Derek didn't know how to react—the arms so affectionately wrapped around him were just as warm and inviting as he remembered, and her face, her mannerisms were exactly the same—but no matter how he tried to shut his eyes and hope, he could not shake the idea that his mother had been replaced by an identical copy.
Eventually, his father joined the assembly, and drank in the sight of his wife and son reunited with typical fondness.
Ah, but there lies his salvation! Derek thought. As soon as Dad sees what I see, I won't feel so estranged. Surely he would need to take but a single glance to discover the deception. He had known her much longer than his son, after all.
His heart sunk when the father simply remarked "Ah, welcome home sweetheart. Glad to see you made it back in one piece!" Derek couldn't believe his ears.
"Oh! Moe, look at this boy. You weren't kidding!" Said the creature wearing his mother's face, so casually as if to continue a conversation that it had never been around to experience the beginning of. "He's rattled to pieces! Hasn't said a word since I got back."
But... how? Was it even possible? Derek had to bite his lip to stifle the ensuing sobs from breaking forth like a burgeoning dam.
He was completely alone.
He roughly tugged himself free from the purchase of the arms that he had so unbearably longed for all the while that his mother was gone. In fact, she was still gone now.
He ran to his room to begin making peace with that. She called back to him, but he couldn't hear over the sound of his own strangled sobs.
So, the years passed, and ever time he looked at the woman in his mother's skin, he grew a little bit more sick. A little more assured, and hateful. There was always that small part of himself that doubted, and in isolation he could even convince himself that it was all in his head, but as soon as she opened her mouth at the dinner table, it all came crashing back down to reality.
He didn't understand. What had this place done to her? Why had she been taken from him at such a young age?—and worst of all, why was he the only one who could tell the difference?
As he grew older, he began to notice more and more beings like the one that had replaced her mother. His next door neighbor, Sylvia, was a fiery little thing; with hair as vibrant to match her attitude. She was always bossing him around, and dragging him deep into the woods to return home all muddied and scratched up.
Many times she'd find excuses to sneak out across their balconies, into his room, and bury bugs into the back of his shirt, or trousers while he slept. He hated the terrible things that she did to him, but the foul creatures in his house insisted that he treat her with kindness, as they were in the same grade together, and their parents felt compelled to cheap out on a single babysitter for their date nights.
One Autumn afternoon, she broke out in a terrible fever, with hives accompanying every patch of her availed skin. He only visited her once, as they were fearful of allowing him to catch what she had. He could see how miserable she was, so he agreed to watch from the door. The stench of death was in the air.
If he had known this would be the last time he'd see her, he might have cared more to let her be close to him. He might have come to appreciate the glint in her eyes as she coughed desperately, and stared at his slender profile in the crack of the doorway.
"Derek..." She whispered, with all her strength, and reached out toward him. All he could do was stare. She was so weird! God, it's not like the girl was terminal or something! They were getting some top rated doctor to come visit who specialized in her condition.
The pitiful state of her tied his stomach into knots. His palms were splayed against the wood of the door, and he stared through the sliver that was afforded when the portal was ajar. She was crying, and trying with all her might to keep her arm outstretched toward him, as if longing to be those mere two feet closer. He shut the door, and pressed his back against the door, willing his heartbeat to slow.
Why should he care?! He never really wanted to be around her in the first place! His ears burned in a confusing mixture of feelings that he didn't entirely know how to unpack. His pulse was rushing against his will, and his forehead was slathered in a thick layer of cold sweat.
What was happening? Could it be that he had already caught it, himself?
He didn't realize he was breathing heavily, until that familiar smell came wafting from under the door. He immediately clasped his hands over his mouth and nose for fear of breathing in the contagion. Then, he ran.
He ran over the creaky floorboards. He ran down the brightly illuminated steps of the stairwell. He ran past the assembled people waiting in the decadently ornamented living room, downstairs. He ran out the front door, ignoring their calls and beckons. He ran into the squat house next door, all so drab, and colorless, in comparison to her own home. He ran into his own room, and curled into a ball before the attic window.
He remained, huddled like that, for a long time. Only after the sound of a thick-wheeled all terrain vehicle belched its way up the quiet cobblestone path, did he think to venture a peek out the wide, triangular window, above his bed.
The figure that stepped out of the tread-less tank was a specter of death, himself. Leather faced and broad-shouldered, the man looked more equipped to embalm his friend than cure her. He unearthed a heavy leather briefcase from his back seat. Luckily, from his high vantage point, he could see a few colorful vials rolling around inside of its clasp—and it might have been a trick of the light, but several of them seemed to be ...almost glowing.
The man trounced powerfully over to the front door, and stretched out a bony finger from his long sleeve, and rang the doorbell. This was the supposed expert that came so highly recommended by the highest authorities in the town? He didn't dress like a surgeon, and he didn't carry himself like a doctor. But everyone her parents had asked, pointed in the same direction. Stories rained down of how he cured this person's aunt, or that one's leg was reset after a fracture without so much as a scar.
With no reason to doubt the advice that they had so eagerly solicited, they had invited him into their home without a moment's reservations. Both parents answered the door, and it was after the mother expressed her relief that he had arrived safely, that Derek realized what was so horrible about this man; for he spoke with a voice that resembled his new mother.
He was one of them!
The raspiness, the candor, the strange way they halted after the sound of every titter—it was an inhuman dialect. At least this man had the courage to look the part. He hated his mother all the more for daring to put in the effort to look so fat and healthy all the time. If she had appeared more like this one, gaunt, disheveled, and tallow, then he would have no personal quandaries about writing her off as a thoughtless animal... but she had seemed almost so full of life, and boisterous joy, that at some times he couldn't help but dream for the most fleeting of moments that she had returned to him.
He entered into their residence, and as the door slammed shut behind, the rhombus of light vanished into nothingness behind him. He spent that entire evening wondering what monstrous tools Sylvia was being subjected to, by that cruel ghastly figure. He imagined her screams, and terror. Her pleas for mercy—to be released from the torment—would be unheard by the twisted, mocking faces of her foolish, unknowing parents. People who were supposed to be protecting their child, had let this monster into their house, instead.
It was to his surprise, when the man left their residence only thirty minutes later. No blood-curdling screams had escaped from their grand residence, yet, and when he climbed into his metal monstrosity, Derek could see that his hands weren't stained in the blood of his young friend. In fact, he was surprised to find that Sylvia was completely recovered the very next morning.
Her parents called it a miracle, but he only regarded it in realist terms. It was unnatural.
More unnatural still, was the change in Sylvia herself. Suddenly, the girl had turned into a loving, affectionate belle. She would cling to him at all hours of the day, share her desserts, and when she sneaked into his room at night, he no longer woke to a mass of wiggling vermin, but found her lying next to him instead; arms wrapped tightly around his waist.
What horrible curse had that man cast on her?