look back. If we look back, we can't move forward."

I look down. I do not recognize this woman. Vanya is never this way for she is rash, vulgar, and quick to anger. She had just hit me not too long ago, yet she speaks in such depth that does not belong to her character.

"Look, Malcolm." Vanya begins, her voice serious. "I'm a gangster. I stole, I lied, I even killed, but I'm not a damn idiot. I made stupid choices because I thought that was the only way I could survive here and I was very wrong. I never want any kid to have to kill another kid, even if the family she's getting into is a decent one. I'm trying to make sure you don't become the kid who made a mistake."

"You mentioned my deceased parents before." I remind her.

Her eyes shift to the left. "Well, I never said I was always reasonable." Her eyes return to me. "Everyone lets their emotions out once in awhile and that's okay, man.. It's when you keep it in all the time that you start getting problems."

Her voice is rough, her street accent is strong and the vulgarity in her voice grates the air like boots in gravel, but I am soothed by it. Most likely from the hint of failed dreams that float in her voice as she spoke to me, the same as mine. I have decided.

I stand up and walk down the hallway to Kiana's room, but I hear a voice in her room. A young woman, pained, covered in guilt. A man, soothing. I look into Cadea's room, empty. I hear Joseph's voice in Kiana's room further down the hall.

"People have demons and his probably came out. It's normal. I lashed out at my group all the time because they always complained about how bad this neighborhood is when the streets have always been my home." His voice like a singer, serenading pedestrians as they pass. I turn around, but remain idle when I hear his voice again. "He just doesn't understand but neither do you, so don't hate him, okay." My foster parents are kind folks, but they have always been too busy with work for me to fully respect. I wish Joseph had lived with us while I was growing up.

I walk back to the family room. There is nothing more that I can say to her, Joseph had already shown her the light in my darkness. I sit in my usual corner and look aimlessly out the window.

"Why didn't you go in?" Vanya asks.

"Joseph is there talking to her. He's better at it." I reply.

I hear footsteps in the hallway coming to the living room. Too soon. I hear Kiana's soft footsteps entering and try not to make any eye contact with her. I can tell that she briefly glanced at me before losing interest in my existence.

"How was your rest?" Luther asks Joseph with absolute sincerity in his voice.

"Bliss. I have not slept that well in years, even though it was brief." A short pause, he is most likely looking out of a window to see the time. "My, the sun is still out. Is it okay if I stay until nightfall?"

"It's dangerous at night, Mr. Yok." Cadea informs him, "Please stay until tomorrow morning."

Joseph laughs, "It's quite all right ma'am, I've been so used to walking around at night that I can't stand the sun. The only reason why I tried to sleep last night was because I just felt tired all of a sudden after Richard killed Jenelle."

"First time seeing someone get killed?" Vanya asks him, a hint of pretentiousness in her voice.

"Yeah."

"I understand, the first time I saw someone get killed, I couldn't sleep properly for a whole week."

"Well that is to be expected from a Slit member. They are nice people, but they do have their dark side that makes many fear them." I hear the his body shift positions on the floor. "I'll never forget the day when a Slit member killed two Cagers who were mugging me and gave me the money he found in their wallets and some of his own money." He sighs. "Kindness such as that should exist in these parts without the need for violence to enforce it."

"Well yeah, the Slits were formed as a defensive family meant to protect members from the more power hungry gangs on the streets like the Cagers that you just mentioned." Vanya responds.

"The Cagers are one of the worst gangs in this neighborhood. I remembered this one time when I arrested this boy, he was no older than thirteen or fourteen, for killing two women who were trying to get back to the main center of Beacon City. I asked him why and he said he did it because he wanted kill his teacher but didn't want to get caught and thought that he could've gotten away with killing those two women. He did it to blow off some damn steam!" Luther rants, his voice shaking again, the dam in his eyes also breaking.

"Ignorance is the true evil that makes human sno different from grimm. That child is a victim of it, yes, but if we assume that he is purely evil, we will become its victim as well. We need to know of his past, his uprising." The beast says. I catch myself when the room is silent once more and the eyes of the others shine on my back. Ah, this feeling, I miss it. The beast sighs. I do too. I turn my head toward them. "We need to know more about his life so we can show him the value of human benevolence toward one another and to prevent other transformations such as this from occurring."

The audience is small, the cheers are inaudible, the justice is clear and it rings loudly, rippling through the sea of sorrow and misery. Hopelessness subsides as a brighter future pierces through the skies. The light is minute, but it is a good beginning. I have returned. Malcolm Rustin has come back. I allow the floodgates to open as the river begins to flow. I see the children, I see my dreams, I let it pour and pour, and pour. "Those kids do not deserve such a future, they deserve so much more. We must end the injustice, we must bring back unity to our species."

What continued were conversations of equality and past glories as Joseph spoke more about his life as a soldier of the War of Remnant, meeting his wife, dancing with her by "hopping" around as if they were wrestlers ballroom clothing, falling into debt due to robberies, and eventually, homelessness. He still smiled, he still laughed. Such strength inspires me, after the death of his newborn son, his frail lover, he continues to find new light in every corner.

Joseph eventually left once the sun fell before anyone could have caught it. He profoundly refused Luther's offering for food and water, saying that us young folks needed it more than he did, especially with Cadea's little person in her belly. He left, flat cap on his head, axe on his left hand, his sorrows on his right, smiling over nothing that he had and everything he has.

Since then, we had been sitting in the same spots of the living room for a while now, for no reason. We sat in silence for perhaps three decades and I had not even noticed when Kiana told me to bathe so I can leep early for the morning food run tomorrow. Her eyes were a comforting blank hue when she looked at me, but I can tell that the disappointment remains, albeit slightly.

I am well aware as I now lie on my bed that my rebellion has ended. The man within is no longer a beast. He washes himself, he dresses himself, he walks upright, and he sings the anthem of freedom. What I begin now is a march for equality and unity, the roots of my revolt, the inner glow of it all.