Name: Beowulf Rose

Grade: 12

Age: 18

Sex: Male

Appearance: Beowulf has a presence that can hardly be ignored. Power and self assurance radiate from him as if it is the only thing he is made of. You can see the confidence in the way he holds himself, the squareness of his shoulders and even the rhythm of his strides. With neat, ash blonde hair and a handsome, chiseled face Beowulf has been the objection of many lustful stares from his peers, though that attraction is often either amplified or crushed the second he opens his full-lipped mouth. His eyes are where his attraction stops though. His forest green eyes are cold and harsh, void of any emotion. He takes great pride in his appearance, going out of his way to wash his skin, gel his hair and (as odd as it might seem for someone his age) always wears expensive suits causing people who don't know him to mistake him for being older or of a higher status than he actually is.

Personality: Beowulf is seemingly the best at everything, and that is exactly how he likes it to seem. He is very knowledgeable, and while by no means a genius, he isn't afraid to act like one. Blunt and sharp-tongued, he never shies away from explaining to someone why he is correct or just some uninvited point in general, most around him have come to the point that Beowulf simply likes to hear himself talk. However Beowulf has come to the conclusion that he simply likes destroying idiot's hopes and dreams, it has come to be one of his favorite pastimes. While Beowulf hardly thinks highly of anyone, when he does, he finds himself becoming undyingly loyal. He dislikes this, prompting him to not allow himself to get close to anyone in fear it would cause him to put someone before himself.

Background: Beowulf was born second to two painfully normal people. He has one older brother, Artwood, and a younger sister, Gwyneth. His childhood was fairly normal, his parents doted on them a bit, always making sure their children had everything they needed but never stretching out of their means. The most prominent occurrence in his life happened when he was 17, a mere few months after he received his license. Beowulf was driving his sister home from school one day, the two were fighting as usual, when he made a mistake and turned in front of an oncoming which resulted in a horrible car wreck. His sister died while he escaped with minor injuries.

Their Secret: Sometimes the worst thing a person can hold over your head is something that could destroy the person you've built yourself to be. After Beowulf and his sister got into the car accident, Gwyneth wasn't 'dead,' not in the traditional sense anyway. The crash had merely left her brain dead with no hope of waking up. Beowulf's head knew that she was gone, but his heart couldn't accept it and when his parents decided to unplug her, he tried to stop the doctor leaving him with an assault charge which the doctor later dropped more out of sympathy than anything else.

This all occurred during the period of time that Beowulf was dating Jessica, (one of his deepest regrets in life) and he made the fatal mistake of calling her, blubbering as he irrationally tried to tell her what had happened. Jessica being Jessica recorded it.

Other: He always keeps his sister's stone fox carving in his pocket, not that anyone would see this.

Audition:

They say people stop looking for the monsters in their closets when they realize that they are in their heads, and for many nostalgic teenagers this may have been the case, however for the students of Brimley City High the monsters took a very human form. They roamed the halls in designer jeans and wore gucci purses around their wrists like cheap drugstore bracelets. The ecstatic freshmen that walked into the next leg of their life so hopefully, were known to be devoured and then spit out, lifeless, by these creatures. Sometimes it only took days and in other cases months, either way no one got out alive without becoming a monster themselves.

Beowulf Rose was very good at being a monster. He didn't even attempt to hide the slithering beast that controlled his soul, wearing it on his sleeve as if it were impenetrable armor. In just four short years Beowulf had become everyone's favorite villain to hate and his twisted little heart loved it. For him it only seemed to enforce that he was above the simple minded imbeciles that surrounded him, after all, didn't the innocuous employee begrudge his virulent CEO? The dumb despised the brilliant, the ignorant repelled the truth, the weak feared the strong and the ugly mocked the beautiful, it was simply the way world worked and Beowulf embraced it. There was not a single doubt in his mind that he was a prodigy bound to dominate the world.

The hideous monster thought he was invincible, if only he had understood that there was not a creature on this earth, good or evil, that could not be slain by the right hand. As it happens, Beowulf's end came much sooner than his narrow mind could have ever foreseen. He was neither the villain or the hero of this story, as he would find out he was simply one on the long list of victims.

