When I was a little girl, I believed that the real monsters are human. After living a life such as mine, I have come to realize how right I was. I did not fear the monster in my closet as much as I feared the man outside. But more than I feared the man outside, I feared my own mind.

One day, many years after my realization, a very close friend of mine, being nineteen he was too young to have them, asked me what I would say when his children would wonder where all my scars came from. Immediately, I thought of kneeling down to two little boys. They had a very dark skin tone and wore very bright colors. They were about six and seven in my mind. They both looked almost exactly like their father.

I imagined taking these boys in my arms and hugging them for a moment as their father watched. I couldn’t imagine names for these boys because their father was from a culture that was far different from mine, so their names were far beyond my imagination.

I would tell these two boys the story of my fight with the worst monster. I could see their father tearing up a little because he knew the truth – the blunt and poignant truth. I would look at the boys and tell them my story.

A long time ago, a monster would take the form of a human and attack people. Sometimes it would win the battles with its victims, simply leaving cut marks all over them. In some rare cases, it would leave symbols or letters – its markings. The monster is very strong and would win most of it’s battles. The people who lost fights with the monster would cover up their wounds because all the people around them would only yell at them for losing the fights – but they would never help the victims.

One day when I was a child, the monster came after me. I was completely caught off guard and I didn’t know how to protect myself. I barely knew about the monster’s existence, let alone that it came after children too. It left me alive – but much worse than scarring me on the outside, it scarred me on the inside. Those wounds would never fade. After the first attack, I did everything I could to protect myself from it so that it could never hurt me again. For four whole years, I managed to fight it off. I was so happy that I managed to survive that I overlooked the fact that the monster never forgets its victims. I put my armor down because it stopped coming after me. I tried to forget. I thought I was safe. I thought it was finally over. The monster proved me to be very wrong.

At the end of those four years, the monster came back – and with a vengeance. Since I had been trying so hard to forget about the monster, I was caught off guard once again. I was hurt badly, but the monster let me live. I spent a lot of time wondering why it had let me live. It was strong and could have destroyed me at any time it wanted to, but it never did. I realized that the monster liked to play around with me like I was a toy. The monster came back for me twice in the next year, when I was seventeen years old.

“The first time, it left deep marks and hurt me badly. When it came back a second time, I surrendered my sword to it. As the monster came in for the final blow that would end my life, someone came and picked up my sword. The person slashed at the monster, causing it to flee. The monster was hurt very much, but – even to this day – I don’t know if the monster is dead. What I do know is that the monster doesn’t like when people come to its victim’s aid. That’s probably why the monster hasn’t come back for me – because I stay with the one who saved my life, and I always will.

At this point in the story, I imagined that the two boys would ask me who it was that saved my life that day – and I would turn them to face their father.