“Hah ! Everything about you perplexes me.”

  Circle circle circle circle circle circle circle circle circle circle cir-

  “Sissy ?”

  She raised her eyes to him.

  “I'm drawing them in my head,” she said.

  Peter fell silent for a few seconds. His gaze on his daughter slightly changed but the words he used next didn't.

  “You were so happy to throw your brother under the bus yesterday, now look at you running after him.”

  “Do you have a penis ?”

  Peter’s face got ugly.

  “Don't be gross.”

  “I bet you don't.”

  She was putting her sneakers on, oblivious to his susceptible mood. She left before his anger took shape, before the sky changed color - another shade spreading across her face, her being. Something both light and heavy was jingling inside her chest, like a keychain, the one she left behind. No phone, no keys, no song to put herself to sleep. She had forgotten the rhythm of her mother’s favorite tune. But she remembered Peter's prayer before he died the first time. It sounded like a lullaby.

  She exhaled.

  The ground was hot under the soles of her shoes, so was her breath. In and out. A familiar pace, or not - she laughed. If the devil had been the one to slip his hand down her pants, would he have found what he was looking for ?

  Like magic.

  She knew of magic. It had a very familiar shape. Circle circle circle circle circle circle circle circle circle circle circle - but this one wouldn't close. Unlike the egg; the egg had been perfect. Grand, magnificent even. She remembered how peaceful existence before birth had been, before death came to rob her. It had talked to her a bit, in the womb. No, it had made a request of her.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Do you remember ?”

  The creature was still laying there, near the door of the ice cream shop. It had been crying. It couldn’t bleed but it could whine. How fun. It looked at her like she was the devil, but she was just a mimic.

  “I made a mistake.”

  She bent down to come closer to its face. Not a man but not a god. Its vision was blurry with tears. Sweat was dampening its shirt, its upper lip. She blinked and it didn’t move. She didn't know why. Nothing had changed between them.

  “They told me to stop leaving the front desk open, but I couldn't help it.” She made a pause. “Curiosity killed the cat and all that.”

  They were the same.

  “You followed in.”

  In the devil’s trail, like a pair of ducklings.

  “But you never bought your ticket.”

  Sulfur, the taste of hell. The creature’s eyes were too wide, its face too ugly. Its lips were trembling with some sentiment Sissy didn’t want to interpret. She didn't want to relate more to that thing that she already did. And they were quite related. They both came from the same hatchery.

  “You asked me before.”

  Do you remember ?

  “‘One adult, main exhibit.’ That’s what you said.”

  Something dirty got in.

  “Before I died in the egg.”

  I don’t know what to do.

  “But it was too late.”

  We never left the museum.

  “And now you’re trespassing.”

  As the last syllable left her mouth, the eye came down violently and started hovering right above the creature's head, perfectly horizontal.

  The creature was completely still, but its eyes were going mad. It tried to plead with her silently. Sissy didn't understand why it didn’t talk like it did before. She wanted to hear its voice again, so she waited a bit. Maybe it couldn't talk for some reason because it never did. She raised her head then sighed.

  When she opened her mouth again, the creature shook so violently she felt it in her jaw. It had tried to pry it open before, now it hated the sight of her scarlet tongue. How funny.

  “I guess I have no choice but to call security.”

  She said the last word slowly, but it didn't change a thing. The eye enveloped the creature in an instant, and just like that, it was gone.

  Sissy felt it in her chest.

  The circle was finally closed.

  Except it wasn’t because everything seemed to point out to the fact that she had outed Nate to Peter but she had no memory of it. Wasn’t it a problem ? The worm never died.

  It just went into hiding.

  Tick tock.

  She was running out of time.

  Birth - Fear - Pain - Death (the creature’s)

  Soon she would be born again.