Monstrous Duo

• Roha Sohaib, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2021

They storm into my home uninvited come to attack while I rest. They knock on my door, and walk right in, no warning beforehand. They mute out my screams, my pleas for help. One pours gasoline onto the spark of fear in the pit of my stomach. The other takes words and modifies them into a knife, sinking it in with cold black eyes. The blackness becomes my hell when it used to be my comfort. They are my shackles, the knife in my gut slowly twisted, the constant hammer on my head. Thoughts become so scattered that normal functioning is impossible.
I lose myself in the rush, my cheeks burning, my screams muffled.
The hurt is overbearing sometimes. I’d rather prefer a world without this monstrous duo. They cause death. They cause pain. They cause hurt. It is the sort of pain that burns, as if some invisible flames were held against my skin. The emotions of loss are that way, right? Death, abandonment, and betrayal, they all lead here.
Whoever I once was, a young girl grinning on Christmas Eve, she’s now buried deep, lost. All that was left is the blackness, the pain, and the hell. Sometimes, I think to extinguish myself from this world. Death. The thought calms me. I wouldn’t feel pain and force myself to shut it off. I would cease to exist, and the best part? No one would care. But then I think of the satisfaction it would bring to the monstrous duo, and I promise myself to improve, just to irritate them.
Then I realize the humour in the situation. The war is all in my head. The monstrous duo have taken over my mind, invaded my thought process and control my behaviours. They taught me to hate my life, they taught me to hate others.
But I’m fighting back. Now stronger than ever. And I just might win. Though it will take a while to get back to normal, to feel the strength I had before, I will get there because, when no one else believes in me, I believe in myself. And that is enough.