I woke up almost out of breath, with beads of sweat across my forehead. I had a horrible nightmare. Nothing out of the ordinary, just the usual swirl of dark shapes and ghostly faces and splattered blood. These dreams used to fuel the artwork of my waking hours. People call my art demented, depraved, and plainly insane. I just painted them how I saw them in my mind’s eye. But for the first time today, I saw what they meant, and I felt really scared.

I was alone in my cell. I felt the coldness rushing in. Memories started recollecting on how I ended up in this institution. Then the tears started to form, and as they grow heavy, they fell. I didn’t understand. Why was I crying? Was that how it felt like to be… sad? Remorseful? Guilty?

This was what the persecutors were hoping I’d feel. So did the relatives of my… victims.

Growing up, I was a golden boy, a genius, prodigy. For generations, ever since the curse affected my homeland, every child was born with some sort of disability. Usually, they will be either born blind, deaf, or cripple. But they will most likely grow out of it once they turn 18, as the curse dictates. This, however, was not the case for me. I was born without those conditions. My eyesight was perfect, if not a bit nearsighted from all the late-night reading. My hearing, I learned to play the piano at the age of 4. My body, tip-top shape from being active in sports. With that, I excelled in whatever I put my mind into. Without needing to go through the years learning how to live with a disability, and more years re-adjusting to the “normal”, adult life, I was able to achieve what most people do in their late 20s.

I was the hope my people saw, the sign that the curse will soon be over. That soon, babies will be born “normal” again. Until they finally discovered what was ultimately wrong with me.

The signs started showing when I was 13. We had this huge aquarium in our classroom. One day, curiosity seemed to have just got the best of me. I was thinking, how long it would take for the fishes to die outside water? So I drained the aquarium and watched nonchalantly as how each fish flopped around and, one by one, stopped. A classmate who was deaf saw me. While draining the aquarium, I apparently did not notice that one fish escaped and was still flopping on the floor. She begged me, in sign language, to save it. Instead, I squished it with my foot. And let me tell you, the deaf kids have the loudest and most guttural-sounding cries.

I committed one atrocity after another, one getting worse and criminal after the last. From small animals, to something bigger… and then to tormenting the disabled kids.

What finally got me locked in this juvenile mental facility was when… I burned down an orphanage for blind kids. I wondered how long before they recognize the flames if they couldn’t see it, and how they’ll manage to escape. Ten kids died that night. More if they weren’t saved by that one who just turned 18 that night. Imagine being greeted by the flames when he opened his eyes for the first time.

Today on my 18th birthday, I felt all these emotions crashing down on me. It was like my first time having a heart, evident by the tightening feeling on my chest. I couldn’t stop my eyes from crying, the first time I ever did. It was the first time I also felt… joy, delayed from all those years I had been just a timid, emotionless child. But this tiny bit of sweetness just made all the remorse and guilt and menace feel even more bitter.

They were right, my disability was that I severely, criminally, lacked empathy. And all sort of real emotion, for that matter.

Today, as an 18 year-old being “normal” for the first time, I will be tried as an adult for my crimes.