How much time had passed? Marcel could no longer tell. His mind teetered on the edge of madness. For what felt like an eternity, he had been aware, conscious, trapped not just in a womb, but imprisoned within himself. A prisoner of flesh and fate, locked in the still, suffocating confines of his mother's body.
Now, finally birthed into the world, his consciousness remained sharp, too sharp. His newborn body trembled with unnatural rage.
The midwives stared, frozen, their eyes darting between each other and the infant they cradled. Confusion and dread clouded their expressions, but Marcel knew they were staring at him. Still, their gaze was the least of his concerns.
A low, guttural fury stirred within him.
His face twisted with wrath, no longer bearing the softness of an infant but the hardened fury of a man wronged. His jaw clenched violently. Teeth, fully formed, an anomaly, ground against each other with a screeching, metallic resonance that filled the air like nails on glass.
Gasps escaped the midwives. Shock and disbelief painted their faces as they beheld the impossible, this child, this thing, in their arms. Malice radiated from his very presence. One of them, Sarah, let out a strangled cry before collapsing, unconscious from the sheer weight of what she had witnessed.
A silence fell over the room, but it was no ordinary stillness.
The very air seemed to ripple. The walls shimmered faintly, as if reality itself recoiled from the presence of the child. An oppressive dread settled like mist, thick and cloying. Their lungs strained with each breath, as though the oxygen had turned against them.
Goosebumps prickled their skin. Their hair stood on end, stirred not by wind, but by terror. Not one of them dared move, trapped between the instinct to flee and the horror of turning their back on the creature before them.
They could swear their shadows were no longer their own. On the walls, they twisted, warped into grotesque and shifting forms, as if some unseen force was reshaping their very essence. Then came the euphoria, sudden, overwhelming, and unnatural. A wave of ecstatic dread crashed over them, severing their tether to consciousness.
One by one, the midwives collapsed, their bodies crumpling to the cold floor. Marcel slipped from their arms, falling with a soft thud onto the blood-slickened sheets on the floor.
Despite the agony that wracked her body and the steady stream of blood flowing from her, she moved.
Not by strength. Not by reason. But by instinct and something far older. Something sacred. Something eternal.
Agnes dragged herself inch by inch toward the child, her fingers clawing against the floor. When her dim, pain-laden eyes finally found his face twisted with suffering, distorted by a rage that did not belong to any newborn, there was no fear in her.
No flinch.
No recoil.
No horror.
Only recognition.
This was her son.
With trembling arms, she gathered him, pressing his small, trembling frame to her chest. The warmth of her blood mingled with the warmth of her embrace. Her lips brushed against his forehead in a kiss as soft as breath.
And in that instant, something cracked.
Marcel's mind overburdened, stretched to the edge, shattered under the weight of too many memories. The torment of consciousness in the womb, the unrelenting awareness, the memories of a life long gone. A wife. A sister. Still trapped. Still suffering. Still bound by the will of Astorossah, the entity that had cursed his soul to return.
But in his mother's arms, something ancient stirred.
He felt her, the other mother, from the world he'd lost. Not in sight, not in sound, but in the warmth, in the unmistakable love that knew no lifetime, no boundary.
And just like that, the fury collapsed.
Tears welled in his newborn eyes, silent at first, then bursting forth in gasping sobs. Not of rage, but of mourning.
Grief from a soul too old for its fragile body. A sorrow born of all it remembered… and all it knew it would lose again.
The midwives regained consciousness moments later, slowly lifting themselves from the floor, leaning on one another for support. Their faces were pale, drawn tight with fear and disbelief.
They were not just professionals tending to a delivery, they were close companions of Agnes, Marcel's mother, and that intimacy only deepened the gravity of what they had just witnessed.
A fragile wave of relief swept through them as their eyes settled on Agnes, who now cradled the infant gently against her chest. Marcel was crying, his sobs raw and human, as if finally accepting his arrival into the world.
A mother's love, they thought, truly defies all logic.
Agnes lifted her gaze. She spoke no words, but her eyes held a silent authority, a message deeper than speech.
They understood.
"Not a word to anyone," Sarah murmured, breaking the tense silence, her voice low and unwavering.
"Special children, if they awaken, rarely show signs before the age of four," Chico added, her voice barely above a whisper. "This… this is something else entirely."
"With a full set of teeth," Pauline whispered, trembling, "he could be an omen. A harbinger of something grim. Are we sure silence is the right choice? Shouldn't the chief be told?"
"That's old superstition," Chico replied, though the certainty in her tone wavered. "Some say children born with teeth bring doom. Others say they are destined, legends in the making. Liberators."
Their eyes shifted back to Agnes. She was smiling softly at the child in her arms.
Marcel stared up at her, his eyes brimming with something unspoken, something ancient, as though he recognized her on a level that defied reason.
A profound stillness formed between them, as if for a brief moment, the world had narrowed to just mother and child.
Yet the silence that passed between the midwives said everything.
This was no ordinary birth.
They had seen a child radiate palpable malice, release waves of invisible force, and gnash his teeth in what could only be described as fury.
Despite every effort to remain composed, to offer strength in front of their beloved friend, they were all, to their core, terrified of the child in her arms.
