There’s a curse on my bloodline. I don’t know how many generations it had spanned. No one likes to talk about it, but we all know its there. We all know we’re biding time until it’s our turn.

It works like this.

You are born, and you are ignorant. I’d say innocent, but it only lasts until you know, and then you can never unknow. There’s nothing innocent about a secret that can only be kept so long. Eventually, it’ll take someone.

It’s a silent curse and its unpredictable. That’s what makes it so dangerous.

We don’t even know that much about it. There’s no way to protect ourselves when we’re born with it lurking in our blood, slithering in our veins. Waiting whenever it pleases to makes itself known.

My maternal grandma has lived with it the longest.

It made her its host when I was young enough and ignorant enough to not be afraid of it yet.

It coddled us and made us think it was different. That she was strong enough to live with it inside her. Taking root in a body that is not its own.

It did change her though. It fed off her. Took pieces of her body that can never be replaced. It forced sickness in her breath and pallor beneath her skin.

Then, when we all worried for her. it struck him.

My maternal grandfather.

It transferred over and lived inside him. Secretly, biding its time.

By the time we all realized, it had eaten him from the inside out. Fed off his body, grew stronger from his weakness. Took and took until he had nothing left to give. Until his body was shallow and cold, his breathing labored and thin.

It killed him slowly, took its time. Watched while we had no choice but to wait for it to make the killing blow.

Then it let us forget.

We thought maybe it was over. That we could breathe, live without the fear of the poison in our blood.

Then it was in my paternal grandmother.

The tricky thing. Switching bloodlines. Two cursed families coming together to create one. Sometimes I resent my parents for being so careless. For knowing I’d be the last one left after watching it pick us all off one by one.

Hers hit hard and fast. It had waited, and now it was famished. It infected her everywhere. Nowhere one day and everywhere the next.

The numbers are falling. One day it’ll come for my parents, then it’ll come for me.

I wonder where it will start with me.

My paternal grandma has it everywhere. The doctor says it’s in her nerves, growing on her organs.

They pump her full of poison to get rid of the poison.

I wonder which of my parents will be diagnosed first.

I wonder if they’ll find a cure by the time the cancer realizes it lives in my genes too.