Confession of a Monster

That night, I was standing beneath the locust tree, looking up at the thick clouds covering the full moon. I’d waited for the moon to show up and shine down at me. The clouds swam right in a moment, slowly, slowly, disclosing the brightness of the moon. I drew in the cool night air around me, deeply. I smelled the fragrance of the decaying leaves, the rotting bodies of animals, of humans, in this so much a remote place. The moonlight bathed my body. I felt the pleasure of exaltation. The strength and power I’d been waiting for a month encroached on me. I gritted like I was going to crunch my teeth. I stiffened my cheeks and jaws, closed firmly, my hands releasing the muscles of my arms, hardened my abdomen and thighs, and braced my knees tensely. I welcomed the full moon of the month and I welcomed the entrance of the spirit of darkness into my soul.

In the past, when this time came, I could not control it, I could not feel it, and I did not know it. I just woke up, knew I was in front of a slain mammal, which stomach had been ripped open and cleaned out. But since I’d been used to this, I got along with it. It had become a routine, a habit, and a part of me. I felt better the first time I adapted to it.

Thick strands of hair suddenly grew in my forehands, arms, shoulders, front thighs, legs, and my back. The hair on my head swept up like barb wires. My face lengthened into an oval shape. My eyebrows and beard and mustache thickened. My mouth widened as my teeth arose out of it and became pointed like the canines of the lions. My ears became bigger and broader and pointy and bulky. My fingers elongated and sharpened and settled into the talons of an eagle. The clothes I wore stripped out as something from my backbone came out. Bat wings. My whole body became huge, denuding the clothes I had put on.

I jumped up effortlessly, shot upward into the air, above the trees, into the wind, over the clouds, atop of the world. I howled like no animal can defeat me. I flew downward, into a silent village. At midnight, no one was awake but owls and cicadas. I alighted on top of the palm leaves roof, gently.

The dwellers of the hut were certainly snoring in deep sleep. Using my talons, I scoured the interlaced palm leaves roof and peered through it with my dark, reddening eyes. They were asleep on the bed, inside the mosquito net. There were three of them, the couple, and their child.

The desire built up; the desire to kill them and eat their heart, liver, intestines, kidneys, pancreas, and bladder; and to suck their blood. I imagined they were around me lying dead; I ripped their stomachs open, their digestive organs inviting me to consume them up, and their necks calling me to suck their fresh blood.

I licked and transformed my tongue into nylon size. Let it dropped onto them, careful to avoid stirring them. My saliva fell to the floor.

The husband rolled over to his side. I then abruptly dragged back my tongue up. He dozed again. I lowered my tongue once more. I needed to cut enter the wife’s belly. I felt she was pregnant. A fetus is the most delectable meal a monster like me could ever have. I smelled it from under the womb of its mother. Slowly, slowly, slowly, my tongue stretched down onto her. It was now so thin that it could enter it through the mosquito net. Now I let it go inside the net, a foot off her belly, half a foot, three inches, and…

The husband snatched my tongue. I pulled it up as quickly as a frog’s tongue. It hurt. I lurched and fell to the ground, heavier than a sack of rice. I got up, spread out my wings, and darted up. I knew the husband would now keep an eye on me. I knew he had a knife to cut my tongue or a gun to shoot me dead. I was flying up in the air, flapping my broad bat wings, quite disappointed with my failed plan.

The desire did not abandon me. The savor of eating the fetus the wife was carrying never left my imagination. It was so intense that I could not help but go back. I thought positively that maybe the husband had gone back to sleep. He had work to do in the day. Everyone has work to do in the day except me. I worked at nights, sleep in days.

I head back to the hut. But, I did not touch down the roof. I was on the ground, at the hut’s backyard. I fanned in my wings and fastened in my back. I prowled the area as I saw the surroundings as vivid as you see it during the daytime. My sight works effectively at night. I’m a nocturnal creature that thrives in dark. The spirit inside me comes from darkness. The hut had a back door. I went to it. It was locked from the inside, tied with a rope. I let my tongue do the untying. In a moment, the door hinged on. Then I moved in.

I was in the kitchen. The next door was leading to the living room, which was also their bedroom. There they lay asleep. I saw just two of them. The husband was not there.

Someone appeared in front of me. He came out from under the table. It was the husband. He hit me with a long block of wood. It did not hurt me. It did not even bother me to move to him and strangle his neck through my hand. I lifted him. He was choking, quivering, and he lost his strength.

His wife and child were awakened. The child cried in fear. The wife, who was trembling with consternation, covered him with the blanket. She moved out of the mosquito net and got something under the bed. A rosary. She showed it to me, her hands shaking.

I’m not afraid of it. I heaved off the husband like a log falling to the ground. I moved towards the wife with my unmodified intent of digging up her fetus. She was in absolute fear. She was crying, screaming, and shaking. I paced as my tongue twirled out of my mouth with drops of saliva falling to the floor. At last, I held her neck. I uncovered her body. Her clean and smooth stomach urged me to thrust my talons into it and dug into the fetus. I played with my sharp talons on her stomach, forming circles of rashes. She passed out.

Now was the time. I could no longer help the desire. I had to ram now with my talons. I raised my hand. As I stroked it to the wife’s stomach, something sharp sank at my back. I had been cut, but not deep. I suspended what I should have done. I let her go and turned to face the one who wounded my back. It was the husband. He hit me again in the stomach with a honed wood but did not cut through. I pulled the wood off, yanking him down. I bent and clutched his feet and threw him off to the bamboo walls. The walls broke off.

The husband was now outside the hut, crawling in desperation. I flew to him. As he stood up, I jabbed my talon into his backbone. He growled in pain. I pitched him into the bushes. I heard him groan in the bushes. I dashed. I held his hand and hauled him to the clearing. It would have been his death, as I was about to slash his stomach. But he had a double-blade knife tucked in his pants.

The husband stabbed me in the chest. It cut me. I could feel the cool metal. I could feel that I was going to let blood out of my mouth. I rose, but then I stumbled once. I finally got to my feet, hopped, and flew far away under the light of the moon. Globules of my evil blood dropped into the earth. As my sight got blurred, my monstrous body fell to the ground.

I woke up in a place crowded with people. They swarmed my naked human body with dry blood.

And now I’m in this cell, like a prisoner of crime, wanting to get rid of this evil spirit that is compelling me to kill and eat humans and drink its blood. Every night when the moonlit flashes through the narrow window, I transform again and again into a monster that’s trying to get out of these confines. You’ve just watched me killing myself because of intense desire. I can’t get out. I have been hungry. I have not eaten proper food. You always serve me the same cooked food. I want to eat a live animal, chicken or pig will do. But, you haven’t provided me. I’ve been telling you, living animals are the only proper food to me.

I’m tired. I hope you just kill me here when the evil spirit is still not in me.