Anette the return of the Nethal

NIC'S POV:

The night wind blew calmly as she ran through the quiet forest with her new born in her hand praying desperately for life.

She was running through the thick deep forest but so was I. But why am I here? I'm just ten years old, so what is a ten year old doing in the woods in the middle of the night?

I don't know, but my mother Victoria preferred staying deep in the forest always away from other people. Although this only happens one night in every month.

She always drugs me and chains me up. Before leaving the cabin with chains in hand for herself.

It started when I turned eight. At first I always cried, begging her not to go because I was scared being alone and in chains. But she always insisted that we can't be together for just this night.

"This is for your own good, I'm trying to keep you safe as well as others." She would say to a crying me before going out and locking me in.

The next morning, she'd return all dirty with torn clothes. At first, I only regain consciousness when she's already washing up but lately, I've been waking up early. Even earlier as the days proceeded.

When she returns in the morning, she was always tired as if she had been in a fierce and restless battle all night long. I can see the pain in her eyes whenever she returns and undid my chains.

"I don't want this for you Nic." She'd always say. "I hope it never happens to you. Please, Nicholas please be always careful. If you are, you'll never be like me." She explains every single time. But never would she tell me what this is all about.

Every night once in a month we go to that cabin deep in the forest and like clockwork, around eight she'd give me some liquid which weakens me and makes me fall unconscious. She'd chain me up and then leave with chains too just to return the next morning tattered and dirty just to warn me to always be careful and never be like her when I don't even know what all that means.

We've been doing this for almost two years now and Everytime, my mother becomes even weaker. She cried more as she lost more strength and grew more feeble. She's dying, she knows it and I do too.

So many times I've suggested that we go to the hospital. I've begged desperately and threw the worst tantrum I could but she always insisted that it wasn't medical.

"Maybe medicine can slow it down. Please mom, I can't lose you. Please just– let's go see a doctor mom please." I'd always insist and she'd always decline and just take me to the cabin every month for just that night.

It was a week to my tenth birthday. At this point, Victoria can barely work but yet she insisted that we go to that cabin again.

"No! I'm not going there. We need to go see a doctor, mother you're dying!!!" I yelled. She tried reasoning with me, but this time, I'm not backing down.

I kept on insisting and so she agreed to go see a doctor, repeating to me that her condition wasn't medical.

We went to the hospital and her blood sample was collected. We waited in the lobby as she constantly checked the time, waiting for the test results. When her blood work came back, she was right, they all came out clean.

Medically speaking, she's healthy. But physically, she's not. Even the doctors saw this and wanted to admit her but she refused.

"We have to go now, we're running out of time." She said dragging me out of the hospital. We took a bus and stopped close to a mountain and then we hiked up.

"This is not the way to the cabin mom."

"I know, we won't be able to make it there on time." She replied nervously as we both trotted up the mountains.