For a while I didn’t have nightmares.

For a while…

They reemerged around the time my parents decided to go on vacation, and my sister decided to throw a party in our humble house in the forest.

I hadn’t been around so much noise, drinking and drugs for over a year now but since I was done with my exams, I didn’t mind the loudness. It was a nice change of pace.

I spent the night in my room writing until the party ended and her friends had left.

My sister started cleaning up and I went downstairs to help her.

To say the least, she was extremely fucked up.

Probably from blow.

The house returned to its normal silence; the only sound u can hear is of the empty cans hitting each other in the black trash bags.

She broke the silence.

“I know you stopped. I’m not stupid.”

I said nothing, pretending I didn’t know exactly what she was talking about.

“I tried going down that non cannibalistic route, it doesn’t work. Once you’ve had human, you can never look at people the same. All I can see them as live stock now…

But you?

You’re doing fine and I bet it’s because of that girl, huh?”

Again, nothing.

My silence irritates her, so throws the bag on the floor and leaves the kitchen. When I go to pick up her bag, she comes back, grabs my arm, and drags me towards the basement. I knew she was going to take me to the freezer.

I can’t stand going in there. I told her to stop. I didn’t want to go down. I felt like I was descending into hell itself. Into madness.

She kept pulling me. I couldn’t make her let go, and I started shaking and sweating feverishly. She opened the freezer door and stuck my head in it:

“ LOOK! This! this right here.. this is who you are. You can pretend to be happy and normal, but you will never be normal. You can’t ever be like other people. You are a monster like me! Like the rest of us!”

Before me, displayed like trophies, were the carefully packaged slices of human meat.

She loosened her grip and I pulled away my arm, I went back up the stairs staggering.

If my life was a movie, this is the scene where the director rigs a camera to my chest and gets a wobbly shot of the protagonist walking in despair. The lens focusing in on each individual sweat drop dripping off the tip of my nose. Capturing my translucent skin draped across my flesh and bones with my red and blue veins peaking through.

The night ended with me trying to go to sleep. Eventually I did, but couldn’t stop having nightmares from that night on. It was one after another, after another. After another.

Now I’m back to square one: hungry, and full of guilt.

The hungers always been there, but the guilt had stopped for a while.

From that day on when I woke up, I felt like bits of me crumbled onto the floor with every step. Each day would chip at my being little by little.

It was as if being alive was a sin.

If my father is lust, my mother is sloth, my sister is envy, then I am the 8th sin: The sin of being created in the first place.

The sin of being born mad.