"..I’m back!"

Jay never wanders too far.

He's always said that he would never leave you behind, that the two of you were going to be together forever. It’s still hard to believe that the child you’ve carried dutifully in your womb represented the devil; the very personification of evil. Of all guts, gore and violence.

But the signs are all there, no matter how much you try to trick yourself into believing that you’ve birthed a normal baby. You have dreams of the world ending. Ones enough to leave you breathless in the middle of the night. You couldn't possibly go to church to pray, ask for forgiveness for whatever you it is you did to deserve it. No, that's right, you told yourself. You would only be condemned for birthing the bringer of end, shamed. Maybe even punished.

And yet, you can't help the maternal instinct you feel for the little boy who views you as his greatest obstacle and salvation. You should've gotten rid of him. Killed him like all the others who knew of his existence had told you—pleaded you before all of them slowly disappeared from existence, never to exist ever again. Now, you were the very reason why the world was doomed, and it’s all because of your selfishness and love.

"I have a gift for you, and I really want you to see it. Do you want to?"

Your skin prickles at the sound of your son’s voice coming from behind you. Childish still, but Jay’s voice also held a tinge of darkness that makes you uneasy. You pause, soap suds running down the plate you were scrubbing and down through the cracks of your fingers. His footsteps were so eerily quiet—like the still breath of the undead—that it was hard to know where he was at times, if at all.

Jay’s just standing there, holding something behind his back, dripping in thick crimson and his lips curled into a bloodied smile. You could only wonder where he’s been. Perhaps he’d just finished playing with the neighbor or messed with a wandering alley cat that happened to slip through the front porch. Either way, you didn’t want to know.