Death didn’t hurt. Not because it was physically painless, instead it just meant this hell would come to an end. He could no longer lay hands on me. Hands that were foul, filthy and faithless. As he touched for the last time, I took my last breath, and my soul slipped out of my bruised, broken body. As I ascended to the heavens, I looked back and saw my murderer crying crocodile tears. Why did my death make him sad? It wasn’t sadness, maybe it was selfishness? He could easily find another flower to pull apart, one petal at a time — just like he did to me.

I reached the seventh sky, that is where I met the Creator, and I questioned Him, “was I simply created for masculine pleasure?” He responded with, “I have created flowers like you to beautify My land, but sometimes the vile wind blows off your petals and steals your pollen, and I cannot control the vileness of it.” My pollen was stolen at the early age of sixteen, by an older man, the age I should have been chasing fantasies, not flinching from fear. In the eyes of the world, he was not the sinner — I was. The Creator presented me with two possibilities, “The end is this, and you get to meet your beloved at the other side, or…” he paused. “Or what?” I questioned. “You shall return home, yet not as yourself but as something cursed and feared, with feet turned backwards and fingers long. You shan’t know peace or love, only purpose.”

Purpose? Before I could ask, he spoke, “To save those who cannot save themselves.”

He told me that I must return before dawn or He would banish me to the hell where Jinns resided. The Jinns were the male version of the demon I was about to become — but with one crucial distinguishment. We were the victims, and our demonic selves born from suffering, proving resilience, while they were the assaulters. And they wore their monstrosity as crowns, with pride, not disgust.