The beginning of Beowulf's undoing began after art class when Mrs. Weckler called him to her desk. She was a short woman with rosy cheeks and a stout body, she rather reminded Beowulf of a female Santa Claus which made it all the harder for him to take her seriously- not that he had ever tried.

"Mr. Rose," she started as shuffled the papers on her desk distractedly. "Angelica came to me the other day and told me that you were paying her to do her homework." Mrs. Weckler let the papers she had been shuffling drop back down into a mangled heap as she turned to Beowulf and put one of her little pink fists onto her bulging hip. "I'm not even going to bother asking you if it's true or not because I know it is. I've suspected something for weeks."

Beowulf hesitated a second, wondering if this was a trap or not. He bit his lip and looked down, his head running through everything he knew about Angelica. She hadn't been thrilled when he had offered her the deal originally, but she had accepted after thinking about it because she was saving for college. Angelica had gotten a scholarship the other week. A hot burst of frustration rushed through his head. He was going to paint the school with that bitch's blood, no one backstabbed him and didn't live to regret it.

"Well, do you have anything to say for yourself, Mr. Rose?"

Beowulf looked up, a tight, sarcastic smile splaying itself across his face. "Yes, actually I do. Art is an absolutely moronic endeavor with no real purpose whatsoever, I don't have time for moronic endeavors, Mrs. Weckler."

Mrs. Weckler raised her eyebrows creaking deep creases in her pudgy forehead. "Excuse me? Art is an expression, it is passion confined to a sheet of paper, it is-"

"Allow me to finish that sentence. It is pointless," Beowulf snapped irritably. "Do you really think starving children in Africa want artwork dropped on their heads? You can't eat artwork, Mrs. Weckler. Come to think of it artwork can't cure cancer, it doesn't provide shelter from the elements, it literally just sits on a wall and looks at you."

Beowulf watched Mrs. Weckler open her mouth, her tiny dense brain struggling desperately for words. It was really quite amusing. "Detention!" The word finally broke through her mouth like a drill breaking through a thick sheet of ice. "Detention!"

He raised an eyebrow. "That's cute. Do you know how much money my parents donate to this school?" His parents donated nothing, but Mrs. Weckler hardly knew that. Beowulf doubted if she even knew what year it was let alone if their school recieved donations. "They practically own it." Beowulf felt the need to throw in a sharkish grin at this point for dramatic effect. "Wouldn't it be a shame if you found yourself without a job? No income, no home... at least you will have your paintings. Let me know how they taste." He found himself smirking at his own cleverness as he turned around and strut out of the room. He felt he had gotten his point across and besides, he had much more important things to do than debate the true meaning of art with some daft old cat woman.

As Beowulf walked down the halls the sea of students parted for him like the red sea, they didn't part for him out of reverence though, they parted out fear. That was exactly how he liked it, not that Beowulf had any other emotion to compare it to. No one made eye contact with him but most of their gazes lingered a little too long as they waited for him to pass. They waited for a safety that Beowulf would ensure never came.

In the schoolyard his presence was slightly less felt so Beowulf found himself shoving people out of the way to make himself a path. His gaze skimmed over the cars that shone brightly in the sunlight, making him squint. A dull vibration came from his pocket, but he found himself hardly concerned with whoever was texting him. After a second Beowulf's eyes locked on an outdated red camry. A big, square-jawed boy beckoned to him in a fashion that hardly anyone would dare. Beowulf's eyes skitted from side to side, albit uncomfortable with his brother's outward friendliness toward him. He couldn't have just anyone thinking that waving at him happily was acceptable behavior toward their king.

Beowulf's polished dress shoes jogged across the pavement before he swung open the car door and lowered himself into the seat with as much grace as he could muster while still moving swiftly. His brother, Artwood, laughed as he pressed down on the break and switched the car out of neutral. "If you don't like being seen in public with me, Mr. Dark Overlord, drive yourself." He glanced toward his younger brother as if he planned on attempting to mess up his hair.

