she used to be mine

“Totoo po ba ‘yung mga monster?”

I once knew a girl who was deathly afraid of the monsters that resided beneath her bed. She refused to dangle her feet on the side as she clutched her teddy bear tightly, or stayed too close to the edge where they could easily pounce on her.

She would barely set foot into a dark room, only making it about an inch in before she bolted in fear of the abyss wrapping its lonely tendrils around her body and swallowing her whole.

Her parents’ laughter would reverberate through the walls at how ridiculous the sight was before their eyes. Yet they never ran out of sweet nothings to whisper to the cowering child.

“Hindi totoo ‘yung mga ‘yon, huwag kang mag-alala,”

The mother’s voice was soothing, like a gentle breeze sailing through the ocean. It was enough for the little girl’s fears to wash away on the shoreline, back into the water as if they never existed.

But, alas, pain is like cold water, as her father’s voice pierced through the veil of serenity. As if he was desperately breaking the figments of her imaginations she had carefully built.

“Pero dapat mas matakot ka sa mga tao.”

Whether it was a simple truth or a blatant display of fallacy, the answer did not come to me at that moment. All I knew was that she refused to heed her father’s warning, carrying on to tend to the flower that grew with the gentleness of her soul. She believed that kindness costs nothing, that if you held life’s reins with softness and led it with compassion, you would make it far beyond your years.

Most of the people I knew had been subjected to the young girl’s warmth and innocence, and I was not safe from it either. We used to trade compliments and shared smiles, and for a life to be filled with love like that felt freeing. She was so full of grace, and it was astonishing.

That was what her entire character was all about, and I knew her all too well—just like the back of my hand—so knowing her had become second nature.

Though that was all in the past now. Life happens to be full of surprises, and you come out a different person. And that same little girl was no stranger to change.

She returned home one day, hurt and bruised, scarred by the hands of fate. I saw how she held herself, curled up in a ball to create a barrier between herself and the world as she wept for what felt like eternity. Her wails sounded like a call for help, to free her from the torment she had to endure.

“Bakit mo ako pinabayaan?”

I heard her defy the skies with an outraged scream. Demanding answers, not to mend her heart, but to ask why—why her?

“Sinabi ko naman sa’yo, mga tao ang totoong mga halimaw.”

From that moment on, it was never the same ever again.

Slowly, bit by bit, she drifted away from me. I held onto the last strand of hope that had been slipping through my grip, that the remaining light in her eyes would not flicker out so soon.

Oh, how wrong I was.

It was as if she had been plucked and ripped apart, carving out every flesh that clung to her bones, and every single defining trait that made her weak. The ones that made her horrendously and disgustingly human. An ear-splitting scream was the last thing I heard from her before I was enveloped in silence. I knew then that she was far too gone.

I saw how she was put back together—atom after atom, piece by piece, stitched skin over stitched skin. She had been rebuilt, over and over again. And there she was, crawling her way out of the soil, through the rough dirt of the graveyard as if she had been raised from perdition.

For a while, I thought she returned unscathed, that she was still the same person as all those years ago. But no one survives hell unchanged, as the darkness would seep through the cracks of your body once they dismantled you like a piece of plastic toy. So there she stood in front of me, soul stained with venom as she unraveled at the seams.

Gone was the sweetheart I knew. She had been left behind in the grave and buried with no remorse. What's left of her vessel now is the shell of a bloodied parasite—pure rotten sorrow and ire.

What stares back at me is no longer human. It's a creature with a hole in its heart where nothing would ever suffice to patch it all up. Bloodshot eyes that linger down on my frame with a scowl.

“Tama nga si papa, tao nga ang halimaw. At isa ka sa mga iyon.”

It mutters, and its glare hardens at me. But underneath all that rage, I could recognize her voice.

Somewhere deep inside the monster in the reflection, there was once the pure-hearted child where kindness was the one that was carved into her body.

That sweet girl I once knew is long gone, but it is comforting enough to know that she used to be mine.

Isn’t it devastatingly funny that we become what we used to fear? That the true monster does reside and rot deep within us—staying dormant, lingering, quiet. It’s just a matter of time until it awakens and takes over your life. It forces you to do unforgivable things, like a wolf that unapologetically mauls sheep for the sake of surviving.

And it isn't until you’ve looked in the mirror that you realize what you have become in the end. How filthy, disgustingly, and hauntingly familiar you look. Who you are at the end is who you always were.

“To know me is to hate me, is to hate what I’ve become.”

And what I have become is a monster.

Article: Denise Paulino

Illustration: Zea Gestopa