Operationsouthern - Tumblr Posts

andre hunting when he was little.

he was terrified of holding guns, let alone firing them. when he, his father, and his brother were in their shooting houses, andre would constantly plug his ears with his fingers.

of course, his brother bullied him for it. why wasn’t he being manly? why was he afraid? why was he different?

andre got his first kill in the fall of his eighth grade year. it was a buck that was almost as tall as him. he watched the blood flood out onto the dry and crunchy leaves, and he saw it twitch when he went to go collect it.

andre almost threw up, but then he remembered the words he’d heard all his life: ‘man up,’ ‘sissy,’ ‘faggot.’ he swallowed and fell in line after his father, getting closer to the deer.

older andre would say that he has always been evil, that he was just born that way, but young andre knows that everything changed the moment he made eye contact with the deer he had shot. he felt powerful. he felt strong, like a man. once his heart calmed and his stomach stilled, he was in love with his actions.

he’d beg his father to take him hunting, to let him practice shooting whenever he could. his father said yes every single time. he didn’t know the monster he was making.