Mommy

A Flash Fiction Horror

Credit: NASA/Ted Stryk

When I first saw her, everything changed. She was my jewel, my beating heart. We found her in the caverns of Europa, orphaned and alone on that fascinating moon, her origins a mystery. What were they, the ones that left her behind? We took her with us, crafting an environment chamber, keeping her healthy. With every day on the voyage back to Earth, and every day at the Agency, my love for her grew, a bond forged not by words or gestures, but by things unexplained, a touch, a gaze, a knowingness. To the Agency, she was simply my subject. I was to learn everything I could about her, her physiology, her biology, her mind – that beautiful mind! They let me take her home after a while, when I had given them all the urgent answers and she was deemed harmless enough that I could continue my work remotely. I didn’t care about the stares as I cradled her in my arms on the way. How could they possibly understand?

I remember the day she first spoke to me, that strange, musical language seeding in my mind and morphing into something more familiar. “Mommy”. Oh, when she said it that first time! When those large eyes looked into mine and the thought rang so clear. There were other thoughts too, memories of a history, a glorious purpose, a rush of knowledge filling every crevice of my brain, freeing me from the shackles of sanity. I remember the joyful cries of my biological children, as my hands reached down into their warm entrails, while my darling husband gurgled his own blood. She showed it all to me, what I had to do. Even after I said that last goodbye, even after the agents blew her to pieces and dragged me away strapped to that stretcher, I laughed with all the gaiety in the universe. I was their vessel. I was their instrument! This world would be freed!

We would all be freed.

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© 2020 Barra Hart. All rights reserved.

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