What Monsters Are Made Of
621 Words
She didn’t eat.
She didn’t speak.
She barely blinked the rest of the day.
The room—the mirror—the scratch in the wood—her mother’s picture—
All of it haunted her in ways that didn’t feel like memory.
They felt like warning.
Isha didn’t cry. Not for Amara. Not for Nisha. Not even for herself.
Because tears were for the innocent.
And she wasn’t sure she was anymore.
Not after what Zayan said.
> “I didn’t kill her.
But I didn’t save her either.”
That sentence echoed inside her like a curse. Like a lock clicking into place.
She didn’t know what it meant yet.
But she knew something now—something deeper than rage:
Zayan hadn’t inherited power.
He’d inherited pain.
And he was trying to own her to prove he could control it this time.
That was the difference.
That was the danger.
He didn’t want her to love him.
He wanted her to stay.
Even if he had to break her into pieces small enough to fit the shape of his obsession.
—
That night, he came to her room.
Unannounced.
Silent.
The door didn’t creak.
She turned from the window and saw him there—backlit by the hallway, dressed in black like he’d stepped out of her worst dream.
She didn’t flinch.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
He didn’t answer at first.
Just stared at her.
Then: “You looked too much like her. That first time.”
Isha’s breath caught.
He stepped inside.
“I thought I could control it,” he said. “That if I made you hate me, it would stop. But you keep looking at me with her eyes.”
She backed up one step.
“Zayan, don’t—”
“I let her die,” he whispered, voice raw. “Because I didn’t know how to keep her. And now every time I look at you…”
He trailed off.
Her pulse hammered in her chest.
“…I remember that I failed.”
He stepped closer.
She couldn’t move.
“You aren’t her,” he said.
“I know.”
“But you could be.”
She swallowed. “What do you want from me?”
He didn’t blink.
“Everything.”
She shook her head, voice trembling. “You think love is pain. That it has to hurt to be real. But I’m not your mother. I’m not your wound.”
Zayan tilted his head. “No. You’re the cure I was never supposed to have.”
He reached out, brushing her cheek with the back of his hand.
His touch was soft. Gentle.
But wrong.
Because it came from a place no softness should live.
And when she didn’t pull away—when she stood frozen, staring into his shadowed gaze—
He leaned down.
Lips barely touching hers.
Not a kiss.
A possession.
A claim.
And then he whispered against her mouth:
> “Don’t run again.
Because next time, I won’t chase.
I’ll bury.”
---
He left her standing in silence.
Not broken.
Not yet.
But close.
She locked the door behind him.
Turned off the lights.
And crawled under the blanket with her phone clutched to her chest.
The screen was dark.
But in her mind—
She saw Nisha.
She saw her mother.
She saw the man who wanted to make her choose between freedom and survival.
And for the first time, Isha knew:
If she wanted to escape—
She had to stop trying to flee.
And start playing him instead.
She had to become what he feared.
Not weak.
Not breakable.
Not his.
She had to become what monsters were made of.
- Writer
