Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays were for growth. To be nurtured and loved, to be doted upon by his faux-father who did everything in his power to provide a loving environment for his child.

Its name was Grey.

Grey was loved, dearly. Sponge baths and top-shelf baby formula, all of the toys it could ever want. Every Monday, it would have a playdate with various other children, the sons and daughters of other people from its father’s circle of friends. Grey didn’t like the playdates much, however. It always sat in the corner, occasionally looking around the room in a wide-eyed expression as the other infants willingly ignored him. So after a few months of this, Grey’s father eventually took mercy and stopped dragging it to these social events.

Fridays were for timeouts.

A delicate procedure, something that Father took special care in fine-tuning. First, he would make sure that Grey was all fine and healthy. Diagnostics were taken on its heart rate, breathing, brain waves, body temperature, all sorts of quantitative information. He would wait until Grey’s bowels were emptied. Of course, he also made sure that Grey was properly fed and hydrated.

After all was said and done, Grey would be tightly wrapped in a towel and locked inside of a white, padded room that had blaring fluorescent lights that never seemed to turn off. Harsh, and with a constant incessant buzz, the lights did its duty in highlighting the utter blandness in the room. A simple hollow cube, completely devoid of any detail whatsoever. It was here that Grey was left completely alone for twelve hours.

Oh sure, the baby would cry. It would scream and shout at the top of its lungs, thrashing about in its restraints as flecks of spit flew out from his mouth. Every once in a while, Grey would wet itself, staining the blank white floors with a puddle of deep off-yellow. It would cry and cry until it ran out of tears. Then it would scream until its throat gave out. It would have been very distressing to hear, were it not for the fact that the room was sound-proofed.

By the end of it all however, Grey would be still. Perfectly unmoving, either too tired or unconscious. Once twelve hours ran dry, Father would simply walk back inside of the room, pick up his unresponsive child, and have an orderly come in and clean up. For the rest of the day, Grey would return to its usual schedule. Being taken care of attentively, being fed, played with, everything that a baby needed for proper development.

Following these timeouts, Grey would always act reclusive, would always struggle to make eye contact with anyone. It would reluctantly interact with others when approached, but otherwise, it would spend its time staring. With its head hanging low, its eyes would barely break from the floor. Father would tolerate this misbehavior, but only to a certain extent.

Once, Grey was sitting on a high chair, strapped to its baby seat and with a tray of formula in front of it. Father stood next to it, with a plastic spoonful of the stuff, yellow goop with the consistency of apple sauce. “Open wide, Grey. You need to eat!”

Grey did nothing of the sort, only continuing to stare at the floor below it. It was a carpeted floor, an expansive field of tan lufts that jutted out from the ground in even rows. There were no stains, no spots, just a consistent spread of color. Just like the room.

The room, with its infinite span of white. The room, with its deafening silence. The room, with its nothing.

“Grey. Grey. Food. Eat.”

Grey did nothing. Father pushed the spoon towards its lips, and still, Grey did nothing. Father’s hand began to shake; his grip around the spoon tightened considerably, with thick, wiry veins sticking out of his hands like bundles of rope. “Grey.” Father repeated.

It stared.

Father chuckled, once, then reached over to the infant with his free hand. With slow, calculated calmness, he gripped Grey’s shoulder and began to squeeze. Softly, at first. The contact made Grey blink, but otherwise, there was no response. All it could focus on was the floor. So uniform in its appearance, satisfying in a way. It was beautiful compared to the empty blandness it had been trapped in for so long, which had been entirely devoid of anything at all. Anything except for itself, that is.

Father’s grip tightened.

There was a spark of pain, and Grey began to stir. It was confused now. What was happening? Why did something seem to hurt? There was something at the back of its head that understood that Father stood next to it, and that it had been naughty. That it had been disobedient.

Father squeezed. Harder. His fingers dug into Grey’s soft, malleable flesh. The pain grew into something terrible. A storm of pressure at its shoulder that shot confused signals of hurt, of shock up through its nerves and into its brain. It finally broke free from its stupor and looked around, eyes wide and innocent.

“Open your fucking mouth and eat.” Father snarled at it, grip tightening still. He could feel the developing bones within his fist. So fragile, so soft, it was almost salivating at how weak Grey’s body was. If he so pleased, he could crush it in an instant. Like a good parent however, he would resist. Like a good parent, he would simply do his duty and make sure that his child got the proper nutrients it needed for growth. “Open! Open your mouth!”

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Grey, having been torn out from its dream-like state, was understandably confused. What was happening? Why was Father shouting at it? Where was it? Was it supposed to be eating? What was that awful hurting? That was what-

His hand began to twist its shoulder. The pain multiplied, turned into agony, and all at once, there was too much for it to handle. On instinct, it began to cry, mouth widened to scream its confused calls for help.

