All credit to known characters goes to Joss Whedon and the many talented
creators of 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer'. References to 'Something For Kate'
and 'The Butterfly Effect' lyrics also included. No infringement intended.
In this story I will delve into the mind of a homicidal maniac. Please bare with me as I try to remain true to Caleb's character, while keeping my own sanity intact.
Piper Quinn
WARNING: This chapter may contain material which will offend anyone with strong religious beliefs. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------- Sliding Into Apathy. Chapter Two.
~*~*~*********~*~*~
I always did like the dark.
Many people fear the dark, but to me it was a way in which I could watch the world without bein' judged. Even as a child, I would stay in a shadowed world, watching, listening, learning. Safer to see than to be seen.
People are afraid of the monsters in the dark, but when you yourself are surrounded by demons who walk in the clear, bright sunshine you begin to favour beasts of darkness and imagination. Less blood will be shed, less bones will be broken and less dreams will be shattered.
As my days at the church progressed into weeks, a different kind of darkness encircled me.
The kind of darkness in which a person has no perception of times, places or dates. In which a person can go about their business with a blank stare and in complete hopelessness.
Countless movies and books have been created about massacres in Texas, stranglers in Boston and the gutting of eighteenth century prostitutes, but I knew then of true horror.
Apathy.
The same glassy-eyed kind of apathy I had experienced in that God forsaken church orphanage.
As much as I wanted to pull myself out of it, to refocus my perception and to resurface into affinity, I found my God given strength had been bleedin' out so quickly I hadn't even noticed until the last drop had been spilled.
I asked God for a miracle then, not sure if I even had enough belief in me left to ask for anything, but I knew that I needed a godsend or I would fade into nothingness.
I don't know who sent her. God, the Devil or something in between.
//My miracle, my destruction, my beginning//
Do you believe in fate?
I don't know if things happen for a reason, or if fate itself is just something people made up to ease feelin's of guilt.
'It wasn't my fault. There was nothing I could do. It was just...fate.'
Sounds a whole lot better than 'I was weak. I was afraid. I just didn't care.'
Maybe the concept of fate was created so people can sleep at night.
All I know is that if God did send her to me, knowin' then what would happen and seein' into the future, then people have been wrong. People have been wrong about God. He sees the bleak, just as we all do and sometimes he creates it. He can be vengeful and he can hate without apparent reason. Perhaps men are more kindred to God than we have been taught to believe. Or it could just be that God had complete faith in me and I failed him.
Failed him.
And her.
And myself.
I just don't know.
Nothin' can be done now. It's over. But when I look back, it does make me wonder. Don't look back often though.
There's a fine line between telling a story and dwelling on the past.
~*~*~**********~*~*~
The church ran a Sunday School.
The oldest to attend were goin' on eighteen, the youngest barely five.
Didn't know whether to laugh or cry when the students were taught that everything happened for a reason, that God saved the worthy.
I thought about the children who had lost parents. Were they supposed to believe that the lives lost were unworthy? That God had taken them for a reason?
I tried to push thoughts of my mother out of my head.
My hate grew. It was a weed inside of me; ugly and unstoppable, stranglin' everything else alive within.
These children would grow to believe what was being told to them. They would grow into adults without empathy or reservation. The light in their eyes would fade to a dull glaze and I could not summon enough God-damn energy to give a fuck.
~*~*~**********~*~*~
She came on Sunday the 12th of August.
It was on the sixth Sunday I had been there and the fifth Sunday School I had assisted.
Although I am not a man who takes notice of small details, I do recall everything about the 12th of August that year.
I felt her arrive, before she even walked in the door.
She was complete with an ugly, pale green dress, bruises on her cheek and Father Marks' hand on her shoulder, guiding her to her seat.
I felt my heart beat for the first time in what seemed like a million years. Of course it had always been beatin', but I had forgotten what it was like to actually feel it.
Everything which had happened in my life, somehow led me to that church in the middle of nowhere, and right then I knew why. If everything did happen for a reason, she was it.
She wasn't beautiful, hardly even pretty. She had a long face, round, brown eyes and mousy hair which was messy then, and would be every time I saw her.
Her father beat her. Everyone knew, but pretended to be oblivious to the bruises. I knew the feeling well.
Images of my childhood flashed through my mind.
I struggled to maintain composure.
~*~*~*********~*~*~
I made decisions then, without noticing I was makin' them.
Her father had hit her for the last time, I decided.
I would persevere, I decided.
It is plausible that I thought it possible to chase away my darkness's if I had a mission, or that in some way I saw myself in her.
Even now, when I think back, I still don't know where my determination sprung from.
I wonder now, if perhaps I knew all along what would happen.
Perhaps by then, the weed had already wrapped itself around my heart and I already revelled in it's hate, but the transition had been so slow and steady I had not even perceived the change.
Perhaps I knew and I smiled a dark smile inside.
It wouldn't surprise me. Not even a little bit.
