He should have kicked his mother out that night in the kitchen. Instead, he gave her one final warning.
Two weeks later, the baby arrived. And tonight, the true nightmare began.
At 3:12 AM, a piercing, unnatural wail echoed from the nursery.
He burst through the door into the cold, blue-purple light. What he saw froze the blood in his veins. His mother had Anna by the hair, violently crushing her face against the white bars of the crib.
“Answer it!” his mother shrieked, her voice cracking with pure, unadulterated terror. “Tell him what you put in there!”
Anna gripped the rails, sobbing hysterically. “You’ll answer for this,” she choked out.
A violent, primal rage snapped inside him. He didn’t just get mad—something ancient and dormant woke up. His vision tunneled. His irises dilated, flooding with a boiling, glowing blood-red.
With terrifying, inhuman speed, he lunged. He grabbed his mother by the collar, ripping her away from Anna, and hurled her through the air. She slammed brutally into the towering wooden wardrobe, crumpling into the shadows.
He stepped in front of his weeping wife, dropping a heavy, protective hand onto her shoulder.
“Stay away from her!” he roared, his voice vibrating with a dark, demonic double-pitch.
But his mother wasn’t looking at him. Coughing up blood against the wardrobe, she pointed a trembling finger toward the crib.
He turned.
There was no baby inside.
Just a writhing, shadowy mass mimicking a human infant’s cry, greedily feeding on the raw meat hidden beneath the blankets.
Anna slowly stopped sobbing. She wiped away her fake tears, looking up at her husband with a dead, jagged smile.
“He’s still hungry, darling,” she whispered.
And as his eyes glowed brighter, he locked the nursery door.