I am an ordinary woman.

I play by the rules, I laugh, I pray, I eat and I breathe. I do things everyone does. I have a name, like everyone else. 

I am normal.

I dress up, I play with the children, I cook and tend to the kitchen.

I am like every other woman.

Yet, even so, it just feels like something is missing. Like something or someone was taken away from me oh so unjustly. 

Everyday, I go out, into the sun, like everyone. Then I greet my neighbors, I greet my friends, and I greet the shopkeepers. They smile, I smile, and it is what is supposed to be a good day. I admire the cherry blossoms like everyone else, I look at how the pink lovely flowers bloom and when I do, I feel happy and nothing goes wrong. 

In the afternoon I eat alone in my wooden, paper, house, I place the food into my mouth with the chopsticks I use then I chew, and chew until it has dissolved. That is when I swallow it, according to a book I found in the library, it enters my esophagus then into my stomach. They call that the "Digestive system." Yet, even after eating twice by that time: I feel hungry, starved and malnourished. 

At night I pass by the shrines on the street, I see lanterns, I see statues of our ancestors and for a moment: I feel assured. Though that was never my focus: I used to have a daughter of my own. Everyday she would make paper cranes and hang them on her own little bonsai, that sight had never failed to make me smile. That was what would fill me up with hope. 

With happiness.

Just before I go to bed, I look into the mirror just before bed and feel the delicate skin on my face. I feel each and every one of my precise and gentle features, I feel my nose, my eyelids, and my lips. They are real, they are normal, they are distasteful. I just look at them. I stare in utter repulse at how much of an ugly child I am. I can just feel my own eyes burning into my skin, its almost like the person in the mirror is a whole new and different person, just hating at how sickening the person she saw appeared. 

I could just feel the hatred in her eyes just piercing through me like a sword. 

On normal nights, I would proceed to sleep and continue my routine of what is otherwise a normal, good and healthy day. 

But tonight was not normal. Tonight was anything but normal.

It was 7:45 PM on august 6 when it happened.

I was busy going on with my evening routine as I glared into the other woman in the mirror, or was she the one who glared at me? It then became silent, for a long moment. I could not hear the crickets chirping, or the people outside working. Then I heard a loud, deafening blast vibrate through the wooden walls of my house through my body. It was like a tornado had suddenly formed near my house, sucking it in but unlike one, was strongly repelling it. Through all this I just stayed calm. I just sat there, because I felt no pain. 

The experience was surreal, I felt oh so much pain just rush through my entire body, then nothing. It felt like my whole body was separating and just violently ripping and gushing apart, invisible scratches and wounds just forming on and in every part of my body. Then just pure nothing. No pain. No nothing. I looked around the room as lots and lots of blinding white light entered through the wooden crevices that expanded on the walls. It seemed like the light was slowly obliterating and burning the wooden walls of my small humble home. 

I then stood up. I felt so light, it was like I was not even there, in sudden shock I swiftly turn my head to the mirror to see a woman. I, relieved to have saved my appearance feel it as my relief turned out shortlived.

In the mirror was the slow image of a woman violently melting. Her arms deforming into big, large, fleshy bubbles of nothing but blood and skin. Her face oozing and drooping as her delicate features quickly became unrecognizable from the burns of ash and dust forming on every part of her body. I watched as it mimicked watching cupcakes bake, bubbling up and expanding as air pockets formed and popped in and with every little crevice. It was a gorey, disgusting sight as the bubbles of stretched tissue and muscle popped, leaving lots of blood and fluid flowed like a slow waterfall out and out of the spherical shape. 

Her body then proceeded to rupture as dry cracks formed all over her abdomen, as it violently SPLIT apart, leaving bloodied intestines, livers, stomach and what seemed to be disgustingly melted bone to quickly splutter out like cheddar on pizza as it melted out. Only to be engulfed by the bubbling, fleshy mess which was her skin. 

Suddenly I felt so, so much agony, erupting from every little crevice of the fragile little vessel I call my body. I screech and wail as I felt myself fall apart. Images of my daughter, oh my sweet sweet little angel, rushing and flashing through my blurring vision as I cry harder in extreme torment. It was like I was being pulled apart like a doll then squished back together vigorously, it felt like millions and millions of knives stabbed me continuously , thrusting through my heart then pulling out again and again, with a slight delay, letting lots of blood to gush out as the sharp knives continued its violent movement.

Then black.