Fostering love and care to a dead man, who had been abandoned by the world, she was a being of kindness, that had a warmth, that was akin to a motherly figure. In her hands, was a child that she loved and adored with every fiber of her being, her own child made by her own weeping and gnashing of teeth, that she would love and protect. "Ah!" The sound of a child, crying in agony, "Mama! Mama!" The sound of a child that had no hope in its heart. "Mama, help! The black monster is here!" But her love was empty and her compassion was hollow, and her child that had died had already lost any hope of happiness. Acting only as a doll that knew humanity from the view of a nulled mind and the mind of a dead man, it was a child of no one, a child that was nothing, and a child that would be nobody and nothing. "Mama! The black monster will come and get me!" What meaning had it to be alive? Why had she been so kind to him? Why was he so special to her? "Mama! I don't want to be here!" His eyes, the dead eyes, were filled with tears as they begged her to save him.

"Hooooo—Hoooooo—Hooooooo—"

An owl's call came from the distance.

"Shhhh, my child. It is okay. I'm here." The doll spoke, as it cradled its dead son in its arms.

The owl understood not the human nature, even in death they would show things such as love and compassion, as if they were following orders from a hivemind of sorts, that would order them to show affection, as if they were the worker ants, and this dead man, this child, was their queen, their purpose of existing. The owl was not in its natural state of mind, as was the child, but not the doll. You see, in order to differentiate itself from the hivemind of humanity, it had to become a monster, a beast, an anomaly. The owl knew not of this, however. As for the child, he had been born in the darkest, coldest corner of a place, that was not of the living. He was a doll by normal standard, he was a human by the standard of a creature of darkness. It had no right to be human, but it was, by design. A child, with a dead face, with the face of an abomination. With an expression of an innocent child, a dead, dead, dead, child that knew not of the cruelness and horrors of the world, for it assumed it was all the cathartic way it had to be.

"Child, tomorrow will lead to something new. So leave this black creature, to its own, to live, to die, to suffer." She held her son close to her heart, and spoke to him in a calming tone. A tone that would soothe him. As much as her empty love would not reach this creature she'd made, her grudge would shine through as she killed the creature of darkness. "My son. I love you. I love you so very, very much." The words, that had left her lips, that had reached the creature's ears, that were spoken by a voice of no human being, were empty and hollow, so they had no meaning. The intonation was of that of a human, a human being that was alive and breathing, but it had no soul. The owl was no human being, the owl had no soul, but the doll that held a corpse, had the soul of an empty shell, and her son was not alive. It was an empty vessel. The doll and her child, who was nothing but a puppet, a doll of a doll, a doll of a doll of a doll of a doll of a doll of a doll of a doll of a doll of a doll of a doll of a doll of a doll of a doll of a doll of a doll of a doll. Once she realized that her son held for her nothing but contempt, as she felt towards him, it was the day he would be left alone in the marrow of his own world that had long since died.

".....'s......'s......'s....." The corpse spoke, and as his mother had felt no love towards him, nor had he felt love towards her, he felt only hatred, and hatred for the mother that had birthed him. Hatred for a mother that left him, for a contorted memory of begrudging someone that was his own mother.

"My son... my darling... my dear..." The doll's mouth moved, speaking out of a duty to fill a role that she had taken on, but her streaming tears were real. For she could feel no happiness, nor could she feel love. These corpses and dolls were only allowed the feelings of negativity as they paraded about on their being like a march band on the day of judgement. But they were only empty husks that were being dragged about on the surface of a dream of the damned, the dead that had long since lost their minds and souls to their hatred. A child and its doll that had no love, nor compassion. A boring story with no true resolution, a plot with no end, nor a purpose. A tale that would bore any soul to read. It would only be the tale that would be of an old story of an ancient myth of the origin of the world and of its destruction. Whether it was true, whether it was a deformed recalling of someone who blocked out memories of their childhood or a mere fever dream of a man who had long since given up on the idea of having a family. It was the dream of an existence that had never existed. A story that would be lost in the sands of time and a tale that would never have a chance to be known again.

Ah! Stop there... stop! Again, you're being wayyy too dramatic about this little story, you see, you're going to bore your audience, and that's no fun! I don't wanna hear you ramble on about some stupid bullshit!

...It is not me who speaks but my words, it is not I who is writing but the story, it is not me who creates the words, I am merely repeating them. What you are seeing is nothing but a dream, a memory of an entity that is long since dead. An anomaly that is nothing more than an anomaly of an anomaly. I do not know what it means, I only speak the worlds words.

Oh, well, shut up. Anyways, say my name.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

...Vadim?

