I thought I’d wake up somewhere with angels surrounding me, some deity extending a hand to drag me to heaven. Or to hell. But there was none of that. Just darkness.

I had no body. No senses. Not even thoughts in the strictest sense of the word. I just existed. Or something like it.

Then, a gray smoke appeared before me, vibrating with a spectral glow. It twisted, contorting, until silhouettes took shape.

“I told you not to touch—!”

My mother. Her face twisted with rage. Her hands swinging down at me with the force of a punishment she insisted I needed to learn.

The smoke shifted.

“Are you really this stupid, you little—!?”

My father, swinging a bat at my back. He’d caught me overhearing him talk to someone—something I wasn’t supposed to do. So the lesson came in bruises.

Again, the smoke changed.

“Sniff… Sniff…”

There I was, curled up in a corner, swallowed by the absolute darkness of a closet. A whole month. All because I’d hit a kid in kindergarten. An overreaction—even for them.

The smoke kept writhing.

“Relax, it’s my first time too…”

Ah. This. The night I lost my virginity. And the night I claimed my first victim. I remember the panic, the confusion, the adrenaline. But most of all… the pleasure. How disgusting.

The memories kept unfolding. All of them. Without exception.

Not a single good one. Not a single one worth keeping.

Why?

The smoke began to condense, forming a shape I recognized: an arched door. I stepped through.

Darkness. Again.

“Ha... ha… ughh…!”

A sound.

“Damn it, she’s bleeding out! Call Mrs. Floiyo now—the baby’s coming out backwards!”

What…?

“Come on, Erika, hold on! Mrs. Floiyo’s on her way!”

Voices. Distant. Muffled.

Then, a blinding light.

“Waaah! Waaah!”

A wrenching sound vibrated in my chest. I'm… crying?

The shadows dissolved. The world snapped into focus.

“Uff… Uff… Thought we’d lose him…”

A man’s voice.

“Congratulations, it’s a beautiful boy. And the twins made it, though not without complications!”

Arms held me firmly. Warm. Maternal.

…What the hell just happened?