Living Devil

A] Write the Beginning of a Horror story

“We stopped checking for monsters under our beds, when we realized that the biggest ones live inside us.”

They say when the world keeps perceiving you as a particular type of person, the label sticks and one starts viewing himself from the outsiders eye. This was true for me. They kept calling me a monster, day and night, and indeed I was one. It was as if my face was split between good and evil. One side, absolutely burnt, disfigured like a melted candle, while the other remained fair, shiny and beautiful. The good always wins over the bad they say…not in my case. There is no falling asleep once the monster is awake.

Shahid Khan had woken up the demon inside me and it was too late to retreat.

B] Write an ending for the same story

My eyes remained fixated on Shahid’s family as they wept. Bilal’s mother kept holding Bilal’s head in her hands and wailing, “My beautiful boy. What did they do? My beautiful boy,” over and over again. What a pity, I thought. Poor little Bilal, once a handsome looking twelve-year old boy with glossy black hair was now bald, deeply scarred and bruised. The police report had concluded that an animal had attacked the boy when he had gone camping with his school, or at least that’s what Shahid would be telling everyone.

They knew better, the forest was clear from any wild animals; an enemy had done this.  Tch, tch. Why? Who could perform such a barbarous act? What this world had come to, I wondered. My face then broke into such a wide grin that even the burnt side with the prominent frown, turned into a proper smile and I laughed loudly. I laughed till I wiped my tears, I laughed till my gleaming reflection on the bloody knife blurred and I laughed till I could laugh no more. The despair on Shahid’s face…oh I wish I had a camera. Then I looked at his ten-year old daughter and his slim, attractive, blond wife, still so beautiful.

I wish I had killed Bilal, or better yet, all of them.