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 me. 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 and knew I was in front of a slain mammal, whose 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 back. The hair on my head swept up like barbed 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 transformed into the talons of an eagle. The clothes I wore were stripped out as something from my backbone came out. Bat wings. My whole body became huge, denuding my clothes.

I jumped up effortlessly, and shot upward into the air, above the trees, into the wind, over the clouds, atop the world. I howled as no animal could 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 roof made from palm leaves, gently.

The dwellers of the hut were 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 drop 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 abdomen. 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 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 attempt.

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 work at night and sleep during the day.

I headed back to the hut. But, I did not touch down the roof. I was on the ground, in 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 the 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 suddenly 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 with my hand. I lifted him. He was choking, quivering, and losing his strength. My mana did it.

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 was 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 dig 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 my talons. I raised my hand. As I struck it to the wife’s stomach, something sharp sank at my back. I had been cut, but not that 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 it 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, 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 to him. I held his hand and hauled him to the clearing. It would have been his death, as I was about to slash his chest. But he had a double-blade knife tucked in his pants.

He 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 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 their 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 my confine. 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, that 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.