Overhead.

You make your way into the burrow you call a home. The grave you’ve been made to dig for yourself. You drop your hunter’s kit on the flat rock as your daughter runs into your arms, all warmth and fragile hope. You kiss her forehead and ask how she’s been.

She buries her face in your neck. 

“I missed you daddy.”

It’s been harder, leaving her all alone since her mother disappeared. She told you, more than once, that she didn’t think she’d make it. That her body and mind was failing her.

And still, you convinced her to stay. To fight.

You told her you would find a solution; a cure, even if you had to be up there for days. But she didn't survive it. The monsters got her you whisper to your crying daughter. 

Every breath you take feels like a betrayal. You wish things were different. You wish technology hadn’t driven us to madness, to the point where humans decided to reverse evolution. To play God and end up creating an abomination. 

You swore you’d take your own life if anything like this ever happened. But you didn’t know it would come when you became a father.

“Daddy, you were gone for a long time. I want to go with you tomorrow.”

Goodness. You love your daughter more than you can imagine. A  priceless gem with the face of an angel and a spirit just like her mother’s. You’ve been tethered by honey eyes; by the echo of love and loss stitched into her every expression. Now, you have to try and survive. Try to make things better for her.

You carry her to the pile of worn fabrics that serve as a bed. They aren't thick enough to fight off the cold, but they'll just have to do.

“Honey, we’ve talked about this. The Overhead isn’t safe enough for you.”

The city has become a shadow of itself. The streets lie empty like abandoned bones, and even the sun has hidden its face. Roots crawl through cracked roads where tires once rolled. Buildings sag. The air smells like rust and resignation. You move silently through the alleys–slipping in and out of remnants that used to be homes.

“But it gets really scary here, Daddy. I don’t want to be alone.”

You move toward the flat rock and reach into your bag. You pull out a small carved wooden trinket, a piece of the old world. A peace offering. Your sorry excuse for a bribe.

“I’m sorry, baby. Daddy needs to get supplies for both of us… but he also needs to keep you safe.”

Maya will be eight soon. Time keeps moving forward like a train with no brakes–dragging you with it. You wish she’d grow faster, just enough to understand why you do what you do.

“That’s okay, Daddy,” she says softly. “You wouldn’t let me come anyway… That’s why she’s here.”

You pause. Something inside you tightens.

You turn to look at her, but her gaze darts past you.

“Who’s here, sweetie?”

“Mummy.”

Your chest caves in like a roof beneath too much snow. You turn slowly, the weight of dread pressing against your spine like a blade drawn from the past. And there she is, standing just beyond the mouth of the burrow. The same soft eyes. The same trembling smile. The same figure you held as she whispered her last fears into your chest.

But the light from the lamp passes through her. The air around her is too still, too quiet.

This thing has stitched the most beautiful parts of your wife to itself. Like a taxidermist preserving love.

Your hand trails across the rock’s surface, searching for something, anything.

The creature tilts its head, it's smile stretchkng. It doesn’t speak, ut doesn’t need to. It knows you. It recognizes you. 

It senses your stomach turning in knots. It doesn’t bother pretending to be her to you.

You couldn't hide the truth in your eyes. And you can't hide it from us anymore.

You hear your wife's screams from the pores on its skin. Screams etched into memory, into marrow, into guilt.

You know this isn't her. You know this like you know your own breath. Like the scent of ash after a fire. Like the sound a lie makes when it tries to wear the truth.

You are so sure of this. How couldn’t you be? You're not so different from the thing before you.

You killed her with your own hands. You watched her beg, you watched her die.

So why are you so hesitant to do it again?