Yes! Now shut up, you know how this goes.

...

"Mother, mother, I hate you. I hate you so, very much." The words were spoken from the corpse, who's mouth had long since been sewn shut, by the mother, in an attempt to make her child look as if he was a normal boy. Though the words reached nobody, for he laid down in a glass house. Eventually, sometime during his two thousand isolation, his lips had been ripped off as he forcibly opened them with his fingers, each sewn joint was ripped open. His body had grown into that of an adult. But the glass house had long since been cracked and broken. The corpse was not alone either,

he was not alone. He had the doll with him. The doll, that was of his mother. Albeit not really her. It was one that never spoke. It only spoke to him in a whisper. When she was not speaking to him, when she was not whispering in his ear. She was in her glass coffin. Sleeping in eternal rest. As was her son, her son that she had birthed, or perhaps she had not, was weaving together a doll of his own. A doll that would be his friend. His best friend. The doll, it had a body made of clay and straw and sticks, it was not human nor did it have a face. It was a disturbing sight for anyone to lay eyes on.

The owl that saw this was horrified and scared, it was not something to see. The owl, it would never forget what it had seen. It was the sight of a human, a human who was dead, and dead humans were scary.

They are scary, very much so.

...

"So, little guy, is this how your upbringing went about?" A voice spoke, the same voice, that had been speaking before.

"You know nothing of me, you fucking piece of shit, what the hell do you want from me, what do you gain from doing this to me!?" Zabulus screamed as his body, which had grown from a child's to a full-grown adult's in a mere two moments of pain and shaping.

"Hey, you gonna listen to me? I said I was going to tell you something important."

"Important!? Nothing's important to me, I don't even care about what's going on right now!"

"I have the answers to all your questions."

"...!" The being's 'eyes' had suddenly gone wide and his body went stiff, as if frozen in time. "W...what?"

"Do you want to know who your father is, why he never appeared in your life, why your mother did what she did? Do you even know what you are, why you were the target of a decrepit woman, w-"

"STOP IT!" His voice was of a scream of anger and desperation, as if a child that was on the verge of crying, "JUST FUCK OFF!"

"You want to know, right?" Vadim leaned close, and looked the entity in the 'eyes'. "Say—If an apple meets teeth, what happens to it?"

"W...What are you talking about?" He didn't understand, why would they talk about apples now of all times?

"The teeth break and the apple turns red with the color of the person who bit it." Vadim's eyes turned into the shape of a spiral and their voice had changed to that of an old man, "Now, what happens to the person who bit into the apple?"

"T-they become satisfied...?" Zabulus answered. But the answer did not satisfy him.

"Oh no... that's not it...!" Vadim said in an eerily calm manner, and a smile crept upon their face, "The apple becomes a human." Reality, the reality around him began to twist and distort and bend. It became an abstract mess. A world that had no form and no meaning and no order, and it was all thanks to a simple question, "What happens to the person who bit the apple?"

"I don't understand..."

"Of course, you do, of course, you do. Of course, you do. Now tell me, what is the apple?" For the third time, they asked, "What is the apple, what is the person, who bit the apple?"

"...!"

"What happens when an apple meets teeth, what is the person who bit into the apple, and what becomes of the person after?"

"The apple... becomes human?"

The human... the apple is human? No... it is not possible... the human is the apple?

The human is an apple.

The apple is the human.

The person that bit the apple became an apple. Or... perhaps, the apple became a person, and the person was the apple. The human was the apple. It is not possible to bite an apple and not have it become human, for the person is an apple, and the apple is the human, and the person and the apple are one and that could only ever be the case if the person is an apple.

The person bit the apple, but the apple was still the apple. And so, the apple was no longer an apple but the human, and the person that bit into the apple became the apple.

"Your line of thinking is correct! 1 point for Zabulus!" The smile that had formed on their face before had been wiped off by the time he had come to a conclusion, and their eyes had turned back to a hollow space, "And that is exactly what happened to you, as I am sure you are aware." As if a switch had been flicked, the entire reality that had once been warped, now was back to normal.

"I... don't understand. Why me, why did all this happen?"

"Hey! I said that to you before, remember?"

"No! That was just you telling me that I'd find out what happened to me eventually! It didn't say why!"

"Why, indeed! But you are not the protagonist, and I'm sure you can feel it, you're still worthless in the eyes of those around you. This is all because I decided that I hated you, you are a worthless creature, that should've been disposed of long ago, you should have been thrown into the garbage as soon as you were born, and yet here you are, so I'll make something out of you!" Flailing their arms around, the figure of Vadim began to distort, "I'm gonna show you how worthless you truly are!"