Beautiful People

FACT: During the occupation of the Japanese in the Philippines, they conducted secret vivisection and human experiment to Filipinos. Around 30-50 was said to underwent this activity and most of them are children and women. You can read more of these by following the link below:
https://filipiknow.net/facts-about-world-war-ii-in-the-philippines/#1_The_Japanese_performed_human_experiments_and_cannibalized_Filipinos

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2006/11/27/national/vivisection-on-filipinos-admitted/#.XeXZpoMza1s

(The following story is a work of fiction)

They call themselves ‘Kami’.

We don’t know what does that mean other than it rhymes with the word ‘devil’. But even without an etymological knowledge, we already knew that these words shares the same damn definition.

We welcome them in our shore. For the third time around our land spread forth its arms to another visitors from far flung place. My grandfather said we never learn our lessons but our officials are too engrossed with all the wonders they brought that they forget the horrifying possibilities; of the past that might haunt us again from another alien hands.

War machines flying on their steel wings, battle ships carrying a white flag with red blood circle on its center and slit eyed soldiers on khaki uniforms wielding long swords and bladed rifle at the same time. These are among the impressions they exhume the moment they start interacting with us. I feel terrified for no reason when they begun marching in our village; glancing and smiling to every people they encounter.

Never did I knew that at that moment, they are already assessing us; examining who among us will be a suitable ‘toy’ for their playground.

Months had passed and these people shed their skin like snakes to reveal the color of their intentions; it was dark as death and as vivid as a nightmare. They claimed our land with both iron hands and searing lust; killing our men for fun and taking our women to satiate their sadistic urges.

Our officials weep on their blindfolds as they allow their puppet strings to control them without any slight resistance. Our nation once more is under the machination of people who also wanted to spread the legs of our mother land; unsatisfied with her open arms.

Yet we only reach  the gates of hell.

One Sunday morning when all of us are enjoying the last heat of summer season, they paid us a visit that ended up some us being dragged in the ground with a promise that they will never see their family again. Those who dare to fight with bolo or bamboo stakes are immediately shot on the spot. To add more insult for being powerless, they even spit at the bloodied remains of our neighbor while speaking strange tongues that I guess is the exact language of those who dwells in inferno.

“Bakero!” They mock with their lewd laughter as they leave our village with their ‘toys’. Unfortunately, I am one of the selected individuals that will be invited inside their playground.

I am not a religious person.I enter our church for about three times only: my baptism, during the funeral of my father and when I get married. But God knows I call all the name of the saints I know and even the made up ones as I enter the camp and found what hell actually looks like on the inside.

The devils here wear white gowns, gloves and face mask. The sinners are not wallowed in sea of fire nor in brimstone. To be honest they are just probinsyanos and probinsyanas like me who wanted a life of simplicity; food, shelter and family. But they are shove inside a four walled chamber that subjects them in atrocities that agonized not just flesh and soul; their identity as a human being had also been annihilated.

They are dissected and butchered like cattle in a slaughterhouse; peeling their skin, dismantling their bones and disassembling every organs in their body. It was a sickening vision that mired my mind as if it was flayed countless times until it drains everything inside of it.

Body parts hanged in hooks and threads sway idly as these devils in white busily cut and reshape them with tools of menacing appearance. Yet there is something more to add to the already potent mixture of fear and danger swelling inside me; the various body parts of animals from wings, horns and claws beside the human organs that they harvested.

“W-wait,what are they doing to them?” Out of sheer dread a word slipped from my mouth which I failed to even consider whether they take it as an insult or a compliment to their diabolic works.

Chills crawl like spiders in my spine when one of them smile at me as he heard my voice. I didn’t see his smile but I knew in his eyes that he was amuse as it glimmer with glee like a child enjoying his brand new toy.  To  my surprise, he answer my question by showing me some of their finished product; the fruit of their ghoulish labor.

They took us in a separate chamber in their camp where the gallery of grotesque creature stood in front of me. All of them are former humans bound in the same skin as mine and has the same number of hands and feet like everyone else in this land. But now they the paragon of monstrosity; beings that exceed the anatomy of animal and man. Under the knife of these devils they are now winged beings donning the fangs of bat and the claws of great cats. Others underwent a total eradication of their human physique; skin replaced by scales, stallion’s head over their shoulder and whipping tails on their behind.

There are some who transformed completely into something that redefine the meaning of horror itself; giants with shadow of skin and children with wrinkled faces that make them like midget old man. One of these abomination even stare at me with vicious red eyes; a big fat lady with bluish skin and a hair protruding from different directions.

But her expression soften immediately as if she recognize me. Then it came to me that the beauty mark below her lips and the aquiline face strikes a similarity with my friend Pinang.

“P-pinang?” The shock was too hard to swallow that found myself covering my mouth as tears of sympathy and dread engulf me.

“You should just kill yourself Maria...” She answer with watery eyes.

One of the soldiers gave me a quick smack with the butt end of his rifle as he saw us conversing. Pinang wanted to retaliate but like the rest of the creatures, they are chained and cage.

“Bakero! Hanashite Inai!” He growl at me while I cover myself with my arms for his incoming blow.

“Yameru!” Another soldier shouted. He wears a round eye glasses and sports a deep gash that runs from his head down to his left eye.

“Hai, Taisho!” My assailant saluted and refrain quickly from harassing me.

Just when I thought I was saved, the fierce looking soldier in eyeglasses motioned one of the white devils to come at him. They chat with one another in whisper that I can’t comprehend except for gesture of the soldier as if he was cutting something in the air.

“Ike.”

