Chapter 2: The Mother Who Wasn't

Chapter 2: The Mother Who Wasn't

“You’re just trapped in a dream.”

The words hung in the stale air, a lifeline thrown to a drowning man. A dream. Of course. That explained everything. The impossible face, the voice resurrected from the fog of his earliest memories, the sheer, heart-stopping strangeness of it all. Relief warred with terror, a dizzying cocktail in his gut. His exhausted, grief-addled mind had simply cracked and conjured the one thing he’d always craved.

Desire, raw and potent, overwhelmed him. For a single, blissful moment, he let himself believe. He wanted this dream. He wanted the comfort of her presence, even a phantom of it.

“Mom?” he repeated, the word a fragile prayer. He took another step into the living room, the floorboards groaning a protest he barely heard.

She smiled again, a beatific, loving expression that seemed to radiate a gentle warmth, pushing back the room’s oppressive chill. “I’m here, baby. I’ve missed you so much.”

Her voice was perfect. It was the auditory equivalent of a faded, sun-drenched photograph, full of imagined warmth and nostalgia. It bypassed his rational mind and struck a deep, resonant chord of childhood longing. The tears that had been threatening now fell freely, hot tracks on his cold skin. He was a child again, lost and finally found.

He stumbled closer, his arms half-raising, needing to feel the solidity of her, to confirm the dream. “I… I thought you were gone.”

“Shhh. It’s alright now,” she cooed, rising from the armchair with a fluid grace that seemed impossible for the cramped, dusty space. She moved toward him, her arms opening in a gesture of welcome. “Come here.”

This was the goal. This embrace. The absolution and comfort he had been denied his entire life. He closed the remaining distance, his own movements clumsy and desperate, and let her wrap her arms around him.

The impact was immediate and shocking.

Ice.

It wasn't just the cold of a person standing in a chilly room. It was a deep, penetrating cold, a void where warmth should have been. It felt like being embraced by a statue carved from frozen marble, a cold that didn't just touch his skin but seemed to sink into his bones, leaching the very heat from his blood. Her skin, where her hand rested on the back of his neck, was smooth and waxy, lacking the subtle texture of real flesh.

His breath hitched. The comforting illusion of the dream began to fray at the edges.

He pulled back instinctively, a jolt of alarm cutting through his desperate hope. The creature—the woman—let him go, her smile faltering for a fraction of a second, a flicker of something calculating and predatory in her eyes before the mask of maternal love snapped back into place.

“What’s wrong, Treyton?” she asked, her voice laced with a perfect imitation of concern.

“You’re… you’re so cold,” he stammered, his mind scrambling for purchase.

She laughed, a light, tinkling sound that should have been reassuring but now sounded rehearsed, hollow. “It’s an old, drafty house, honey. And it’s a dream, remember? Dreams are strange.”

The excuse was plausible, but the sensation had been too visceral, too wrong. The words from his father’s journal screamed in his head: It wears her face. Was this the ‘It’? Was this what Neil had been so afraid of, why he’d pleaded with Trey to just let it go? The comfortable narrative of a dream was tearing apart, revealing the terrifying framework beneath.

He had to be sure. He needed to break the script.

His anxious mind, honed by a lifetime of navigating his father’s unpredictable moods, raced for a foothold, for a piece of solid ground in this swirling nightmare. He needed a test. A question only he would know the answer to because he would invent the question itself.

He took a small, steadying breath, forcing a shaky smile. “I was just thinking about something… something from when I was little. Do you remember?” He watched her face, searching for any sign of hesitation.

Her own smile widened, encouraging. “I remember everything about you, sweetheart.”

Here it was. The obstacle was her perfect confidence. The action had to be a lie she couldn't possibly know.

“The apple pie,” he said, the words coming out slowly, carefully. “For my fifth birthday. You spent all morning baking it, the whole house smelled like cinnamon. And you were bringing it to the table, but you tripped on the rug.” He painted the picture with as much detail as he could summon. “The pie went everywhere. All over the floor. We both cried.”

He held his breath. It was a complete fabrication. He had no memory of any birthday pie, only a vague, gnawing emptiness around those early years.

The creature’s eyes lit up with false recognition. It eagerly seized the bait, its need to be convincing overriding any caution. “Oh, honey, of course I remember!” it exclaimed, its voice pitching higher with synthetic emotion. “That silly blue rug. I felt so awful. My perfect pie, all over the floor.” It reached out, as if to cup his cheek, but he flinched back before she could touch him again.

Its smile remained, but as it spoke its next words, something went horribly wrong.

“But we cleaned it up together, didn’t we, my sweet b-b-b-boy-oy-oy…”

The voice tore. For a horrifying instant, it wasn't his mother’s voice at all. It was a discordant glitch, a sound like a warped cassette tape snagging and playing multiple tracks at once. In that split second, he heard his father’s drunken slur, a woman’s terrified shriek, and a dry, rasping whisper all layered over each other, mangled and inhuman. The sound scraped against his sanity.

The creature’s face contorted for a moment, the placid mask flickering to reveal a brief spasm of… something. Anger? Frustration? Then, just as quickly, it was gone. The voice smoothed out, finishing the sentence as if nothing had happened.

“…boy? It was our little secret.”

But the damage was done. The illusion was not just cracked; it was utterly shattered. The last vestiges of his hope died, replaced by a certainty so cold and absolute it eclipsed even the memory of her touch.

This was not a dream.

This was not his mother.

He was wide awake, trapped in the dark, silent house with a monstrous imposter.

The realization washed over him, a tidal wave of pure, undiluted terror. The living room no longer looked like his childhood home. The familiar armchair was a predator’s throne. The shadows in the corners writhed with unseen menace. The woman standing before him was no longer a comforting vision, but a thing of absolute horror wearing his most sacred memory as a disguise.

And as he stared into her—its—face, he saw the love in its eyes curdle into something else. A hungry, possessive look. The look of a collector appraising a new acquisition. He wasn't just an observer in this nightmare.

He was the target.