Short stories

Animal Stories #1 - Mother

Volksferatu

06.25.25 – 2:16am

By V Volksferatu

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She laid in the padded cell room, a speaker hooked up so she can hear each of them. Each day she was forced to hear their screams. Each…day? The concept of time in this place has been hard to measure. She finds herself thinking how she got here, doing basic exercises to keep her mind still and drifting in and out of dreams, which are placed on a stage where the backdrop are the screams of people as they die. That’s what she was chosen for; they found her fear and are currently experimenting, on death, on loss with her as the subject. Being in one spot, existing and then fading from reality, even so you grow accustomed to it. That’s what the human brain does. Gets accustomed to it. Replace “it” in the statement with anything and the human spirit will overcome it. She started to smell something in the air; it smelt wrong, like sewage or rotten milk. Suddenly the lights turn on and she sees that the vertical wall across from her had transformed into a mirror. A mirror, was this was a mirror this whole time?! No that’s impossible with how long she had been there. She started to rationalize this until she noticed the people sitting on their knees behind the mirror. Three human figures, the one of the left the largest and the one of the right the smallest and a white box in the middle which was slightly moving, the figures had brown bags over their heads and a noose around their necks. Suddenly a man in a black suit and black gloves entered the scene and stood to the side of the largest figure on the left hand side. The man’s face was cut off by darkness but before she could digest this information the first bag is ripped off the largest figure and she knows who it is. Tears well up in her eyes as she understands what is happening.

“No…please…not them…” she tried to get accustomed to this new situation. But as she takes one step forward the noose pulls up quickly and her father’s neck flies from the floor. She screams. Her father’s eyes bulge out of his head and his feet violently shake. She screams in defiance trying to close her eyes but finds that she can’t, she can’t move, her muscles get stiff and she feels all her energy being sapped away, she can’t even close her eyes. The man moves behind her father to the second figure and rips their bag off.

“Stop!” She pleads as the man in the suit takes a knife to her mother’s throat and slits it, her mother’s black blood starts gushing out onto the floor. She is forced to keep watching. She is forced to get accustomed to this. The box started to whim and whelp louder as the man in the suit approached it, picked up the box and ran the knife through it. The cries from the box and her father’s death screams crescendo into a perfect harmony of pain before silently fading out. The man drops the box with a loud thud and walks to the last, smallest figure in the room. She had no more tears, no more voice to scream in defiance. The man stopped right behind the smallest figure, crying could be heard from under the bag now. She reached deep inside her, deep inside her psyche and found the strength, the power to get accustomed to this situation. She called to it and it answered. It gave her the strength to rip off and take back this larceny of the muscles the gas had stolen from her and she slammed her head into mirror, screaming at the man behind the mirror. He placed both of his hands on the small figures neck and she dropped to her knees.

“Stop! No more!!” She screamed, she couldn’t look, she couldn’t look at this. Two fragments of glass were on the floor from her attack. She knew if she saw the scene they wanted her to see, she would not be the same. She had to find a way out. She couldn’t look at this. She had to get accustomed to this. She couldn’t look at this. She took the two pieces of glass and rammed them into her eyes.

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Elizabeth awoke in the maternal ward. Her body exhausted from the birth and her mind battered by this insipid women’s story. She had her eyes closed for a few moments, not more not more, but it felt like forever and then the droning of the story pulled her conscious back to the present.

“I’m sorry…what did you say?” Elizabeth asked in a voice as gentle as a sea breeze. Her own dreams a vivid nightmare she had just escaped.

“The monster almost took my baby!” The women raved like a child who’s toy was just stolen.

“But I stopped it…I stopped it…with a knife…into the chest!” She gestured with her hand, stabbing an invisible creature in front of her, over and over again. Elizabeth started to rub both of her eyes in the most convincing way as to not pay attention to this loon. Listening to the mad is about as good for you, as drinking father’s hooch after midnight. Elizabeth opened her eyes to see the women had now ceased the stabbing motion but was looking straight up, at something that wasn’t there or isn’t there anymore. Her eyes were wide and empty. The mad women started to tremble and her eyes filled with tears. Marina reached out and touched the mad women’s shoulder.

