Beneath the Surface, the Truth Bleeds

The world had always worn a mask.
A mask of normalcy.
Of safety.
Of lies carefully stitched together with whispered promises and half-truths.

But tonight, that mask shattered.
Like fragile glass thrown against cold concrete, it exploded into a thousand jagged pieces, cutting deep into the flesh of reality.

They told me to stay silent.
They told me some truths were too dangerous to speak aloud.
But silence is a poison, and I have been slowly dying inside, swallowed whole by the shadows of deception.

The house was a cage.
Walls soaked with secrets, floors creaking under the weight of unspoken horrors.
I walked through the dim corridors, each step echoing like a heartbeat in a tomb.
Every corner held a memory — a scream frozen in time, a betrayal etched into the wallpaper.

I remember the first night I saw it.
Not the monster, not the shadow — but the truth.
It was a flicker in the corner of my eye, a ripple beneath the surface of the mundane.
The smile on their face was too perfect, a mask too tight to hide the rot beneath.

I wanted to believe.
Desperately.
But belief is a fragile thread, and mine snapped under the weight of what I uncovered.

They were puppeteers, weaving lies with silver tongues and velvet hands.
Behind closed doors, they orchestrated pain like a symphony, each note a carefully calibrated cruelty.
And I was their audience — unwilling, horrified, trapped.

The nights became battles.
Between what I wanted to see and what I had to face.
Sleep abandoned me, leaving only nightmares that clawed at my sanity.
I saw faces in the dark — not ghosts, but memories twisted by fear and rage.

One evening, I found myself staring into a shattered mirror.
My reflection splintered into shards, each fragment revealing a piece of the broken truth.
Who was I now?
A survivor?
A victim?
Or something darker, forged by pain and betrayal?

The air was thick with the scent of decay and lost hope.
I could almost hear the walls whispering, mocking me with their silence.
But then came the moment of reckoning.

I discovered the letter.
Hidden beneath floorboards, folded with trembling hands.
Words scrawled in desperation, a confession soaked in blood and regret.

It named names.
It exposed the rot at the core.
It shattered the illusion once and for all.

And then, the shock — the twist that no one saw coming.

The monster was not a stranger.
Not an outsider lurking in the shadows.
It was me.

The truth I had buried deep beneath layers of denial and fear.
The part of me that had turned blind eyes and silenced screams.
The darkness I had fed with my own cowardice.

I looked down at my hands — stained, trembling, trembling.
How many times had I chosen silence over justice?
How many lives had I shattered by turning away?

The house was not a cage anymore.
It was a mirror.
Reflecting the ugliest parts of myself.

And in that moment, I understood — the real horror was not the shadows lurking outside.
It was the darkness bleeding from within.

The mask was gone.
And with it, the fragile illusion of innocence.

The world had been watching.
Waiting.
And now, so was I.

Because some truths demand to be screamed into the void.
Even if the void screams back.