Two devils grabbed both in my arms and feet. I wanted to struggle but they are much stronger than I am and its futile for escaping could only lead me to death for .

Then Pinang’s eyes and mine met for the last time. Her words become a repetitive music as they carry me back to their workshop.

Is there anymore way but death?

Once they restrained me from a bed that looks like a cross, they went on gathering their tools and equipments ranging from saws, syringe the size of an adult’s hand and a nine inch needle. From a steel cabinet they took a paper wherein a perverse image was drawn with meticulous details of a human body without its lower parts.

When I saw the  large bat like wings attached on its back, I screamed and beg for them not to continue what they are about to do. I am soaking with my own piss at that time and try my hardest to unloosen the chains and belt straps on my arms and feet.

So my fate is to become that creature;a flying aberration without a half of its body.

“No! Please! Don’t do it--!” Before I can even hurt my throat, they already gagged me with a sphere like object that strapped around my mouth.

“Sugoi...” The two white devils whisper as one of their colleagues brought a par of large leathery wings mounted in a frame. The sight brought a more intense shivering all over me as I continue to call for help despite the fact its useless.

As the sound of their machine begin to whirl and deafened my whole efforts to remain in my human shell, the world begin to melt all around me. What kind of people are they? Why are they doing this to us? Is this is the real destiny that awaits us all?

Where is God when you need him most?

Then something sting my whole arm. The pain commence immediately as unseen fluid seeps down my veins. And it ends with a welcoming numbness. Calmness. Darkness.

And comes the sound of flesh crying to stop the bleeding and tearing as it accompanied by countless animal bellows.

But I am not sure whether they are fighting or perhaps feasting.

When I open my eyes, it’s almost quarter past midnight and my head feels like there was a crack on it. My vision was still blurry but after a few seconds I starting to see clearly my surrounding.

The body parts and organs was still there decorating the chambers but there are still more scattered all around its floor. It seems there is a violent commotion that happened when I was unconscious for all the tools and equipments are all over the places together with broken beds and smashed faces of the white devils...

They are all dead?

Panic arouse my senses as the vision of carnage flood my eyes from all corners of the camp. A cold hand that reach my shoulder make my hair stood and give my heart a painful pinch.

“We are saved now Maria.”

It was Pinang; not her former self but the Pinang made of bulging fats and flesh yet her smile remains human. And I can’t help but to weep once more as I saw my friend. Relief and sadness found their outlet in my eyes as I pour every heaviness within.

“Who saved us Pinang?”

My friend pointed at my left and as I cast my eyes on that direction, it felt like I am looking through an anthropomorphic dream garbed in the fabrics of fantasy that once I enjoy from my late mother’s midnight tales.

A woman of slender figure but with a height of giant appears right before me as she enter the chamber together with all the imprisoned former humans that now are force to accept their bestial appearance.

She was glimmering on her green gown and her skin bears the shade of fertile earth. She could be a saint but all of us are not familiar with her. There is no such figure that is in display inside the church that looks like her.

As she walk straight towards me, I warmth that burns with me care and tender emanates from her. The more she gets closer the more my fear is slowly dissolving; like I was embrace by the scent of my mother.

“My child, why you haven’t learn your lesson?”

Her smooth bronze face now painted by a streak of pure, colorless tears as she touch my face.

“Stop being a whore!” I saw the frustration and the concern on her voice and it brings back the heaviness in my chest.

Then her hands reach out something on my back. A sudden jolt escalates within my whole body as her fingers touch something black and dormant behind me.

And it started to unfold; two great wings spread itself. But they are not as marvelous as the flock of feathered dove I always adore whenever I watch them soar above the plazuela. Mine was more powerful but bestial.  Meant for death and not for beauty.

It only dawns upon me the that I am mounted in a steel frame ever since the time I woke up. And the truth brings more hurtful image as I look upon my missing lower part and all of my intestines are hanging like loose thread in the air; fresh crimson drips on their ends.

“My..G-god..” I cover my face and begin to sob but I ended up wounding it for my nails are now sharp as nails and elongated.

I tried to utter more words but my tongue was getting scratched from the razor teeth planted on gums.

Ever since this morning I really did tried everything that I can do but its all vanity. And the only thing I can do is to lament of what happened. Of what have we become.

“Don’t worry, everything will be fine now.” The mysterious woman hugged me tightly as I wallowed myself deeper and deeper into the ocean of sorrow.

“But they are not yet done. This is only a part of their army and they are coming family in the village...and for our fellow countrymen.” The black giant spoke with a low grunt to the lady in green as he foresee that what conspire here might trigger chaos to our already endangered country.

“No...we will protect you. Just like what we have done before. But this will be the last..” She answers with regret as she look upon the horizon and never glancing at us.

“What should we do then? We can’t return anymore in our families...” Pinang asked while looking at her and everyone with a defeated eyes.

“You’ll be coming with me...to a place where you will be accepted...where you will be beautiful in the eyes of others.”

We didn’t know for sure who is this woman nor where did she came from but after tasting hell itself, we will clutch whatever promise of heaven that offers us.

“Is there a place that will actually welcome monsters like us?”

“There is...but once you go there, you can never go back here.” She smile sweetly as she reach out her hand to all of us.

“Will you come, everyone?”

Soon a war will begin once more in this land and our people will be delivered in another great tribulations. But we will never see how they will rise from the ruins and wounds inflicted by the outsiders. And never we will know if they actually learn their lesson to not spread the mother land’s thigh to everyone else.

But the lady made a promise to us that once our country was held once more by the hands of outsiders, we will claim it by force.

“Because this land belongs to the beautiful people.” She said while her eyes begin to glow in red.