If you're watching this, I'm probably already gone. But no, this isn't a suicide note.
It's August 14, 2026. 0:12AM, you don't know I'm awake. I’ll be quick, I think.
You won't find this for another few weeks, or maybe even months. But this message was necessary. So you wouldn't get the idea that I was kidnapped or killed, or both. I am fine. I might even be fine by the time you're watching this. I wanted to leave. It was a selfish decision I made after years of planning. I first planned to leave when I was sixteen, because my sixteen wasn't too sweet. But uh, that's that.
Initially, I wanted to run away as a form of escapism. To run away into the woods, a damp forest which is blessed with a never-ending shower in the latter half of the year. A wooden cottage, a colourful garden filled with roses of all colours. A room with a giant shelf filled with the classical writers—Dostoevsky, Kafka, Allen Poe, Shakespeare, Donne—a ton of poetry books, books dripping with love, romance, pain and sorrow. Sitting beside the window, savoring the sound of the rain and the fragrance of the damp earth, reading Byron's love poems while waiting for my brownies to be baked. That was my dream.
Then, slowly I came to notice that I wasn't human enough for such a wonderful dream. I started noticing things that I wish I didn't. It made me wonder if I've always been like this—this inhuman creature who didn't belong anywhere. I woke up with my hair in my hands, strands coiled around my fingers. The pores in my skin felt bigger, as if they were leaking blood. Sometimes blood dripped from my skin from who knows why; I knew it wasn't those suckers, those bloody mosquitos. I came to know that it was me. Because those were tiny, swollen red dots I woke up to, they were marks of human teeth. They became more prominent as nights passed by. Which is why I stopped wearing sleeveless tops.
The bite marks were always on my forearms. The skin was always red. I stared at the marks when I showered. And one day, I took a bite of the supple flesh of my left forearm, consciously. Blood seeped through the tears of the skin, my canines digging in. I licked off the blood, and I realised why I've been repeating this unconsciously. I wanted it. I craved the metallic taste of my blood and saliva combined.
It became worse. I watched myself abuse my body. My nails dug into my thighs, intruding the flesh underneath, inviting more blood. The lighter I found in the neighbour’s doorstep kept me company too; the untreated burns hurt worse than the untreated cuts. Then my imagination haunted me. I imagined licking them. I wanted to lick my wounds. I wanted to feel the fullness of my mouth when I chewed on my eyeball. I wanted to know if my fingers would taste better than my ears. I threw up every night fantasizing about them.
I realised I was too ruined for my perfect cottage dream. But I still needed to disappear. Because now I was the threat. I didn't want to exacerbate it and make it everyone's problem. I didn't want to hurt others. So I decided to leave. I don't have a plan now. I'm just going to leave.
It's still a wonder to me that I managed to make it this far. I don't know what I am, nor do I understand myself. The thought of finding myself has always been answered by me with ignorance, which has led to prolonged obliviousness.
Maybe it's all about fighting the demons. You fight them to remain sane. And when the miserable ones fail to succeed, they get eaten alive by their demons, and eventually they become insane. But I don't feel insane. I feel like this is my normal. I only feel different when I look around.
Maybe I wasn't meant to be born as a human—
Maybe I was accidentally born here. But since I grew up around them, I feel the need to be like them. And no matter how hard I try, I'll never be like them. Then again, I feel alienated at the very thought. But now I've been forced to accept that I'm something else.
Though, I didn't make this decision spontaneously. I thought it through after years of hope. I hoped this wasn't real. I held my hopes too high ‘cause even if I fell, the fall would be a delight.
It didn't work, of course. I gotta go.
I'm not sure where I'm going. Most likely a mountain. Because mountains sound so peaceful. So free. I want to be free. From everything.
I'll stand by the edge of the hill, let out a shrill scream before I throw myself off with the brightest smile. I won't be covering my bite marks and burns and wounds then. I'll be naked to the world as I fall. My skin, my different skin. I'll evaporate and become one with the air. Pieces of me will be buried in the soil. And the rest of me will be found beneath the rivers.
But I'll be fine because I'll be free. I'm not sure what I'll be free of, but I'll be free. That's what I want the most.
I'll go now. Thank you for listening.
clearly it's fiction
this was such a good read thank you dia for blessing us all
ANOTHER BANGER ANOTHER BANGER