“Please.”

The first child pleaded, his voice barely audible.

“I’m hungry…”

His sister murmured, clutching the hem of the tattered threadbare dress. Gone were the glistens in her button eyes.

“Mom? Mommy!?”

The brother’s voice cracked as he nudged their mother with a trembling hand.

“Bwaaaaaa!”

The infant, lying in her mother’s hands, couldn’t stop his whimpering due to severe hunger. Her siblings were only hungrier, each malnourished as they scattered around their mother, towering over her slumped figure.

But the mother herself was no better, barely hanging on the very border of life and death. Despite her youth, she bore the marks of a life tainted by too many hardships. Her hair was streaked with silver, her hands were rough and cracked, and her eyes, once bright, now looked tired and faded, reechoing the color of the ash-gray dusk peeking through the ragged curtains.

The room was silent, and the air was heavy with the scent of dampness and decay as mold patterned the walls.

“What is it now?”

Fatma couldn’t help but muster through her chapped lips. She then pressed her cracked lips tightly together, a faint shiver tracing her spine. Her face was as pale as the peeling paint on the walls.

Just a moment ago, she was lying on the bed, staring blankly at the blank ceiling. She was half contemplating ending it all, her grim deliberation interrupted by the grating snores of the fat fuck lying beside her. Each snort sliced through the quiet, shredding her concentration.

Despite the agonizing internal and external pain, when she finally managed to regain her reason, she decided to preserve her life no matter what.

And then she slowly started losing consciousness. It was as if her life was slipping away from her body. This feeling was akin to the one she felt when infusing her soul with the seed of evil.

Now, she was surrounded by scrawny kids, each struggling to maintain balance on feeble legs. She started analyzing herself and her surroundings. A pang of surreal acknowledgment struck her as she observed her new reality.

Her skin was darker, presumably because of the dirt smeared across it. She was a human yet again. Her chest was large and heavy, and her palms were calloused.

“And, of course, I don’t understand a damn thing.”

The mother spoke in an annoyed low whisper, murmuring the words barely audible even to herself. The children were confused as their unceasing pleas finally came to a halt. Their mother’s behavior was unusual. She also spoke gibberish. Did she finally lose her mind?

Fatma couldn’t understand the language these children spoke in. Looking out the window, she saw a glazing grey orb dominating the sky. She was on an entirely different planet. Again.

‘Not just the language. I don’t understand anything at all.’

Why was she traversing from one body to another? Was this just an illusion, a dream, or an actuality? What was the seed of evil exactly?

More like the seed of suffering! She was a slave just a moment ago and now a depleted mother with a starving family.

Fatma tried to stand up but couldn’t. She was deprived of all her energy. Before, her body was filled with extreme pain. Her current predicament was no different. It was just that the type of pain was different, no less severe, yet distinctly varying in its cruelty.

Though, she didn’t like to learn about this variation in the least. Fuck pain. To top it all off, her head whirled, swirling and dwindling due to her famished mind.

Suddenly, a sharp tinge shot through her breast, drawing her attention to the infant beside her. The baby’s cries pierced her ears, its face contorted in hunger. She understood what was needed, but the thought was unbearable.

‘Fuck no.’

Physically, she had already lost all her dignity in every sense of the word in her previous life as an elm youngling. Yet, mentally, she was unprepared for the gnawing demand on her body - this type of degradation, that is.

Then, Fatma's gaze lingered over her other children. Their bodies were marked by the relentless hardships they had endured. They seemed as if they might snap under the slightest pressure, their skin pallid and stretched tight over meager bones. The sight pierced her heart.

Fatma mustered all her strength to rise, but her limbs refused to cooperate, weakened from exhaustion. She opened her mouth to call for help, only to realize the words forming were foreign to those around her, leaving her voiceless and even more isolated.

It was only at this moment that the true value of food struck her. Never before had she faced such a famine. She never understood how vital each morsel was until she encountered its absence. Now, the lesson was brutally clear, with hollow bellies surrounding her.

‘We need to go look for food. If there isn’t any, we simply have to beg for it outside.’

She gathered her remnants of strength, pointing at herself and then at the distant door. Yet the children only continued to mumble foreign words at her. Only the baby’s cries were understandable to her since they didn’t demand thorough comprehension.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

While she was on the brink of losing consciousness from additional dehydration, the said door groaned under its own weight as it slowly swung open. There stood a father, his silhouette haggard and imposing against the dim evening light.

‘Is that the father?’

Fatma thought. The man mumbled something under his breath as he approached. His heavy work boots scraped the worn floorboards as he staggered forward, each step weighed down by the exhaustion of the mines and fueled by the sharp sting of alcohol. This nasty scent was familiar to Fatma as she was enveloped under it in her previous body.

Fatma, seated across the room, tensed at the sound of his footsteps and gradually escalating tone. Her eyes, which had momentarily fluttered closed, lost in the fleeting memories, snapped open. The sight of her ‘husband’ reignited familiar feelings of fear and resentment.

As he moved clumsily into the room, his gaze fell not on her but on the small, crying child in her arms. His face twisted momentarily with an emotion she could not quite decipher, his dulled eyes struggling to focus.

