Sumiko - Release Your Inner Monster

By Marcus Woolley

Sumiko

A gripping tale of a young woman named Sumiko struggling against an ancient evil that caused havoc in her family line for centuries. Follow as she tries her best to live a normal teenage life in Taipei, but the monster within her likes to remind Sumiko that he is still around.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marcus Woolley
• Release date: May 9, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224409358

Book preview

Chapter 1

1

Sumiko Has A Nightmare

‘I AM JUST A NORMAL girl,’ I used to say to myself in a way that helped bring me comfort. However, I knew that I was different on the inside. The other girls didn’t see me as normal. They teased and bullied me, you know the usual stuff that bullying girls do, a hard shove of the shoulder here, the knocking books out of my hand there. I had grown used to it, but I was getting very tired. A growing anger resonated inside me, but I was too afraid to show my true colours. I knew that what I could become would hurt those other girls more than they have ever hurt me. I needed to keep the monster inside me, inside.

Oh yeah, that is what made me not a normal girl, did I not say? I was a monster. Well, not me personally but there was a monster within me that came out, well tried and come out. I did everything in my power to keep it at bay. I was not the only one who knew about it. My mother and grandmother knew about it. It apparently runs in the family, but only the women of the family have this monster syndrome. I discovered it when I was about ten years old. It came to me in a dream. I remember the dream so well. The monster, something not of our world, tall, and grotesque, along with an arched back and the constant hunger for flesh and blood. In the dream, this thing crawled inside of me, it pried open my mouth and basically just stepped in, as if I were a vessel. When I woke the next morning, my jaws felt like they had been unhinged and my throat felt raw. When I told my father about the dream, he brushed it off as just a nightmare, he was more interested in his newspaper the ‘Taiwan Times,’ an article about Chinese jets coming into Taiwanese airspace. He is the reason for my name, Sumiko. He had an obsession with all things Japanese.

I often wondered if he would have liked it if we were still part of Japan.

2

The Family Secret

My mother on the other hand reacted differently; as soon as I mentioned the horror and described it, the cluttering of dishes in the sink clanged together as if the bowl she was washing clean dropped into the sink. I looked at Mother, her shoulders raised. She looked around at me but not with eyes of care and love that would normally come when their sweet little angel told them of a nightmare, but the eyes of fear. After I went back into my bedroom to get myself ready for school, my mother came into my room. I remember it so well because normally she is quite the strict sort, you know, the usual type of Asian mothers who want their child to have good grades and good discipline. But, this time was different, she let her guard down. She sat on the end of my bed, avoiding eye contact with me, instead, she looked at the Tripitaka, the holy book of Buddhism on my bookshelf. Sumiko, can I talk with you for a minute? she had asked with a little jumpiness in her voice. I didn’t say anything but sat down next to her on the bed.

Sumiko, there is something very important that I must tell you, but you have to promise not to tell anyone else. Your friends, your teachers, not even your father. the stern look on her face was back when she spoke these words. Her bony finger was directed within inches of my face. I just gave her a nod and one of my sweet smiles Of course, mummy. I remember thinking that she actually knew nothing about me, I didn't have friends and my teachers hardly noticed me in the classroom. I am just the girl at the back of the class, the one they ignore when I raise my hand to answer questions. These days, I just don’t even bother doing that anymore.

Right, in our family we have a secret, she pressed her hands down on her legs, squeezing the top of her knees, this is something that has been going back for centuries, I am the same, and so is your grandmother and so was her mother, I remember trying to look into my mother’s eyes, but she avoided eye contact at all costs. I hated it, I wanted her to look at me as she told me. You are a monster Sumiko, we all are. I didn’t know how to take the news in my ten-year-old mind. I remember the tears forming in my eyes, dripping down onto my school uniform. It hurt, my own mother, to call me a monster

I noticed beside her, that there was an old black and white photograph, it was small and folded. She picked it up and passed it over to me. The horror that I saw in the picture was more than what my ten-year-old mind could handle. In the picture was a woman, she looked possessed, being chained down to the bed, clawing away at the sheets, next to her were some religious people, but it was hard to make out what they were doing. There was evil in her eyes and the skin of her cheeks started to rip as she snarled.

Who’s that? I asked her nervously, wondering why she would show me such a thing. That is your grandmother, this photo was taken when she was a teenage girl, she couldn’t hold it within her, the monster inside her grew and tried to wreak havoc on the village that she was living, down in Nantou. I couldn’t believe that the person in the photo was my grandmother. The kind woman who always gives me Hong Bao at Chinese New Year, shoving at least three thousand Taiwan dollars into the red envelope. The same woman whose dumplings are to die for. The one who cradled me as a little girl, the one who showed me how to play the ruan, a Chinese guitar. The woman I loved most dearly.

That’s grandma? I remember questioning, holding the photo in my little hands, I passed it back to my mother, I didn’t want to see the picture anymore, and she shoved it into her pocket quickly when she heard the shuffle of my father at the breakfast table, he was getting himself ready to head out to work at the local electrical plant. This is a secret between us ladies, no one must know, I repeat, no one. I just nodded and she just left the room, once again avoiding the gaze of my eyes.