//Laughing to death as I fall to the floor//
Her name was Elizabeth.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------
In this story I will delve into the mind of a homicidal maniac. Please bare with me as I try to remain true to Caleb's character, while keeping my own sanity intact.
Piper Quinn
WARNING: This chapter may contain material which will offend anyone with strong religious beliefs. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------- Sliding Into Apathy. Chapter Two.
~*~*~*********~*~*~
I always did like the dark.
Many people fear the dark, but to me it was a way in which I could watch the world without bein' judged. Even as a child, I would stay in a shadowed world, watching, listening, learning. Safer to see than to be seen.
People are afraid of the monsters in the dark, but when you yourself are surrounded by demons who walk in the clear, bright sunshine you begin to favour beasts of darkness and imagination. Less blood will be shed, less bones will be broken and less dreams will be shattered.
As my days at the church progressed into weeks, a different kind of darkness encircled me.
The kind of darkness in which a person has no perception of times, places or dates. In which a person can go about their business with a blank stare and in complete hopelessness.
Countless movies and books have been created about massacres in Texas, stranglers in Boston and the gutting of eighteenth century prostitutes, but I knew then of true horror.
Apathy.
The same glassy-eyed kind of apathy I had experienced in that God forsaken church orphanage.
As much as I wanted to pull myself out of it, to refocus my perception and to resurface into affinity, I found my God given strength had been bleedin' out so quickly I hadn't even noticed until the last drop had been spilled.
I asked God for a miracle then, not sure if I even had enough belief in me left to ask for anything, but I knew that I needed a godsend or I would fade into nothingness.
I don't know who sent her. God, the Devil or something in between.
//My miracle, my destruction, my beginning//
Do you believe in fate?
I don't know if things happen for a reason, or if fate itself is just something people made up to ease feelin's of guilt.
'It wasn't my fault. There was nothing I could do. It was just...fate.'
Sounds a whole lot better than 'I was weak. I was afraid. I just didn't care.'
Maybe the concept of fate was created so people can sleep at night.
All I know is that if God did send her to me, knowin' then what would happen and seein' into the future, then people have been wrong. People have been wrong about God. He sees the bleak, just as we all do and sometimes he creates it. He can be vengeful and he can hate without apparent reason. Perhaps men are more kindred to God than we have been taught to believe. Or it could just be that God had complete faith in me and I failed him.
Failed him.
And her.
And myself.
I just don't know.
Nothin' can be done now. It's over. But when I look back, it does make me wonder. Don't look back often though.
There's a fine line between telling a story and dwelling on the past.
~*~*~**********~*~*~
The church ran a Sunday School.
The oldest to attend were goin' on eighteen, the youngest barely five.
Didn't know whether to laugh or cry when the students were taught that everything happened for a reason, that God saved the worthy.
I thought about the children who had lost parents. Were they supposed to believe that the lives lost were unworthy? That God had taken them for a reason?
I tried to push thoughts of my mother out of my head.
My hate grew. It was a weed inside of me; ugly and unstoppable, stranglin' everything else alive within.
These children would grow to believe what was being told to them. They would grow into adults without empathy or reservation. The light in their eyes would fade to a dull glaze and I could not summon enough God-damn energy to give a fuck.
~*~*~**********~*~*~
She came on Sunday the 12th of August.
It was on the sixth Sunday I had been there and the fifth Sunday School I had assisted.
Although I am not a man who takes notice of small details, I do recall everything about the 12th of August that year.
I felt her arrive, before she even walked in the door.
She was complete with an ugly, pale green dress, bruises on her cheek and Father Marks' hand on her shoulder, guiding her to her seat.
I felt my heart beat for the first time in what seemed like a million years. Of course it had always been beatin', but I had forgotten what it was like to actually feel it.
Everything which had happened in my life, somehow led me to that church in the middle of nowhere, and right then I knew why. If everything did happen for a reason, she was it.
She wasn't beautiful, hardly even pretty. She had a long face, round, brown eyes and mousy hair which was messy then, and would be every time I saw her.
Her father beat her. Everyone knew, but pretended to be oblivious to the bruises. I knew the feeling well.
Images of my childhood flashed through my mind.
I struggled to maintain composure.
~*~*~*********~*~*~
I made decisions then, without noticing I was makin' them.
Her father had hit her for the last time, I decided.
I would persevere, I decided.
It is plausible that I thought it possible to chase away my darkness's if I had a mission, or that in some way I saw myself in her.
Even now, when I think back, I still don't know where my determination sprung from.
I wonder now, if perhaps I knew all along what would happen.
Perhaps by then, the weed had already wrapped itself around my heart and I already revelled in it's hate, but the transition had been so slow and steady I had not even perceived the change.
Perhaps I knew and I smiled a dark smile inside.
It wouldn't surprise me. Not even a little bit.
//Laughing to death as I fall to the floor//
Her name was Elizabeth.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------