Am I different? That question has been running through my head since I was four years old. It started in 2003. I woke up from a dark slumber with a sudden chilling clarity, and in that moment, I knew. I understood things other children couldn't. I felt the weight of things they ignored. Even showing a sliver of my skin made me feel exposed in a way I couldn't explain—a vulnerability I didn't ask for. That was the day I realized I wasn't like them.

  I woke from the narrow bamboo bed my father had lashed together. The mattress was a thin, cotton-filled foam—a hand-me-down my mother had begged from her sister abroad once her own children no longer had use for it. As I swung my legs over the side, my small feet hit the unpolished floor. The concrete was raw and biting; I could feel the chill seeping through my soles, a coldness my body seemed to absorb until I shivered. I began to walk toward the door, but a sudden, violent wave of dizziness hit me. My mind fractured, and for a second —images flashed before my eyes, dragging me back into memories I wasn't ready to see.

  I remember the warmth of the "before" times. Back then, my parents gave us everything: crisp private school uniforms, toys that still smelled new, and shoes that never pinched my toes. We were the perfect portrait of a happy family. Then, the collapse began. My grandfather died, my grandmother withered away from illness, and debt swallowed my father whole.

  My parents tried to hide the rot, but I see it clearly now. The toys stopped coming. Dad started returning home late, his eyes hollow and his back too heavy for the games we used to play. I missed the way I’d ride on his shoulders to chase my brother, but that man was gone. Soon, my brother and I were pulled from our private classes and thrust into public school. My sister was the only one left behind in our old life, saved by a sponsor while we were discarded into the dirt of our new reality. My siblings still didn't understand the gravity of it all—but I did.

  A weight settled in my chest, heavy and suffocating, like something jagged was lodged in my throat. I couldn't breathe under the sudden, crushing weight of the truth. Every time we sat down to a decent meal, I hadn't realized my parents were scavengers, waiting until we finished so they could pick at our leftovers.

  On the days when there was nothing, Mom would stretch a single packet of instant noodles with a few stray grains of broken rice—dust that couldn't even form a proper meal. As children, we were oblivious. We ate happily, convinced it was a feast because Mom fed us with a practiced, hollow smile. She would fill our bellies with water to trick our stomachs into feeling full, then tuck us in with stories until we drifted into a peaceful sleep. We never knew she stayed awake on an empty stomach, listening for the sound of Dad's tired footsteps.

  If he returned with a prize, she would wake us to eat again. But if he came back empty-handed, the very air in the house turned leaden. Their shoulders would slump under the invisible weight of failure, and in the silence, I could finally feel it: the suffocating, heavy scent of their exhaustion and their quiet, desperate tears. I realized that if I didn't want to starve like them, I had to stop being a child.

  "You're awake? Why are you crying?" Dad asked, his voice a soft, worried friction in the dark.

  "Da-dad... I had a bad dream. I fell into a well full of cockroaches," I lied. My father let out a tired laugh and pulled me into his arms. He handed me a small roll of bread—the kind that cost only five pesos at the corner stall.

  "Here, fill your belly. You must be hungry," he said. He smiled at me, but I could see the rot behind the expression. It was a hollow gesture; the warmth didn't reach his eyes, which were sunken and aged far beyond his years. I looked at the meager bread, then tore it in half and held a piece out to him.

  "Dad, you have to eat, too! I can't finish all of this," I insisted.

  "No, I'm not hungry," he answered, his voice thin.

  "But I can't," I pouted, widening my eyes to look as small and helpless as possible. He sighed, pinched my cheeks with a calloused hand, and finally took the half. As he bit into it, I watched him closely—calculating the exact moment his exhaustion met his relief.