“There are no such things as monsters.” Elizabeth spoke the words and the women settled, as though she was a new toy in a store, being gently placed from the trunk to the showroom floor. “Your baby is sleeping safely and soundly in the room down the hall. You have done it!” Elizabeth follows the statement with a genuine warm smile. “You have survived life’s biggest trail for us!” Elizabeth squeezed the women’s shoulder, proud and beaming knowing that this other person understands the pain, the happiness and the burden of motherhood life has been placed to them.“We have achieved our life’s purpose! We are free!” Elizabeth hung on the last symbol like a duet dance. The mad women’s demeanor has calmed down; she turns her head to lock her eyes with Elizabeth’s. They look oh so tired.

“Please don’t take my baby.” The mad women proclaims with tears streaming down her cheeks.

Elizabeth confused and now a little bit angry “What is this sick notion you keep getting at? I do NOT want YOUR child! I have a beautiful child of my own!”

“Then you should leave now!” The women stands up so abruptly that it makes Elizabeth fidget in her chair. The mad woman says to Elizabeth, her eyes darting to every shadow as she starts to hurry along the long yellow white marble hallway. “If you love your child, you should leave while you still can.” The mad woman says as she runs faster down the hallway, into the part of the hallway that is shrouded by darkness with only one overhead light turning off and on. Within a heartbeat, within the flicking light going off and on, the mad women disappears with only the sound of faint crying in the background, like frogs on a summer night. Elizabeth felt cold…and strangely, not alone. She stands up and enters the door in front of her, into the nursery.

The smell in the room had a hint of synthetic fragrances and baby powder. A slight drone of the lights and the gentle breathing of newly born babies perfectly complemented each other, set against the white backdrop of the room, it was the symbol of purity. Elizabeth took it all in, slowly, looking for her daughters crib, looking for her world. She found a black smudge was dipped upon this white canvas. The black smudge was painted right in front of her daughters crib. Elizabeth felt a cold chill creep right along her spine, it felt like a snake moving in-between her spinal cord, she felt it move and it made the hairs on arms and neck stand up. Elizabeth took a foolish step toward the black smudge, walking down the row of newborns, closer to the black smudge…to her daughter, as Elizabeth moved closer the smudge started to take form. Elizabeth started to make out what looked like another women. A similar build to Elizabeth, same frilly dress but a color mixed of black and white. The dress was worn, with a golden orange visor. Cuts and scratches painted the dress; it looked like this woman has been in a fight, maybe several. Elizabeth’s golden brown hair in a neat, tidy bun was a stark comparison to this women’s black loose hair, covering her face. The hair held various different commodities in them, from shells, to garbage to something that looked like meat. Elizabeth approached her daughters crib when suddenly the women spoke.

“She is beautiful.” The women said; her voice soothing, like ocean waves, it pulled Elizabeth closer. “What is your name?” She asked not taking her eyes of the baby.

Elizabeth beamed at this. “Thank you miss!!” she replayed with an honest reaction of love. “My name is Elizabeth and this is my pride and joy, she means everything to me. My only reason for living, her name is…”

“I lost my child.” The women interrupted Elizabeth.

“Oh…” Elizabeth paused a moment before asking “How did it happ…”

“In birth…I couldn’t…”Again the women talked over Elizabeth. “Protect it. I failed as a mother. I lost my child. In birth...I…” The woman reaches her right hand out and grabs the railing of the crib. Elizabeth looked down at her hand and instantly regrets it. The women’s hand was webbed together and her nails long and cracked, so long it was almost touching the blanket covering the baby. The women turned to face Elizabeth and Elizabeth froze. Her face was not right at all, her nose was too long and the eyes were too big for her face. They were a bright, golden yellow iris, with black goo in the center for a pupil, which was always moving. The women looked at Elizabeth for a time, before smiling slightly and asking “Will you give me your child?”

