A hybrid should be deadlier than any werewolf or vampire. Nature would hardly stand for such an imbalance of power. It is essential for it to possess both the strengths and some of the weaknesses of its parent races, along with powerful attributes unique to itself alone due to its combined heritage, such as super strength or immunity to silver. Will it be able to control its transformations? Will heart extraction kill it? Actually, that remains unconfirmed, since no one has extracted a hybrid’s heart yet. All I can say is - the way hybrids work in this universe is weird. Technically it would be an original, being the first of its kind.

*

A day of resting and not leaving the house seems quite pacifying until it does not. Under usual circumstances, while you’d really wish to take some time off your strenuous routine and just stay in to reconnect with yourself, you would perhaps be flabbergasted now that you are presented with the opportunity. I’ve been thinking, Satan may be finding it difficult not being exposed to the everyday chaos, which has been so embedded in his life, somewhere in the background like a dull ache. How would you get away from something that’s been so familiar to you forever? But now that it’s gone, don’t you feel startled that you wished to be granted relief from its familiarity, in the first place?

As Alpha walks out to the terrace, he is surrounded by a stinging quietness. If he happened to stand there for a bit too long, the thoughts inside his head would have grown louder and become almost deafening. To be honest, he felt that retrospection is entertaining, but only as long as there was some loud diversion, distracting him from time to time.

Inside, Satan is stuck in bed. Watching his life slow down interminably made him realize things he wouldn’t normally care to mull over.

Father number two sits down on the floor, hurling out loads of old things that were crammed inside forgotten cupboards. Parenthood, it seems, was a golden opportunity to dismiss the ancient and make room for the new. And so, he found innumerable bills, paperwork, cards, photographs, mementos and a bunch of things ripe with the essence of his childhood and teenage years.

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Satan scours through the things, and he comes across a bulky white envelope, wrapped in cellophane. It contained small paper cards and tokens on which Alpha had scribbled in his broken handwriting, which was yet to form fully. They were addressed to his parents—birthday messages, Christmas greetings, childish shenanigans, juvenile complaints, honest confessions and worldly representations of fatuous dreams.

Alpha finds other tokens too, addressed to him from Satan. What surprised he was that his seventeen-year-old-self was exchanging letters with his crush while still living under his parents’ roof.

Satan then hands him a piece of paper with names scribbled on it from top to bottom. He explained that they were names his mother considered for him before he was born. He recognized her handwriting and saw his current name at the top of the list.

Heart-deep as he is in this nostalgic whirlpool, Satan now sees Alpha stand up. And as if in a surreal vision, he was moving farther and farther away, carrying the box of his childhood memories with him.

***

Truth be told, the pregnancy has provided them a long-awaited solace.

So, each night Satan lays in his bed feeling pathetic about not having done anything productive. And he tried to convince himself that he can always cling to hope when everything else fails.

Satan's pregnancy has provided Alpha solace, too, but it's become equally harder to concentrate on essential things.

Satan tells himself that this is the time to channel his concentration into doing something useful. But he simply could not. His mind was disturbed with the pain, mood swings, etc. His worries about his own anxieties didn’t matter at this point.

The afternoon passes. Alpha stared at the sky long enough to see the sun disappear, as a frightening silence engulfed him again.

These days, Satan utters a prayer to no one in particular, every night before going to sleep—a prayer born out of helplessness and despair. He drifted off as he wished, each day, that they will wake up the next morning in a place far from where they were now with no one to harm their baby.