Young Writers Society

The beast looks at the world crumbling around it. I search for guilt on its face but there wasn’t any. Even with the taste of food on its tongue and even in the face of all the horror it has caused, it is still hungry. Hungry for more. More power, more hurt. The beast is selfish. The beast is cold. The beast is heartless. We are its food; we are its playing pieces. The beast knows what he has done has made the world an undesirable one, but he'll work to make it his heaven.

He worked on it to make it a dream. In his eyes, a beautiful dream. In our eyes, a nightmare. Walking on the lines. Rows of people. A sterile disinfected world. Genetically modified to perfection. The perfect slaves. Slaves for agriculture, slaves for sex, slaves for cooking, slaves for housework. A blank world. Wiped of all personality. Wiped of education. There are the special few. They work for him. They are the police. The slave workers. They are the poison makers. They get some pleasures. Less poison, some freedom, some education.

The poison is what keeps them under control. It makes them physically fast, mentally slow.

The beast is happy. The beast did what was best for him. The beast is on top. The poison keeps him there. It doesn't make us happy, though. Just incapable of expressing our depression. I am capable because I don't take the poison. I am daughter of the beast.

I see the pain. I've dealt with his egotism. I feel it everyday. While they're out toiling away in the fields, the bedrooms, the kitchen or around cleaning, I watch. I watch in shame, knowing I'm a product of him. I would rebel but with whom?

They hate me; I get to live life free of the poison and free of the work. Everyone else hates me because I sympathize with the people they hurt.

I live in a world with no friends. I live in a world with no love.

I write this with a knowledge that the people out there don't have. What's the point of having this knowledge? I can't use it. There are rules against that. If I do use it, I will be poisoned.

This poison is not like the ones we had before the beast took over. The other poisons, people were allowed to stop. The other poisons weren't allowed. They didn't make people buff and dumb. They just slowed them down. Today's poison is a different, dangerous one.

I must figure out a way to take charge. Knock my father from his throne. Leave him helpless. But I'd need help. How do I find help? Can I lie? Can I trick? Only time will tell.

Five years later

Time has told. I could trick, I could lie but only for so long. I told them I now saw that what they were doing was the right thing all along, that I believed them, that I would help their cause.

One day, I was trusted with clinic duty; I was trusted to deal the poison. I sucked up and it did me well.

All this trickery had brought me closer to the beast. Soon after the day at the clinic, I was in the beast's bedroom having a culinary discussion when, I took my opportunity. I edged closer then, pounced.

Four quick stabs to his stomach and then, I slit his throat. He was cold and dead but I felt no regret. Was I like him? I don't think so.

I probably could have gotten away with it, we don't have the best police, but I came clean.

Now, I spend my days inside my tiny cramped prison cell writing. There are papers covering the floor. Words fill the room. These are the ones I've wanted to say most, though.

It may seem as though I have lost the battle but life is slowly getting better outside of this jungle of bars and walls.

Not giving poison that day in the clinic but instead wisdom helped exponentially.

I lost my life, took another and I helped heal the world but I am still left with the question: Am I a bad person?