Always a monster

Once a monster, always a monster.

Thats what I thought when I learnt that my sister had been murdered. When I walked into the room to find her bloody, broken body, and watched as it was transformed to that pale dead corpse being lowered into the ground, I knew a human had done this. That it wasnt an accident. Only a human was capable of such cruelty and hatred. It used to keep me up at nights, wondering what I would do without her in my life, wondering what was worse; living with the knowledge of how she had died or living at all.

Living was impossible. I couldn't flip through the TV without seeing her favourite shows, or eat my dinner without imagining my sister arguing her way out of eating brocilli. The mourning was long, never-ending, a pathway of sadness. Along that road, the grief would sometimes hit me out of nowhere, doubling me over, making sobs rack my body. How could somebody do that to her? How could anyone do that to a little girl so filled with light and love, filled with so much joy and innocence? How could they kill her so brutally? I wake up in the mornings, roused by the sounds of her screams that must have meant nothing to her killer, because if it did, he wouldnt have killed her. Not like that.

I was almost happy when I found out the man had been caught. Relived that no other little girls or boys would be hurt. But I was somewhat mad, at myself, that I didnt find him first When I saw him, that first day at court- a 40 year old pedo who was accused with the abductions of four other young girls around the country- I remember how angry I was then. Tears were coming down my eyes, but not of sadness anymore, but of rage. Fury boiled in my gut, a fury that made me want to scream and shout all at once, that made me want to rip the eyes out of his sockets, to inflict every twinge of pain I had felt for everything he had ever done.

But I couldn't. How could I? No matter how angry I was, I would never try something like this. At least, not here. I had my chance to find him and kill him. The police got to him before I had even started looking. Just like he got to my sister before I could save her. That was the worst part, I found. When you love someone, you make an oath to protect them, no matter what. No matter how annoyed you are at them or the danger, its second instinct to protect someone so vulnerable. And I failed. I didn't save my sister, and she didnt get to see me before she died. I had promised to love and protect her. And I had failed.

Once a monster, always a monster.

So does that make me a monster, too?