Simulacrum of the Serpent

             It would have been exciting to see my best friend again, had she still have eyes to see me as well.

             In the middle of the crowded room, my friend laid on an old hospital cot—still, faceless, not breathing but her heart still beating. Tita Lea had been looking after her daughter since the tragic night. The dark bags under her eyes are a telltale sign that she had been up all night, hoping her daughter would wake up any minute now. We both knew it was futile.

              “How can I be so stupid?” I growled under my breath and punched the nearest wall in anger and guilt. To think we’d only been chatting online the other day, telling me how I should come back because, she not only missed us hanging out, my old hometown needed my help. I told her it would have to wait until the weekend. If I only knew she would be next, I could have prevented it.

            “Get yourself together, Keira,” my grandfather Copio said. “You’re not psychic. None of us are.”

             “But look at all these people, Lolo! If I came home earlier, there wouldn’t be so many people confined in this room. I knew what was happening and I had to wait,” I retorted.

             My heart sank when I saw all the people in the room looking at us. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so loud. Now I felt mortified seeing all those faces, their eyes both pitying and condemning me. We were all in the same situation, after all. Our friends and families had been taken away from us. Not completely, but it still hurt. The difference was that I had the ability to get rid of the monster and they don’t. This was my fault.

             “It’s not your fault. I told you education comes first and I’m not going to scold you for following what I’ve taught you,” Lolo Copio said soberly, as though he sensed what I was feeling. “What’s done is done. Our job now is to find out what this thing is and end its life once and for all.”

            I sank in my chair in defeat and looked once more at what has become of my friend. I reached out to touch what once her face. My fingers chilled at the contact with the smooth, pore-less skin. My hand desperately explored the lifeless surface, just in case I might sense her breathing beneath the fleshy mask. It felt as if she never had a face at all, and I would have believed that if only her heart wasn’t beating anymore. This is not how I wanted to see my best friend after four long years. Sure, it could’ve been worse; she could be dead. But this . . . I don’t know what to feel about it. It was inhuman.

             I took my friend’s hand in my own and gripped it hard as tears start leaking from my eyes. “I’m sorry, Nicole.”

             Tita Lea rubbed my back while Lolo Copio laid a firm grasp on my shoulder. I raised my head and looked at my friend’s mother. She managed to give me a weak smile and told me I should be strong because if Nicole was here, she would have teased me for crying in public. I can’t help but giggle at her words even if I felt little happiness. But she’s right. This is not the time to be weak.

             “Don’t worry, Tita,” I assured her, “I’m going to get your daughter back.”

             I stood up and faced my grandfather. His brown eyes were full of sympathy yet sharpened with a sense of urgency. I had seen that look countless times before.

             “I’m ready, ‘Lo.” I declared, and Lolo Copio nodded.

         They’d already taken away my father. I refused to let them take any more of my loved ones. They want evil? I’ll show them evil. Hell has yet to learn the full extent of my wrath.

*

         It wasn’t that I enjoyed killing. Some just happened to ask for it.