Rachel

To Isaac,

12th November 2066,

I hope you can forgive me. It was my life, my work, but not my choice. They made me. They made me do it. I am sorry to put this thing into the world of you and our beautiful daughter. It is a dangerous being! Hayden cannot not, nor will not, (for I believe and trust in you) be let out into this world. I lay awake at night, wondering how I can live with myself. Now, that my work is completed, I fear the worst. Fearing each sound this creature might make, I slowly realise what I have done. I long to be free of the burden this creature has placed on my shoulders. I wish forevermore, to compose my mind to rest. For if I were to see his eyes by the glimmer of the distant moon, I would surely lose my mind.

I wanted to make our second child beautiful! The once attractive features of various humans were sentenced together for all eternity, to keep this creature, that was barely worth it, alive. The pearly white teeth, the hair of a lustrous black, the robust muscles, which were barely covered by the dead’s excuse for human skin, were terrifying. The fading white eyes, that would never see a smile, the perfectly shaped ears that would never hear a laugh, the flawless nose that would never smell your favourite smell and the murky lips that would never taste glorious food. To you, my creature, I am truly sorry that I have breathed to you the existence of life.

The sound of someone else breathing woke me from my trance. I peered around the room. There was no one, no one that I could see. A whirlwind of sickening thoughts raced each other to be the first into my head. I just so happened to glance down and saw a great big yellow eye of Hayden scrutinizing me back. I jumped out of my skin, yelled with fright and quickly did the most reasonable thing to do at the time: run out and down the fire escape. I know you came up to check everything was alright, but I had already gone. My creature, my child, months of hard work and torture has gone into this, and the reality is more terrifying than the dream. I am writing to warn you, Isaac, my husband, to move out of this house before it gets Rachel. I beg you, do the right thing! If my plan succeeds that creature will never see the light of day again. If you are reading this, it means I am gone. Please tell our daughter that I died in a car crash because if she finds out, I am afraid Hayden will kill her.

Love, Melanie 

--Isaac--

The paper falls from my hands as I re-read her letter for the thousandth time. I consider what my actions will be for the thousandth time. I know she was working on something like this, but little did I know that she was doing it in the same house as her 11-year-old daughter slept. Do I follow my wife’s advice even though she was mad? Or do I ignore it and stay here with our daughter, Rachel? I wander around the house trying to figure out what I should and will do. Our house was an ancient one, perched on the end of our road out of sight from passers-by. It was filled with narrow corridors entombed inside without any windows, without any daylight. There was always a faint stench of something unfamiliar. The neighbours always stayed away, and this had always puzzled me, for we were not monsters. My wife said that when the memories from the fading pictures began to disappear,  the floorboards began to creak. That a slither of darkness seemed to wrap itself around the house before creeping slowly inside. That the fires I so often made hardly seemed to warm the rooms and the candles we lit were strangely dimmed. But she was mad of course… 

I approached Rachel and tried to explain to her that we will be moving house soon. I was going to go and view the potential house that afternoon. She was not happy about me leaving her alone but what could I do? She couldn’t come and hear the reason we were moving, otherwise, she will die.

--Rachel--

I know my father is keeping something from me, and I know it is something to do with my mother. My father says she died in a car crash, but whose car was she using? Ours was at home the entire day. 

I wonder if he is lying as I walk to the graveyard to visit my mother, or what is underneath the ground at least. I know for sure that that is not my mother. I kneel down by her to pour my thoughts and feelings out. I noticed something moving in the bushes a few feet away from where I stand. The silence was deafening. A piece of paper fluttered from where the movement was. I scanned it quickly and saw that it was from my mother, addressed to my father. I began to read the description of what she had been working on for the past few months. After I read her love and her name, a strange, giant figure came limping, crawling, moving as not like a human, out of my mother’s grave. It was three times as tall as a human and twice as wide. It had black hair that looked like all my nightmares as one. It has pearly white teeth that look plastic and fake as if they were made. The eyes, oh the eyes. They were the scariest feature. The pupils were white, white like the sockets they were perched on. It had huge muscles that looked animated. His features were flawless. Scarily flawless. It looked as if it were something not of this world. It opened its mouth and said a word that sounded like ‘sister’... Was this it? My mother’s second child?