“What?!” Elizabeth reacted as if she was slashed by knife. “What on earth did you just say to me?!” Elizabeth steps forward but the woman moves so fast that Elizabeth has no time to react. She grabs Elizabeth’s wrist and pulls her closer. Elizabeth gags as the smell of dirty sea water fills her nostrils.

“I lost my child.” The women started again, this time her voice started to croak in random intervals like a frog being shaken in a jar. “In birth, I couldn’t protect it.” She pulls Elizabeth closer. Elizabeth puts one hand on her shoulder to push her off but her body is sticky in some sort of goo and the hand slides off. Elizabeth collapses into the women pushing away from her while getting drenched the slime substance. “I failed as a mother.” The women said, rising in form, getting taller and wider in front of Elizabeth. The woman’s face started to change last, her nose suddenly extended itself forcefully as the rest of her face elongated and twisted together into a large beak, while her golden yellow and black eyes started to burrow themselves into her new face beak, the eyes placed themselves on the sides of the face beak and the pupils immediately started to dart around the room, in a frenzy. The women grew a hunch back and kept growing until she was three times larger in size. The dress and her skin melded and molded into one black and white fabric that passed for skin. The fingers suddenly let go of Elizabeth, then quickly snapped together so fast that they broke themselves. After a second the flesh started to wriggle and come together to form flippers, then from the flippers, yellow nails started to press out slowly until they were so long they were almost touching the floor. The face beak of the monster opened to reveal three rows of teeth, each row getting progressively bigger until it was ended by a forked tongue. It spoke, it screamed the words at Elizabeth, the voice sounding like the screams of drowning men and horses.

“Give me your child!” The monster bellowed and snapped at Elizabeth with its face beak. In a panicked, state Elizabeth trusted her instinct to roll out of the way, nearly avoiding the bite. The monsters jaw closed and it crashed into the other newborns which caused a wet crunch sound and started a howl of pain and fear from all the other babies in the room, the sound was awful and deafening. Elizabeth couldn’t focus, she turned and grabbed her daughter from the crib and started to run, run…anywhere but here. Elizabeth held her daughter close as she ran down the row of crying babies. Looking behind her to see if the thing she was running from was gone before slamming head first into something that felt like a slimy brick house. Elizabeth shook off the blow and looked up to see it again. No a different one.

“Give me your child.” Another one said.

“No...” Elizabeth backed up. “I’m her mother…she’s mine!”

Elizabeth bumped into something slimy as she was backing up, she looked up to see another pair of large golden eyes peering directly over her. “Give me your child.” The other monster croaked.

“How many of you are…” Elizabeth got her answer.

More and more of the black smudge began to appear around Elizabeth and her daughter, all moving slowly at them, all wanting the same thing.

“Give me your child. Give me your child. Give me child. Give me child.”

“Give Child.”

“Give.”

“Child.”

“Child.”

“Child.”

The chant kept going at different intervals, each beast screaming it’s want at Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s knees collapsed and her eyes filled with tears. The monsters all suddenly stopped walking. The room was silent.

The monsters eyes turned red.

The room was dead silent.

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The room was filled the sound of one lullaby and the creaking of a singular rocking chair.

“Hush now, sweet baby.” The women’s voice was like an ocean wave, putting the baby back to a gentle sleep. “Nobody will hurt you now that mother is here…my little Elizabeth.”

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Emperor penguins material instinct is so strong, that if their child is lost in birth; the mother penguins will kidnap other children to rise as their own.

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The first passage tells the tale of Grimm and the torture the government placed on her, in an attempt to try to unlock her powers which is locked within her blood and fears. It is a short peak into my world of “Phobia.”

The second passage is the first story in my collection of “Animal Stories” (work in progress name) where I write a story based off an animal fun fact. More to come, thank you so much for your time and energy.  

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