As the father’s expression contorted further and the grip on the cheap bottle of alcohol hardened, the children slipped away one by one, their small feet making scarcely a sound on the cold floor. Their eyes wide with fear, they darted to the neighboring room.

Meanwhile, their father's voice rose further. The thin walls did little to muffle the sound, allowing every harsh syllable to seep into the children’s perception.

He focused on his wife’s face and saw… pity. No, she was looking down on him as if looking at some pathetic creature - an animal! The sight was unfamiliar to him. The usually frail and trembling woman was piercing him with her gaze. This angered him very much!

How dare a mere woman look at him this way! How dare a mere woman ignore his words!

He hurled the nearly empty bottle toward Fatma.

Fatma gasped as she hurriedly put the baby the farthest she could. With no time to protect herself and drained of all energy, she could only watch in horror as the bottle arced through the air, striking sharply on her forehead, sending a sear through her skull as she slammed back against the wall she was relying on. Blood began to trickle down her face, staining the peeling rug of a carpet under her.

As her knees buckled and her vision blurred, Fatma completely crumpled to the floor. The hard ground met her as she lay there in an embrace.

As Fatma lay motionless on the cold floor, a sudden, harsh grip on her disheveled hair jolted her back. The man knelt down, his face contorted with rage as he forcefully lifted her head by her hair. He screamed directly into her face, his spit flying at her bloody face. The words themselves were incomprehensible to her.

Pain throbbed at the roots of her hair and pierced through her skull. The coldness of the floor seeped into her bones. Numbness began to spread over her.

The man was even more enraged!

He then looked at her wife’s swollen chest. There were many other ways to tame a woman. Fatma, peeking at his sudden grin, was reminded of something - something terrible.

Yet, her expression remained unchanged, impassive. She didn’t flinch or show any hint of resistance.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, she extended one trembling finger towards the children’s direction. As the man’s eyes followed her gesture, shifting his attention for a split second, Fatma’s other hand moved swiftly. Hidden by the folds of her skirt was a shard of broken glass. With a sharp motion, she drove it into his temple.

The glass was embedded deeply. The man staggered backward, his hands flying up to his head, his face shocked. He was utterly speechless for a moment, the rage replaced by confusion.

Trying to remove it, he only worsened the situation in his drunken state. He clawed at the embedded glass in a frantic attempt to remove it, his movements wild and erratic. As the shard of glass sank deeper into his temple, a guttural scream tore from the man's throat. Blood gushed forth, spattering across and pooling onto the floor.

He stumbled, his legs no longer able to support his weight. Each second lasted furthermore, with more blood - more chaos. Finally, his body hit the ground, his life ebbing away rapidly as his breaths came in short, ragged gasps that soon ceased altogether.

Fatma stood frozen.

The grey light shone at her, illuminating her ghastly.

The only sounds remaining were the trembling sobs of the children.

Fatma shifted her gaze to them. In their eyes, she saw what she saw in herself - terror-stricken glares.

“What… What have I done!?”

She whispered hoarsely. Tears wouldn’t come due to dehydration.

She fell to the floor. The floor was cold, her body was, too, cold, and her mind was ashen.

Suddenly, her breath intensified, ragged and thick. The reality of what she had done began to creep into her. Her hands trembled. She looked down at them, stained with blood that was too real to deny. The man now lay motionless across from her, not even squirming in the pool of blood.

She looked at the children as they stared back at her, as if viewing not their mother but a demon who had taken over her. And they were right. After taking the body of their mother, she had further taken the life of their father.

For the latter part of her childhood, she grew up parentless. She knew of the pain.

Her face and hands bled, her stomach growled, and her throat wilted.

Yet this leakage of pain was nothing in comparison to the breakage inside of her. She, once again, couldn’t help but ask herself.

“Who am I?”

She whispered into the void.

The decrepit figure of a mother closed her heated eyes.

Why did she care for these children in the first place? The man was nothing but scum. The children were better off dead rather than living as it was…

Even if she took their mother’s life, didn’t she rescue her? From this pain and suffering, that is.

But then, Fatma’s hand shot up, striking her cheek with full ferocity. The sharp sound of the slap contrasted with the soft whimpers of the children nearby. Her skin stung, and a fierce red mark bloomed across her face.

“What am I thinking!”

What she needed at that moment was to ensure the kids’ safety. She needed to get treatment. Otherwise, she would lose consciousness and, even worse, her life.

Yet, at that very moment, the dread of death passed past her mind. She didn’t care the least about herself, although she normally would.

After all, death was the thing she usually feared the most. She didn’t know what would happen to her if she were to die inhabiting another body. What would happen to her soul in such a case?

Didn't matter.

Her mind was only fully engrossed in the children's safety and future.

She traced her gaze across the room, finding the infant. She instinctively strode toward the baby to ensure she was alright after the commotion. Kneeling beside the baby, Fatma gently checked for any signs of distress.

Afterward, she strode toward the door. Before, she didn’t have the energy, but now, she moved beyond her limits.

As she opened the door, a wash of light spilled into the dim room, lightening her darkened face.