"Dark Overlords don't drive themselves, they need chaffers." Beowulf growled, swatting his brother's hand away on the first try.

Artwood rolled his eyes and plucked a cigarette from his dashboard, Beowulf curled his nose in disgust and rolled down his window as his brother stuck it in his mouth, lighting it up as if it was instinct. Beowulf leaned toward the window, letting the crisp air hit his nostrils. He didn't fancy dying of lung cancer very much.

"You know you are going to have to drive again eventually, it's been two years. I can't keep driving you everywhere. It was understandable at first, but now it's just getting burdensome." Beowulf's muscles stiffened as his brother's words hit his ears. This was hardly a conversation he wanted to have.

"Please." A short erupted from Beowulf's throat. "Do you honestly think that I still care about that? Everyone dies, Artwood. Gwyneth had to die eventually, I just made a stupid mistake and helped the process along. Honestly I just like having you at my beck and call." His words lack the iron conviction that usually armored them, but he forced them through the knot that was growing in his throat all the same. He reached into his canvas messenger bag and pulled out his science book and flipped it open to a completely arbitrary module. "I have to study."

Artwood let an especially large plume of smoke curl from his lip like a dragon's breath and abruptly pulled to the side of the road. Beowulf sat up straighter and forced his eyes back upon his book, just hoping that this wasn't going to escalate into what he was coming. "Alright. If you aren't afraid of driving, now's your chance to prove it to me." Artwood raised his eyebrows and looked toward his younger brother expectedly.

Beowulf closed the science book and with a deep breath he forced himself to look toward his brother evenly. "You know, I don't regret it. The little bitch deserved it."

"What?" Artwood choked, the air between the two thickening with a heavy tension.

Beowulf shrugged his shoulders apathetically, becoming increasingly aware of the little details of the scene, like the long shadows that stretched from the treeline, grasping vainly at the highway they would never reach or like the way Arwood's cigarette drooped from the corner of his mouth, threatening to fall free at any second. "You heard me." Beowulf forced himself to lean closer toward his brother. "The little bitch was whining about some stupid crap. She had it coming."

If you prod a fire you are sure to get burned and Artwood was a raging inferno. Beowulf knew what was coming, in fact he wanted to get burned to distract Artwood's light from illuminating his own darkness.

Artwood yanked the cigarette from his mouth and flung it at his brother virulently. It hit Beowulf's cheek searing his skin painfully before it fell into his lap and began to burn through his trousers. He swatted it out as quickly as possible before his brother reached over and shoved him violently.

"Get the fuck out of my car! Don't you ever speak about Gwyneth like that! You fucking monster." He yelled, completely enraged. His face was red but his eyes were redder, Beowulf didn't hesitate before pushing the door open and scrambling out onto the sidewalk clumsily before his brother's car screeched away, leaving him completely alone.

A numb ache came from Beowulf's cheek from the cigarette burn. Unconsciously he lifted a hand to it and caressed it gently, only intensifying the pain. It drowned out the odd feeling of drowning in his chest. His brother's reaction had been a bit more intense than he had anticipated. Beowulf reached into his front pocket and clutched his sister's old stone fox and squeezed it tightly for a long drawn out second before his finger released it and he felt for his phone. Obviously he wasn't about to walk home, he was going to have to force someone to pick him up, whether through blackmail or bribery he hadn't decided yet.

What was waiting for him was perhaps the last thing that he expected, it was a text from his ex, Jessica, or as he like to refer to her, "that heathen." Beowulf's finger hovered over the button that would open the message only a second before pressing downward, prompting the screen to display the message. His eyes skimmed the message only for a second before he closed his phone and began to walk in the opposite direction of his home.

The problem with being a monster in Brimley City High was that there were monsters everywhere. Some could take others out with a mere swipe of their claws or a flick of their tails, for Beowulf, the only monster worse than him was Jessica Glenn. She had forced everyone in the school out onto a flimsy rope bridge that she held scissors to constantly, that was part of what had so foolishly attracted him to her a few years ago. He had always known that the heathen would come for her revenge, but he had no intention of going down easily.

He was going to destroy her.