The sirens began before the sky could darken—
a long, blaring warning:
the monster is coming.
People scattered like loose papers in the wind,
hands shaking,
doors slamming,
counting down the end of the world.
But I had been here before.
This nightmare had memorized me.
So I followed the routine—
ran without thinking,
into a building that felt too familiar,
searching for a place
small enough to disappear.
A cabinet—
too tight, too obvious.
A sofa—
maybe I could become furniture,
mute and unnoticed—
no, too stood out, too seen.
An air vent above—
maybe if I climbed high enough
I could become air,
slip through cracks,
be nowhere.
But time pressed its hand against my throat.
Because I remembered—
what happens when the monster finds me.
Bruises blooming
purple, blue,
like something trying to grow out of pain.
Words—
spoken,
and wrapped,
tight around my neck,
until breath forgets how to return.
Winter nights—
bare skin against cold punishment,
locked outside
until I learned
how to disappear
without leaving.
I begged.
I always begged.
But she wasn’t budging.
No matter where I hid,
she would find me—
she always did.
So I curled into a corner,
small as I could make myself,
waiting—
not to escape,
but to be found.
Waiting for the ritual
to begin again.
But then—
silence.
Then something stranger—
laughter.
Voices rising like light:
The monster is gone.
You’re safe.
I stayed hidden longer,
because safety had never sounded like this.
Then slowly—
I unfolded myself
from the dark.
I stepped outside,
into a world that wasn’t hunting me.
And there,
in the quiet after terror,
I understood—
The monster I had been hiding from
all this time
was my mother.
Jia Zhenia 