Breathe

Summary: Hangin Mangita was experimented and isolated in a desolate room by scientists because she was different. But it turns out it was something more- something sinister.

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The pitter-patter of the rain echoed into the desolate and rather sad walls of her room. Her room had all the necessary furniture for a woman living by herself. Her bed was situated on the cemented floor, covered with only a thick, plain white bed covering- nothing else to give her warmth from the cold. Then there was the rectangular mirror situated beside the entrance and exit of the room. She always felt like eyes were peering at her, criticizing her.

Just a bed and a mirror. That was all that was necessary for her. Her eyes flickered to the plain white dress hanging over her skinny body. Her bones didn’t protrude from her pale skin that always felt bumpy. Her hair was hanging limply like her arms down her shoulders, stopping just before her elbows. It was pale gray, once was light brown, but now it had grayed over the 28 years she’s been living there.

Hangin knew her age from the numbers blinking brightly in red just above the mirror and door. She had recently turned 40. She was currently leaning against the wall, across the same mirror and the door, listening to the pitter-patter constantly ringing everywhere.

The room was light grey, offering little to no light, but her eyes had long adjusted to it with the help of the blinking red numbers. From her stay there, she had learned to embrace the very fact that she was someone they feared.

Who were they? Her mind asked. ‘They’ were people, scientists to be more precise, that were experimenting on her. They’d come in wearing thick belts of armor from the top of their heads, the tips of their fingers, to the ends of their toes. They’d extract her blood, take strands of her hair, and even examine her naked body.

But most importantly, they’d want to see her power. They never said anything about it though- she just knew it was something they were curious about. There was always a barrier between her and them when she did so. It was pale blue - she noticed that one of them would glow in blue too, but maybe it was her eyes playing tricks on her.

She remembered crying constantly as a child, reaching for warmth or any human contact. But they’d run out of the room before she could ever so. That’s when she learned to accept that she and they were different.

That she was some alien to them to test on.

To tell the truth, it had been years since one of them came into the room. Two years, to be more exact. Maybe because she was older, they’d leave her to give the samples. It would appear just between the mirror and the door, sliding out of the wall and presenting her a needle and a glass. Before she could pull the drawer out though, it would close shut and a voice would echo throughout the room, “Take the needle and glass and give us the sample.” It would be followed by a screeching noise that made her fall to her knees and ears ring in excruciating pain. She had no choice but to pick up the needle and glass and did as what she was told.

The pitter-patter was getting softer and softer the more she focused on the mirror. Her eyes- they were a mixture of light red and violet, somehow glowing, just like the scientist that had entered so long ago. She tilted her head, eyes narrowing slowly. She could see something through the glass. Figures. Dark silhouettes were fluttering around, holding square objects.

Her lips pursed. The pitter-patter had silenced now, leaving her with the whirring sound of ringing in her mind. Ever so quietly, she leaned off the wall and stepped towards the mirror. With each step, she felt something grow within her like the pitter-patter of the rain sounding louder and louder. Her dimmed eyes became a brighter violet the closer she got to the mirror, leaving a trail of light as she walked.

The figures became clearer as she neared the glass. They were still flittering around like shadows, failing to notice the growing ember within her. She felt a breeze flutter around her hair, making it fly around her. Her pale lips gradually spread into a sardonic grin as the breeze got stronger and stronger.

Once she reached the mirror, she pressed her hands against the glass, feeling the cold surface, and took a deep breath. The choked gurgles were the first thing she heard before the thumping sounds against the metal floors. The figures behind the mirror dropped one after the other. It reminded her of the time she’d jump across the walls trying to find a way out. She could hear the piercing squeal of nails against metal. The same noise she’d make so many years ago in this desolate room.

Five minutes later, all sounds across the mirror were silenced. Her fingers slowly but surely formed into tight fists as her lungs begged for air. She dropped her head, leaning against the mirror, and gasped for air. She gulped the air like water. Her shoulders raised and lowered while she heaved deeply.

The pitter-patter of the rain soon returned clocking her back into reality. With one last gulp of air, she turned over to the door she could never reach before. It wasn’t metallic, nor was it wooden; it blended with the rest of the light grey room, leaving only a protruding circular object that she learned to be a knob.

Hangin looked back at the mirror again and noticed her eyes had dimmed again. She shook her head from delving too deeply about it and leaned off the wall. Her bare feet trudged over to the knob and without the slightest hint of hesitation, her fingers curled over the knob and twisted it.

It wasn’t locked. After rolling back her shoulders and stretching her locked joints, she opened the door and was met with the same scientists that had experimented on her and the same color of her room. She counted ten bodies. They were strewn all about. They were all in the same position: their hand curling around their throats, their eyes wide and blank, and their mouths hanging wide open. Her eyes flickered to the mirror and saw that it showed the interior of the room she had been living in then to the man lying over the buttons just below said mirror with the same drawer where she had to take the needle and glass.

Apart from that, the room only had tables and chairs that had stumbled over the bodies of the scientists.

She sighed and scratched her neck, feeling the bumpy feeling again. She couldn’t stay there, idling about. Hangin knew she had to leave before her absence alerted more people. More powerful people.

Her feet began moving but then she stopped feeling the crumple of paper under the sole of her feet. She looked down and saw a picture of a young girl with light brown hair and dull violet eyes. There were bold words ‘DAILY REMINDER’ printed out right below the picture. She leisurely picked up the paper and continued walking out of the room. Her eyes wandered over the printed letters below the bold words and her lips stretched into a small smile.

After reading the two paragraphs, she let the paper flutter back to the floor before leaving the room.

“Twelve year old girl named Hangin Mangita, a mass murderer of nearly five hundred people in the local park of Cebu during one of its most famous Santo Niño festivals, used her gahom called ‘breathe’. It takes out the oxygen off the area, leaving everyone no oxygen to breathe in. Thankfully, a local hero named Mapapas stopped her before the death count increased. It is still unclear how she was able to use her gahom when everyone else had their gahoms erased for the safety of all citizens.

“The police told the people her reason for doing so was that she was mentally unstable and is currently being treated by the best doctors and scientists around the globe alongside other mentally ill gahom-users like her. It has been 28 years since then but the citizens are forever grateful that she is being treated well under the care of the government.”

gahom - Cebuano for power