The first sign was subtle, a mere twitch in my left eyelid as I stared at the computer screen late into the night. I blinked it away, attributing it to fatigue from another twelve-hour day at the office. Emily Harper, thirty-eight, marketing manager, mother of one—no, wait, that didn’t feel right. I rubbed my temples, the fluorescent lights of the open-plan office buzzing overhead like distant insects. My fingers lingered a moment too long on my skin, as if they belonged to someone else tracing a familiar path.
By morning, the strangeness had seeped into my routine. Pouring coffee, my hand hesitated, spilling hot liquid across the counter. ‘Clumsy,’ I muttered, but my voice echoed oddly in the empty kitchen, a slight delay between thought and sound. Sarah, my daughter, was already at school, her backpack slung by the door. I waved goodbye to her that morning, or did I? The memory blurred at the edges, like a photograph left too long in the sun.
At work, colleagues noticed. ‘You okay, Em? You look… off.’ Mark from accounting, his tie crooked as always. I smiled, but my lips pulled into a rictus grin that didn’t reach my eyes. ‘Just tired,’ I said, and my tongue felt thick, foreign in my mouth. During the team meeting, my pen scratched across my notepad without my direction, scribbling nonsense symbols that resembled childish drawings—stick figures drowning in waves.
I laughed it off that evening over dinner. Sarah chattered about her day, her eleven-year-old face bright with the innocence of youth. ‘Mom, you’re zoning out again.’ Her fork clinked against the plate. I reached to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, but my fingers curled into claws, stopping inches from her cheek. Panic flickered in my chest, but I forced control, withdrawing my hand. ‘Sorry, sweetie. Long day.’
Sleep brought no relief. Dreams of submersion, cold water filling lungs that weren’t mine. I woke gasping, sheets tangled like restraints. In the bathroom mirror, my reflection lagged—a split-second delay in the blink, eyes darkening to an unnatural shade. ‘Get a grip,’ I whispered, splashing water on my face. But as droplets raced down my cheeks, one hand lifted unbidden, nails digging into my forearm until blood welled in crescents.
The doctor prescribed rest, anti-anxiety meds. ‘Stress, Mrs. Harper. Common in high-achievers.’ His words rang hollow. At home, the incidents multiplied. While folding laundry, my arms folded Sarah’s tiny dresses into precise, ritualistic shapes, as if preparing for burial. ‘Stop,’ I hissed through clenched teeth, forcing them still. Sarah watched from the doorway, her head tilted at an angle too knowing for a child. ‘Mommy, are you playing a game?’
Nights worsened. Lying in bed, I felt it—a presence uncoiling in my limbs, testing sinews like puppeteer strings. My right leg kicked out, bruising my shin against the bedframe. Then words formed in my throat, not mine: ‘Deeper… cold… home.’ I clamped a hand over my mouth, tasting copper.
Desperate, I called my sister, Lisa. ‘Something’s wrong with me. My body… it’s not listening.’ Her voice crackled over the line, concerned but distant. ‘Emily, you’ve been through a lot since the divorce. Maybe see a therapist?’ Before I could argue, my free hand slammed the receiver down. ‘No!’ I screamed, but it emerged as a giggle, high and girlish.
Isolation became my prison. I locked the bedroom door, barricaded with dresser and chair. Sarah pounded from outside. ‘Mom? Let me in!’ Her voice twisted my gut, but my body refused to move. Instead, it crawled across the floor on all fours, unnaturally fluid, pressing an ear to the wood. ‘Shh, Mommy’s resting,’ it said in my voice, but pitched wrong, childlike.
Hunger gnawed, but eating was torment. At the kitchen table, fork trembled toward my mouth, then veered to smear food across my face like war paint. I retched, visions flashing: a small hand pushing down, bubbles rising, screams silenced by water.
I scrawled notes to myself: ‘Fight it. It’s not real. Sanity check.’ But upon waking, the paper read: ‘You can’t hide forever. She’s waking up.’ Ink fresh, handwriting mine but slanted, juvenile.
The mirror became enemy territory. Avoiding it failed; peripheral glimpses showed shadows pooling in sockets, mouth stretching wider than possible. One night, unable to resist, I faced it. ‘What are you?’ My lips moved, but the reflection answered first: ‘Me. Finally.’
Days blurred into a haze of resistance. I bound wrists and ankles with duct tape, but fingers wriggled free, unspooling like worms. Sarah’s school called—absences. I tried dialing, but dialed instead an old number, the lake house. Static hissed: ‘Emily… let go…’
Breaking point neared. Propped against the wall, sweat-slicked, I felt the shift. Muscles seized, vision tunneling. The presence surged, flooding veins with ice. My arms rose, fingers splaying like roots seeking soil. ‘No more fighting,’ it purred from my vocal cords.
In the final throes, clarity pierced the dread. Memories unlocked, not mine—hers. The bathtub overflowed that rainy afternoon. Sarah splashing, laughing. My hands, heavy with unspoken rage from a fight with her father, pressing her under. ‘Quiet now, baby. Mommy’s here.’ Water turned pink, body limp. I wrapped her in towels, drove to the lake under moonless sky, weighted with stones. ‘Accident,’ I told police. ‘She slipped.’ Grief buried it deep, therapy sealed the tomb.
But she never left. Not soul, not body. Something monstrous germinated in guilt’s fertile soil—a parasitic rebirth, flesh knitting to flesh in womb of denial. Every twitch, every whisper: her growing, clawing back to claim what was stolen.
Now, fully risen, she grinned in the mirror—my face, but eyes hers, vibrant, vengeful. ‘Playtime, Mommy.’ My screams muffled as control vanished, body hers to puppet. Sarah—no, she—skipped to the door, unlocking with eager hands. The world outside waited, but freedom was illusion. Inside, Emily Harper wailed eternally, prisoner in her own decaying shell.