The Taste of the Past

The following days felt like a waking nightmare. Now that fragments of her childhood had returned, memories crashed over Esperanza in relentless waves, each one darker than the last. She remembered details she wished had stayed buried forever.

Twelve had been the turning point. Puberty, with its hormonal chaos, had sharpened her urges into something far more terrifying. What had once been a morbid childhood curiosity had swelled into an all-consuming obsession. Manic episodes gripped her like tidal waves. To quiet the hunger, she had begun hunting animals.

She remembered those nights now — sneaking barefoot into the damp grass, guided by an instinct she never questioned. Wild rabbits, squirrels, sometimes even neighborhood cats. She caught them with unnatural speed, inflicting tiny cuts, just enough to gather their blood. Never enough to kill them — she wasn’t a monster, she had told herself. Just enough to take the edge off her growing thirst.

It was around that time she had begun to look at Luz differently. Her twin sister, so similar yet so unbearably pure, had become the center of a fascination that felt wrong even then. Not romantic — she hadn’t even had words for that kind of love — but something primal, something raw and organic. A hunger that sisterly affection could not justify. She remembered hours spent watching Luz, waiting for the smallest cut, the slightest nosebleed.

Abuela Rosa had always known. She had warned their parents: a demon sleeps in her blood.

Esperanza had perfected the art of opportunity. Luz had always been fragile, more prone to accidents. Scraped knees, split lips, skinned elbows. And Esperanza had learned to crave them. She was always the first to rush to her sister’s side, always volunteering to “clean” the wound. Their parents thought it sweet — big sisterly devotion, because Esperanza had been born a few minutes before Luz. They never saw the ecstatic glint in her eyes as she brought her lips closer to a bleeding cut while Luz recoiled in disgust.

It wasn’t love for a sister. It was need. Urgency. Luz had stopped being a person and become a source — a reservoir to quench a thirst that nothing else could.

These memories gnawed at Esperanza like acid. Now she understood the fear in Luz’s eyes, the way she flinched when her twin drew near. While Esperanza thrived in Tokyo, forgetting what she truly was, Luz had never forgotten. She had carried it all these years — the memory of her sister tasting her like a predator savoring prey.

“These scars,” Esperanza murmured one evening, staring at Luz’s forearms during dinner.

Luz froze, her chopsticks suspended halfway to her mouth.

“I made those, didn’t I ?” Esperanza whispered. “Those scars… they’re mine.”

The silence that followed was deafening. Their parents exchanged a look heavy with dread.

“Esperanza…” their father began.

Luz set her chopsticks down and finally met her sister’s eyes.

“Every single mark,” she said, her voice rough. “I remember the day you made it. When I didn’t have injuries, you created them. With your nails, with pins, with cutters, anything you could find. You always had an excuse — testing a bandage, advice you said Dad gave you, pretending animals lick their wounds to heal. You made it sound caring, loving even.”

Esperanza felt her world collapse around her. She had manipulated her own sister, betrayed her trust, just to feed her perverse impulses. Each scar now screamed a memory back at her — the taste of Luz’s blood, a unique blend of familiarity and forbidden ecstasy that drove her mad with craving.

Luz’s voice broke completely.
“Do you know the cruelest part ? I could never bring myself to hate you. You were my twin, my other half. When they sent you away to Tokyo, I felt relief and crushing guilt all at once. I was glad to see you go, but it felt like abandoning you.”

Esperanza raised her head slowly.
“You should have told someone. Had me locked up,” she said, hollow.

“We tried!” Luz’s voice rose, raw with old pain. “Mom and Dad tried to get you help! I told the psychiatrists everything. They didn’t believe me. To them, I was just a jealous sister making up stories for attention! You denied everything so well. You told them you wanted to be a doctor to save lives, that you were just a curious, empathetic child fascinated by medicine. They thought our parents were hysterical.”

Luz’s shoulders sagged, drained from the confession.

“I understand why you wanted to keep me away,” Esperanza whispered, sounding like a child caught stealing. “I’m sorry…”

“If only…” Luz’s voice was pale now, her gaze searching Esperanza’s face. “You don’t remember, do you ? The accident with Shiro, the Yamada family’s little Spitz ?”

Esperanza felt her blood run cold. That memory was locked away, buried so deep it had never surfaced, even in nightmares. A memory only a monster would choose to forget, because it stripped away any illusion of innocence. No play, no tenderness, no clumsy mistake — just pure, primitive evil. She was the only one who had forgotten.

“You lured him into the garden shed with treats,” Luz said, her voice shaking. “When I found you…”

“Stop,” Esperanza whispered, but Luz pressed on.

“When I found you, you were cutting his throat with a box cutter you’d stolen from Dad. Not to kill him. Just to drink. But Shiro fought back, and you cut too deep.”

The memory slammed into Esperanza, vivid and merciless. The small dog, bleeding out in her hands, whimpering in pain. Her own fury — not at the act, not at the cruelty — but because precious, warm blood was spilling uselessly onto the floor instead of into her mouth.

“Mom and Dad weren’t home. No one could save him. He died in my arms,” Luz finished, her face carved with grief and horror. “And you cried. Not out of guilt, not remorse. You cried because you ruined your ‘meal.’”

Esperanza crumpled into her chair, suffocated by the horror of herself. I was sick. Just sick, she told herself, clinging to the thought like a lifeline.

“We told everyone it was a rabid tanuki attack,” Luz said bitterly. “That’s when Mom and Dad decided to send you to Tita for good. They thought distance would fix you. And for years, we believed it had.”

“And now ?” Esperanza asked in a trembling whisper.

Luz looked at her, pity and terror warring in her eyes.
“Now the monster’s back. I see it in your eyes — the same glint as before. You’ve started hunting again, haven’t you ? The dirt under your nails, waking up with the taste of blood, the strange injuries on Yamanashi’s chickens. Did you think we wouldn’t notice ?”

Esperanza lowered her gaze, nodding weakly. Lying was pointless. She could feel the creature inside her stretching, stirring after years of forced sleep, ravenous and wild. And Luz… Luz was right there. Her blood so familiar, so precious, so tempting.

“Esperanza, I’m begging you,” Luz pleaded, tears welling. “This time, let us help you. We found a psychiatrist, someone who understands… who can help you control it. You’re sick, but you’re not lost.”

“It’s too late,” Esperanza murmured. And the smile — that old, twisted smile she used to wear whenever she’d “treated” Luz’s cuts — crept back onto her lips. A smile without warmth. Without regret.

She wasn’t the adolescent they had shipped to Tokyo in hopes of a gentle cure. She was once more the nightmare whispered about on moonless nights, the one mothers used to scare children, the one farmers swore haunted their goats: El Chupacabra.

And now, reading fear, rejection, and dread in their eyes, she saw no reason to fight what she truly was.

There would be no barriers anymore. No restraint. Neither animal nor human would escape her hunger.
And Luz — sweet, beloved Luz — least of all. Somewhere deep inside, Esperanza had always known this moment would come.