People underestimate women. They give and give and give. No matter what their roles in life may be, they are expected to be endlessly kind, supportive, loving, and strong. Cook, clean, bend over backwards for those you love. Leave your identity at the door, come inside and wear the cloak of servitude. Smile, be pleasant, be sweet. Forgive, even when the person is not sorry. Speak only when spoken to, lest she offend, and make others feel uncomfortable...
Every day of her life from the time she was old enough to speak she felt that her own happiness, depended on her ability to make others happy. Those who knew her, knew her as a woman who would give you the shirt off her very back if you needed it. All anyone ever saw of her, was the sweet face and patient smile she presented to the world. The timid temperament she had been careful to cultivate as a young girl. No one noticed how those same warm brown eyes flashed from time to time, how they appeared to be black as night when someone spoke over her. How that beautiful smile stiffened when someone took her for granted...
It happened slowly at first. It began with the strange dreams, that somehow bled over into waking reality. One night she had a vivid dream of her transforming into a great black shadow, and lurking behind trees, following those people who tried her patience during the day. No harm came to these people right away, but every last one of them seemed to feel something other just outside their line of vision. They would shrug it off and go about their daily or nightly routines. Shed eventually wake up. Her feet caked in mud, brown foot prints leading to her bed and dirt clods resting ostentatiously on her sheets. The dreams progressed to her actively harming these people, and one night she even appeared in one of her own childrens bedrooms. She pulled herself out of that dream quickly, but not before hearing an odd low sing song voice,
"Release, release, you must, cast out the light which you cling to your bust".
It was goofy, the tune, the rhyme, but it was unsettling all the same. What did she need to release? What did these dreams mean? Why did her shape appear to be becoming more corporeal in these dreams? Eventually she shrugged it off, explained it away as just a series of weird nightmares, eating too close to bedtime or maybe she needed to lay off the crime podcasts in the evening. The cryptic warning made no sense to her no matter how she broke it down. So it got ignored, and shed go about her day. The nonsensical rhyme haunted her during her waking hours, especially when she found herself screaming for the 50th time and wishing fervently she could walk out of her children's lives. Wondering if losing her even for a brief period of time would make them listen more. If maybe it would make her family appreciate her more. These thoughts snowballed until she found herself all but growling with rage at the slightest provocation.
She looked into the mirror as she washed her hands. She jumped, her hands flew to her face. What she saw looking back at her stopped her heart cold. it was her face. But its reflection was twisted. the eyes were burning black coals. Cold as the depths of the deep sea, but brighter than any flame. Her mouth was permanently set in a hard sneer, teeth bared. her nostrils flared larger than she had ever seen them before. Her normally rounded cheeks were hollowed and sunk in, extenuating every cruel bone in her face, once hidden, but now protruding. The normal golden hues of her skin had turned an angry red. She let out a sob that sounded more like the primal war cry of a beast trapped in a cage with its mortal enemy.......it had finally happened. a low lilting voice drifted through her head
"if you can not release the negativity that you hide,the beast will become the face you present to the outside."
