By Blood We Live

Carefully, you inch your way towards the window. Your wings beat faster, and you hear a swift crack as your bones sever themselves. You feel lighter suddenly, half flesh and skin, the human side stripped away as you abandon yourself to another creature, feral and wild. A scream rips from your mouth, and you hear others answer. The wind whips around you, invisible fingers ru

You take a deep breath. Hunger returns: stomach pangs stronger than any need for human food. (

Well, there is such a thing as "human" food.) Your mouth tastes imagined blood, sweet/thick, and you know that tonight will be a feast.

Candy-coated words dribble out of your mouth as you lean into the microphone, your hands ru

You know Kian finds you beautiful when you sing-some residual psychic abilities remain at least twenty-four hours after you feed. You give him your patent come-hither look that you use whenever you sing "Hanggang Saan." That was the latest song you guys had pe

But tonight, you are focused on Kian. You run the tip of your tongue across the edges of your teeth, and pretend you aren't looking at him while he's looking at you. He's dressed up for tonight's gig: pressed midnight blue jeans and a button-down polo (you were with him when you bought this at People Are People) with a Tasmanian Devil tie. His sneakers are newly washed, and he smells like soap and deodorant, clean and smooth, like clear river water constantly washing over the shiny pebble shores.

You are feeding more often now, at least once every two days. The siren call is harder and harder to ignore. Your mother finally notices the dark circles under your eyes, fingerprints of a night spent without sleep, and your chalk-white cheeks. You wander around your house barefoot, dragging your legs, tired. Your father presses the back of his hand on your forehead, an act of concern. You try and stop yourself from tilting your head back and forcing his fingers into your mouth, a small snack in the middle of the day.

Your back is constantly sore, and drops of blood pepper your sheets. Your mother asks you if it's anything she could help you with, and you smile sweetly and tell her no, perhaps it's just dysmenorrhea. (You know you're a good liar.)

You tell the band that you're having a case of the stomach flu, and if Lia could sub first while you deal with the pain. They acquiesce, understanding that pain is a part of your life. Kian visits you often, bringing rolls of

ensaymada from Red Ribbon, and complimenting your mother on her new hairdo. She simpers and smiles and asks him if he has a girlfriend, and you know where the conversation is going and start wishing a hole in the ground would open up and swallow you alive. Or your mother. Your stomach starts hurting again, like there is an invisible dwarf with a silver knife that is slowly peeling away layers of flesh, and dammit, you know that tonight, you have to fly again.

Until when are we going to walk

Arm in arm, hand in hand, friends?

Are we only fooling each other

Because neither wants to speak?

– "Until When," Hands Down

When Kian first introduces you to Katherine, it is all you can do to stop from breaking her delicate little fingers in your grip. She gives you a Barbie Doll smile and tells you that she's happy to meet you and that Christopher (

Christopher? He had never used that name since high school.) has told her so much about his best friend Rachel. You want to roll your eyes so far into your head that you might be drowned in the dark, but Kian quickly steers her away from you and towards the small round table near the amps. Lia passes by and takes you by the elbow, then frog-marches you towards the girls' toilets.

Inside the ceramic-tiled room, she proceeds to tell you how much she

hates Kian's new girl and that if she had it her way, she would allow her latent Chinese side (the side that loves pain and torture, which then makes you wonder just how is hers and Paolo's sex life, and if the rope burn rumors are true) to take over and just slice off Katherine's flesh, one sliver at a time, until she's flayed a million times over and blood is dripping on the floor in heart-shaped droplets.

You kindly thank Lia for her thoughtful words as you lean towards the counter and position your hands underneath the sink. Water automatically gushes out from the tap and you turn your wrists, letting the cool, clear liquid wash away the memory of Katherine's touch. A part of you feels that this is a dream, a hallucinatory experience. Your stomach feels like a thousand tiny balloons straining against a net, and you're afraid that you're ready to explode.

There is a knock on the door, and you can hear Raffy, your manager, asking in his disconcertingly nasal voice (even though he says he's not gay) that it's five minutes before the set starts. Lia hollers that you're ready, that you two are just freshening up. You grip the edge of the sink with both hands, and watch in detached fascination as the color of your fingernails slowly seep away, almost matching the pale egg white surface of the sink.

You feel Lia's strong hands on your back, and you dry heave into the sink. You tell her it's just nerves, that you can't remember performing in front of an audience this large, and in a venue this popular-the Hole was like home, but a newer, larger venue, with possible scouts is something else-but Lia just rubs your back harder, until you feel the balloons carefully pop.

You now feed with a vengeance, your wings ripping through the air like sharp claws across a stretch of fine dark silk. Your tongue continually snakes out from between your lips, tasting invisible molecules, your body constantly angled, a stubborn compass needle pointing towards the next prey.

Before, when you were just starting out and you were unaccustomed to the taste of meat, you decided to just have a meal a night. You were careful to choose only the mothers who never wanted their child, or those who prayed fervently each night that they would be a good girl, that they would never allow

that man into their beds and inside their hearts, those who were too frightened of the hilot or the Quiapo vendors who sold herbal concoctions beside the church. You would listen carefully to the susurrus of voices in your head, carefully separating strand from strand, allowing the most fearful to surface inside your head, like a drop of oil in a bowl of water.

But now you are ravenous. Anger fuels your hunt, and it is only after the fifth feeding that you feel slightly satisfied. You lick the blood coating your lips, run your fingers lightly across your incisors in order to check for any stray bits of meat. Carefully, you poise yourself from the edge of the corrugated tin rooftop, ready to take flight. Beneath you, the girl sleeps soundly in a small pool of dark blood, the color of the evening tide. You stretch out your wings and leap on the back of the wind. The thrill of flight still excites you, even after all these years, and you abandon yourself to the moment, the patterns of the wind at midnight, the way the city lights seem to mirror the constellation of stars scattered across the sky.