Could it be tied to her past? Had their whispered suspicions carried more weight than they dared to admit?
"What name shall he bear?" Pauline asked softly, her voice tinged with reverence and unease. The others leaned in, hoping to glimpse the meaning behind the boy's name.
Agnes smiled faintly, as though the answer had waited patiently for this moment.
"I don't know why," she said, "but this name has echoed in my thoughts, refusing to leave.
I'll call him… Marcellus."
Marcellus? The boy stirred. How curious, he thought. So close to my old name.
His damp eyes scanned the room, flicking from face to face. He opened his mouth, attempting to speak on instinct, but stopped himself.
Better not to startle them, he thought.
Even if he had managed to form words, it would've been meaningless. He couldn't understand a single thing they'd said, except that name. That much, he was sure of: Marcellus was now his name.
I need to learn their language. Quickly. Reading, writing, everything, from the beginning.
His limbs felt alien, uncoordinated and weak. His movements were slow, like a puppet handled by an uncertain hand.
It was maddening.
He was a man confined within the fragile shell of a newborn.
The frustration gnawed at him, a lingering bitterness he couldn't quite shake. Yet his thoughts soon drifted from the indignity of it all when his gaze fell upon his mother's bare chest, now mere inches from his face.
Wait... is this cheating? he wondered, startled. Drinking from breasts that aren't my wife's?
But then again, she is my mother now, he reasoned. Still, they were breasts, divine, supple, warm.
A magnificent sight for weary eyes.
With careful precision, mindful not to harm her with his strange new set of teeth, he latched on and began to suckle.
So this is what it feels like, he mused in quiet awe, gripping her breast with both hands. What a strange and wonderful time to be alive.
Gentle laughter bubbled up from the women nearby, their amusement washing over the room and dispelling the earlier tension.
In his past life, he'd often joked about suckling from his wife's breasts once they had children, just to share in the bond.
Never, in his most outlandish imaginings, did he think he would be the child.
News of his birth spread quickly.
One by one, visitors arrived to see Agnes and her newborn.
Yet something about Marcellus unsettled them deeply. Every person who looked into his eyes felt an inexplicable chill crawl down their spine, even the village chief was not immune.
"Such malice…"
"What was that presence?"
"It's as if darkness itself had given birth to a child…"
"That thing shouldn't live among us," the chief adviser muttered gravely. "It's a bad omen."
The chief stood torn. Agnes had long been a pillar of the village, a healer, protector, a guide, a friend. To cast her out would fracture the very peace he was sworn to protect and yet not driving the kid out could bring doom.
"Give me time to think," he finally said.
The adviser, aware of the chief's fondness for Agnes, gave a solemn nod and held his tongue for now.
In the dead of night, beneath a canopy of stars that shimmered in silence while the crickets sang their ancient lullabies, a cloaked group moved stealthily toward Agnes's home. Among them wss the village adviser, their figures shrouded in garments etched with sigils, arcane markings that cloaked their presence from prying eyes and listening spirits.
They slipped inside like whispers on the wind. Shadows swallowed the room as they extinguished every source of light. But as they crept toward the bed where Agnes and her child lay, one of the intruders made a faint sound, a misstep, barely audible.
Yet it was enough.
Agnes stirred, her instincts flaring. Her eyes snapped open to find formless figures looming in the darkness. Without thought, she reacted, arms moving to defend herself, but a firm palm struck her chest with supernatural force, slamming her back into the mattress.
In that instant, a sigil flared across her skin, its glow brief but potent, and her body froze. Her limbs refused to move. Her voice caught in her throat. She was imprisoned, paralyzed, reduced to nothing more than a witness.
Marcellus, too, was jolted awake by the disturbance, but before he could even rise, a cold hand covered his face. Another sigil surged into life, engulfing him in glowing strands that pinned his tiny form in place, silencing his cries before they could leave his lips.
His mind raced. What's happening? Panic clutched at him as he felt himself being lifted, no warmth. Just cold intention. That's when he realized.
He was being taken.
Agnes could do nothing but watch. Her body refused her every command, yet her soul screamed as tears welled up and streamed down her cheeks, the only movement left to her.
Deep within the heart of the forest, another group awaited in a clearing etched with ancient symbols. Circles and runes had been carved into the earth, forming a ritualistic seal. Lanterns flickered. Shadows danced.
"Open the Abyss," a voice commanded, firm and ritualistic.
Marcellus recognized it instantly. The chief's adviser.
He struggled twisting in vain, eyes wide with terror but the sigils held fast. He couldn't scream. He couldn't even summon the dreadful aura that once unsettled those who gazed upon him.
At the center of the ritual, black ink seeped from the carvings in the earth, bubbling unnaturally as if the ground itself were boiling. Without ceremony or hesitation, they threw him, like refuse, into the swirling darkness.
As he twisted midair, he caught a glimpse of their faces.
Not anger. Not cruelty.
Fear.
They looked at him not as a child, but as an aberration. An enigma. An anomaly to be erased before it could awaken.
He understood their fear, their reason. But was this truly humane?
No chance to speak. No chance to prove he meant no harm.
This is all that wretched entity's fault, he thought, rage and sorrow blending within him.
His thoughts spiraled as his body plunged into the abyss, the ink swallowing him whole.