Chapter 2

1

Tea With Ya-ting

As I navigated through my childhood, trying to blend in with the semblance of a ‘normal life, I couldn’t shake the occasional burst of violence that erupted within me. I’d scratch my father until he bled, and once, I impulsively lunged a pencil toward a boy’s eye. Miraculously, I missed by a hair’s breadth.

In my early teenage years, the unsettling curiosity about the mysterious monster within me intensified. The questions festered like an itch I couldn’t ignore. Determined to unravel the truth, I decided to confront my grandmother, Ya-ting. Offering to help with the shopping, I stocked her kitchen with fresh ingredients, mostly vegetables. Despite the rain pouring over the city, we found ourselves huddled at the kitchen table, surrounded by the rhythmic symphony of a typhoon downpour hitting the tinned roof that protected the small alleyway between her building and the block of flats on the other side. My Grandmother had just brewed a fresh cup of tea, just like her mother, Shu-fen, green tea with honey. Sumiko hated to admit it, but she was sick and tired of green tea with honey, but it seemed to be the only thing that helped.

Grandma, I need to ask you something, I had said to her, my fingers wrapped around the warm cup of tea, the steam rising, then evaporating before my eyes. What is it, Sumiko? she had asked, still looking at the rainfall from the window. The light of the kitchen was dim and sombre, the perfect time for a heart-to-heart.

I have questions about the monster inside me. I wanted to ask Mum but she refuses to even recognise its existence. My Grandmother turned around then, she looked into my eyes, shifting her saw buttocks in the chair. Now her attention was fully on me. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach as I continued to ask. I just want to know how it had started?. The silence was deafening, I just wanted her to answer to break it, it was killing me the way she stared. To my surprise, just shrugged her shoulders and asked Are you sure you want to know? It is always best to try and forget about it.

I am sure, I replied to her, my curiosity bubbling like over-boiled water on the stove.

Okay, but first more tea. Then I will tell the story. She tapped her cup with her bony finger. Of course, Grandma, I said with great haste, fixing another cup of green tea with honey.

2

Uniqmon

Four centuries into our family’s past, I believe to you it would be your fifth great-grandmother. We lived in the part of China known as Xinjiang. It is the most northwestern part of the country. Our family were desert people, I had no idea what we were doing all that time in the desert, but we were there.

The Taklimakan Desert, I said excitedly, "we had just learned about it in geography class," I soon followed. More excited that I remembered something that I had learned. 

"That’s right, the Taklimakan Desert, that was our home. Anyway, the story goes that one day there was a family feud, something about ownership of some land, I don’t know the full details of that but it isn’t very important, so I won’t bore you. Our ancestor ran off into the desert when she was a young girl. I suppose she wanted to hide away from all the arguing. As she walked through the dunes of the desert, the hot sun baked down onto her, she hadn’t prepared herself, with no water or shade. 

Anyway, the story goes that a shrine had appeared behind one of the high dunes. It was of usual Chinese architecture, you know with the roofs that flicked off towards the sky. The wall also had a big opening, it went into a room. She obviously didn’t care what it was, all she saw was that it had provided shade." 

I tried to picture this when I was sitting there staring into my grandmother’s eyes. I was still in shock that we had come from China, always believing that we were only Taiwanese. 

"Inside the shrine, she sheltered. She had planned to only stay long enough until the sun had begun to set over the horizon, the perfect time to walk back home before it got too dark. As you can imagine, there would be no lights in the desert and the temperatures drop quite fast at night. 

As she passed the time, she looked at the images that were engraved into the wall, she couldn’t make head to tail of the images, but her little fingers danced and twirled in all the swirls. The next thing she knew, it was dark outside. She must have dozed off at some point in boredom. The night was clear and windless, she could see the stars splattered across the vast blackness of the night sky. So with such calmness, she was more than surprised when a small sanded tornado came out of nowhere and stopped at the top of one of the dunes. "

As an adult, it would have been hard to believe in such a tale, but how can I say it was wrong, there is no logical sense for the curse.

"A man-like figure appeared, in a black cloak that fluttered as the tornado disappeared into the air. She looked up at him and the figure looked down at her. It began to walk towards her, she had nowhere to run, the dunes stretched on for miles and the village was not for another twenty or thirty minutes walk. She stood her ground, though I could imagine she was a little scared. 

As the figure got closer, she could see that it was no man. She didn’t know what it was, but it stood with a strong stance, it’s eyes, though small glowed a fiery red. Its beard stretched down to its toes, thinning out at the bottom. The face was covered in wrinkled lines as if it were an oversized raisin. I still believe it to be a demon." 

I remember not liking that part of the story. The idea that that thing even existed was enough to bring me strange nightmares for at least another month after this story was told. 

"In a low cackling voice it greeted her, even surprisingly with a