Saturdays were movie night.

For twenty-four hours, Gray would be tied down inside of its crib, facing the ceiling, which was littered with several high-definition monitors. These monitors would be left in a constant loop of various videos and films.

Most of the time, it was gore.

Bits of pornography were thrown in, along with cartoon violence that was often animated poorly enough that it made it all seem more unnerving than anything. But paramount to it all was gore. Beheadings, failed suicide attempts, armed robberies gone wrong, street brawls, riots, stonings, close-up surgery. All of it played for Grey’s viewing pleasure. It was fed and taken care of as normal. Grey didn’t understand most of what it was shown, but it did understand the screams. On and on they went, in differing pitches and tones and volumes, the screams. They never stopped. Whenever it slept, it would see things that it didn’t understand, couldn’t possibly understand. Its mind would think up of horrible, distorted visions of bloody death, people screaming in agony as their limbs are torn out one by one, as they are flayed alive and left to die. It couldn’t understand exactly what it saw, but it was there. There to see.

Sundays were freedom days. Father would do whatever he pleased.

It was all routine for Grey. Week by week, the days blended together. It was all very confusing for the child, but it eventually got used to it. Father was good. Father loved it, and it loved Father. It wasn’t Father’s fault that sometimes, bad stuff happened. It wasn’t even sure if all of these things were bad. It hurt, it made it feel weird, but everything had to happen, didn’t it? It was routine. It was normal.

One day, Grey turned three years old. It was a Sunday,

“Happy birthday, Grey. Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday, birthday, birthday, birthday. Three. You are three years old. Happy birthday, Grey. Grey Grey Grey Grey Grey Grey Grey Happy birthday birthday birthday.” Father gripped onto its shoulders tightly, kneeling down as he pressed his forehead roughly against Grey’s. He spoke with a large, toothy grin plastered on his face. “BIRTHDAY. Birthday. Happy. Birthday.”

“Pa-pa!” Grey smiled a little, and then stopped. Should it be smiling? It didn’t know if it was okay or not. Father was smiling, but it was the bad day. Still, Father didn’t seem to mind when it smiled. Maybe it should push it forward? Grey started giggling.

Father sneered and drew back from Grey. What was that in his hands?

There was a scream, then Grey gasped as Father snatched it by the wrist and lifted it up into the air. Grey started crying, legs kicking about uselessly in the air. Father’s eyes were too bright. Everything was too bright. Something lurched in his stomach and Grey started crying harder, because the throwing up would happen soon. It could already feel the sour tanginess of stomach bile working its way up its throat.

Before that could happen though, Father lifted his free hand, which held a metal fork. There was no hesitation as he drove the fork right into Grey’s exposed arm.

Spittle overflew from Grey’s mouth, mixing in with the lines of thin snot running freely from its nostrils. It tried to scream, but couldn’t; its brain was preoccupied with dealing with the sudden flashing of neurons in its brain, telling it that there was something bad coming. Something burning, something wrong.

It moaned helplessly and looked at its arm, still being held up by Father. There was the fork, only now it was embedded directly into its arm. Blood leaked out from the wound in small streams of red, running down its forearm and dripping onto the carpet, staining it with a decadent off-brown.

It threw up. Vile liquid splashed down on the carpet, ruining it further. Some of it got on Father. He didn’t seem to mind though, only continuing to stare at Grey with a grin and those awful glowing eyes. Clean shave. Pale face, black curly hair with a few strands plastered onto his forehead. Father.

Love.

“Birthday. Birrrrrthday..” Father rasped in a low voice. As soon as he did though, his face brightened up, and the air around him got a bit warmer. “Grey! How are you doing! Hi! How is the weather! Grey, how old are you? Grey! Happy birthday! Grey! Grey. Happy birthday! Fourteen thousand. Money. Birthday! Gift. Candy. Happy Grey birthday. Pencil. Pencil. Fork. Pencil. Fork. Fork. Pencil. Happy birthday!”

“Pa…” Grey started.

“Father.”

“Faw-ther! Fa… Father. Father!” Grey cried. Its arm was still being held. It hurt. It was hurting, wasn’t it? It started screaming, an ear-piercing trill that surmised all of the millions of billions of sensations and brightness and loud and pain and, and, and… It hurt. Too hot. It was burning, and why? Too much, too much it was all too much. It couldn’t understand. Father. It.

No, bad day. Today was the bad day.

“Alphabet. Say your fucking alphabet. Now.”

“A-A, B, C… D, E, F, G… H, I, J, K, LMNOP. Q… Um…. Q, R, S, T, U, V. W, X… Y-Y and Z.”

Father let go, finally.

“Now, what do we say?”

“T-Thanks you.”