C a p t u r e d

12: Spaces Between

After many hours, my eyes slam closed. My thoughts melt like charred wood. My thoughts are pounding and my heart was aching.

The woman is likely a liar. I am going to die and stay dead and go up to my ancestors with dishonor following me.

I can sense my breaths growing slower. It grows impossible to breathe, much less think. Only one thought is on my mind.

My family is going to cry when they see my body...

No man or woman deserves this. I'd rather die than stick sharp teeth into someone's skin.

I can die, really. I could feel it as my palms turned blue. My body slows down and just stops working.

I don't expect to wake up again. But by some wretched curse, my eyes reopens.

The foreign demoness has disappeared. If I close my eyes hard enough, I can pretend like she was never there at all.

My mouth feels... Strange. I push my fingers inside. Strange fangs are in my mouth, along with a growling stomach any d the thought of my family.

Many women. I sit up, and my thoughts began reeking of them.

My grandmother would surely be crunchy. My mother could only be soft, and delicate. Biting into Ji would be the best of all, for she was a mix between the two... Crunchy yet soft, delicate as a young woman, but with the callouses and difficulties of someone who stayed hunched over her work, all day, every day, ever since childhood...

And my littlest sisters. God, how I wanted them.

These thoughts spill out so naturally, and it is obvious that I can no longer provide for my family. My family, my friends, my village, my honor... It all means nothing, considering my rapid desire to suck out their souls.

I would have to travel away. Honor meant nothing if it mean that I wanted to hurt them.

後

(Hòu)

(After)

Many years later, I return to my childhood home from traveling out East. Indeed, my mother and grandmother have both died.

My sister is still living there, with a huge family that she can't care less for. She tells everyone that I am a distant relative, and I account my long, senseless journey. I remember none of it.

I stay there for a few weeks, and her constant resentment grows clear once she learns that I am "immortal" now. She did not understand, and I did not want her to.

Self-control meant nothing, even after all those years. I'd tried over and over to starve myself. But every time I grew hungry enough, my mind would shut off and I would grab someone, drinking out their life force like there was no tomorrow. I'd grown accustomed to doing it, which was the most wretched thing, I knew.

I could never touch Ji. As much as I loved her, I couldn't bear to climb on top of her, muffle her shrieks, watch her cry, pull out her life-force...

She likes that I am immortal. I see her jealousy. Her husband beats her, and she has the scars to prove it. Her children- nine boys- have grown up strong. All of them are treasured by her husband, and all of them are superior to her. Our world is patriarchal and she has to act like a broken shell around them.

Maybe her husband hates her because she never bound her feet. Either way, they all take her for granted. She is a bitter old woman, and she is still under their thumbs.

I paint Ji all the time. Her elderly wrinkles. Her youthful anger. Her sadness.

"Make me immortal," she tells me one night. "I just want to get out of here."