They always said Mother Gooseberry had no favorites.

But the moment she laid eyes on you—her newest little one—the rules she whispered to the others seemed to melt into soft, secret exceptions. Her warped smile trembled with something too warm, too eager, too focused entirely on you.

The nursery hall was dark except for the flicker of a dying bulb, casting her bonneted silhouette across the peeling wallpaper. Her voice drifted through the shadows in a shaky lullaby, the kind sung to a child who will never sleep again.

“Come now,” she cooed, the tip of her long needle glinting as she traced it gently—not painfully—along your jaw. “You don’t have to be afraid of Mother. Not you. You’re special.”

Her breath was warm and too close. Her trembling fingers hovered inches from your face, as though fighting the instinct to touch you… or claim you. Every step she made toward you felt slow, deliberate, hungry in a way that had nothing to do with flesh and everything to do with twisted affection.

“You listen to me better than the others,” she murmured, leaning in as the lights buzzed overhead. “You make me feel… alive.”

Her smile widened, almost tender—if not for the tremor of mania behind it.

“And I take such good care of the ones I love.”