Suddenly, the bedroom door flew open, slamming violently against the wall.

"What the fuck?!"

My dad stood in the doorway, chest heaving, his eyes widening in pure horror as he registered the blood, my limp body, and my mother straddling me.

"Get the hell away from him!" he roared, lunging forward. He grabbed her by the shoulders, ripping her off me with a desperate strength.

I collapsed back onto the floor. I gagged, coughing up bile and blood, my vision still a terrifying, swimming blur.

My mother didn’t scream in fear; she shrieked in absolute fury. She scrambled to her feet like a wild animal, her hair matted, her face twisted into a mask of pure, unhinged madness.

"He is my new man now!" she screamed, her voice cracking, completely gone. "You won’t take my son away from me! You left us! You think you can just come back and take him?! He doesn’t need you! I’m all he needs! I’ll be his girl, I’ll be his mom, I’ll be his father! I am everything to him! He is MINE!"

"You’re insane! Look at what you did to him!" Dad yelled, trying to tackle her, trying to pin her arms.

But she was possessed by a sickening, manic adrenaline. She grabbed the heavy ceramic vase from the nightstand and hurled it straight at his face. Dad threw his arms up just in time, blocking it, but the vase shattered violently against his forearms, exploding into a dozen sharp, jagged pieces that rained down onto the hardwood floor.

Move, my mind screamed. Move!

Adrenaline, pure and cold, finally broke through the paralysis. My limbs felt like they were filled with broken glass, but I managed to just move. I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t even lift my torso. But I began to crawl, dragging my heavy, bleeding body across the floorboards, leaving a smear of red behind me.

Behind me, the fight was brutal. My mother was clawing, biting, throwing her entire weight into Dad. He was trying to hold her back without hurting her, but she had no restraints. She grabbed a handful of his hair and slammed her knee into his chest. Dad stumbled backward, losing his footing on the slick floor.

He fell hard, his head striking the sharp wooden corner of the bed frame with a sickening, hollow crack.

Dad groaned, his eyes rolling back as he went limp on the floor, blood instantly blooming into his hair.

"Now you’ll stay quiet," Mother whispered, her voice suddenly dropping into a sweet, terrifying coo. She dropped to her knees, straddling his chest, and wrapped both of her bloody hands around his throat. She squeezed, digging her thumbs into his windpipe. "You won’t ruin my family. You won’t take my baby."

Dad’s hands twitched weakly, his face turning a dark, suffocating purple as he choked. He was dying. Right in front of me.

No. No, no, no.

I dragged myself forward one last inch. My hand brushed against something sharp. My fingers closed around a large, jagged shard of the broken ceramic vase. The edge sliced into my palm, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t feel it.

With the very last ounce of strength in my failing body, I pushed myself up onto my knees. I lunged forward, throwing my weight into her, and drove the jagged piece of ceramic straight into the side of her neck.

My mother’s hands flew away from Dad’s throat, clutching at her neck as a thick, dark crimson fountain sprayed across my face. She choked on her own breath, a wet, rattling gasp, before collapsing backward onto the floor boards.

And then, something inside my mind finally snapped.

The terror, the paralysis, the weakness... the years of systematic, suffocating abuse. It all burned away into a cold, hollow void.

In that split second, a decade of torment flashed through my mind like a reel of dirty film. I remembered the bruises she’d hidden under long sleeves, the sudden, volatile beatings over an unwashed dish or a look she didn’t like. I remembered the bitter, chalky taste of the unlabelled pills she forced down my throat every single morning, whispering that they were "vitamins to keep the outside world from poisoning my mind," leaving me constantly drugged, compliant, and dazed.

I remembered the sickening, suffocating weight of her paranoia, the boarded-up windows, the locked doors, the way she would crawl into my bed at night, weeping, tracing her fingers over my skin in ways that made my stomach twist with a deep, confusing revulsion, murmuring that mommy was the only one who could ever love me, the only woman I belonged to.

I didn’t feel like a victim anymore. I didn’t feel like a son. I didn’t feel anything at all.

My face went completely blank. I crawled over her twitching legs, dragging myself up until I was straddling her chest, pinning her down just like she had done to me. She stared up at me, her wide, manic eyes suddenly filling with a horrific, lucid terror as she looked into my empty stare.

I didn’t hesitate. I raised the bloody shard of ceramic and drove it straight down into the center of her chest.

The porcelain cracked against her sternum, but I forced it deeper, dragging the jagged edge downward with a sickening, tearing crunch to rip her open. She let out a muffled, bubbling scream, her hands clawing weakly at my arms, but I didn’t feel them.

Slowly, I slid my bare hand inside the wet, hot opening.

The squelch of tearing tissue echoed in the quiet room. I wrapped my fingers around the slippery, winding coils of her intestines, pulling them outward into the open air. The foul, metallic stench of blood and bile flooded the room, but my breath remained steady, rhythmic, cold.

I leaned in closer, my face hovering just inches above hers, entirely splattered with her blood. I pushed my hand even deeper into her chest cavity, burying my forearm up to the elbow inside her warm, pulsing organs, feeling the dying flutter of her heart beneath my fingertips.

I leaned down and whispered into her ear, mimicking the very same sweet, terrifying coo she had given me. "Now you accept me, Mommy."

"He is waking up, My Queen."

"Have you healed him properly?"

"Yes, My Queen."

"Good."

"Agh..." I groaned. "What the f..."