I am the last of a dying species. I left behind everything with one intention. One need.

There were lots of choices, lots of you, but time on this earth is a luxury I do not have. That is why I chose you. It happened quickly, but this decision was not made hastily. The weight of my choice does not allow for such carelessness.

My species is depending on us.

***

I found you that night, three Moonbirths ago.

I was in the trees, shrouded in darkness, and you did not see me as I lay there cradled in the branches, swaying with the wind. I had been tasting the air. Waiting. Searching. I smelled you long before I saw you. That musk unmistakable. It announced your presence like a siren calling to me and me alone. 

I couldn’t leave this selection to chance, so I followed above you, watching, needing to make sure. You paused and I swung down behind you, straining outward. I was gentle. The skin on the nape of your neck tightened and pimpled, hair on end, as my tongue slid across it. Tasting. Feeling.

Yes, it was there. I could feel it. That thrum, burrowed deep within you, but still I felt it play across my tongue. A flickering, churning, rising, and falling like the tides to the Moon.

I retreated to the trees, sated, as you turned and stared into the night behind you. I basked in your vitality, rolling your sweetness around my mouth. You investigated that darkness following close behind like a prey animal, as if you detected my scent hanging in the wind. Your hand was on your neck.

But I was already above. And safe. And I smiled as you shivered, pulling your coat tighter, walking a step quicker. Your instincts are good.

You will make a good mother.

***

I lived in your walls.

We were early, and I must still be certain, that is, before I grow too large to leave and try again. Many of my kind have failed, routed out and destroyed by their carelessness. Back when we were numerous, when we could afford such luxury. But I cannot fail; there are no more to take my place. I was selected to succeed, to stay silent, to ensure that I remained secret. I was meticulous in your study, and you did not know that I was watching. Seeing everything. Learning.

You had much to teach me.

***

I knew your biology.

A male was required to start this process, a key difference between us, but they are not necessary in the end. Your species is slow to understand this, though there is still hope for enlightenment. For evolution. 

In the beginning, I watched this brute as closely as I watched you. It plodded through the house, hands flexed and grabbing. It reeked of violence, blinded by the blood in its eyes and poisoned by hate. It resented you and your power. Your beauty. 

It was jealous. It was weak.

It meant you harm. I know this, and you knew this, too. I could not let it threaten my success, so while you slept, I lured it into the walls. I trapped it with me. I removed its larynx so it could not call out, could not scream as I peeled back its skin and drank the juices that sprung forth. I fed on its entrails and picked its skeleton clean. I lined my nest with its bones to remind me what is important: you.

You are safe now, yet you weep. You cry out in bed. You are even stronger now that I have released you, and I wish you saw this. I wish I could tell you this. In these moments, bathed by the glow of the Moon, I wished to hold you and let you know that you are not alone. But it will pass.

I will continue to protect you for as long as my body lasts. When we succeed, know that you will never be alone again.

***

A mother is a mother anywhere.

They create life, transforming their body and the world around them. You and I are the same, even though we may not look it.

My favorite place to watch you was in the room with the small bed. The nursery, you called it, and I repeated the word, my tongue stumbling and sliding over its edges. I learned your words because they were important to you, and therefore, to me.

Within the walls, I listened as you worked, as you shaped the space in your maternal beauty. I was there as you worked with a beautiful determination that unites all mothers: to nest.

You smeared the walls in green, the color that gave praise to the ground back home. The roots I burrowed within, the moss and the fauna. How I miss it all, and how saddened I am that I will not return. You could not have known, but I imagined that you did, and it made something take hold in me, something I could not explain. Something weaved itself into my chest. A feeling I did not know.

I curled inward, embraced by its tendrils, and I was safe.

***

 You surprised me that night when you presented your body to the Moon. 

 I watched you shed the temporary skins and stand naked, your gravid beauty on display. It was dark, the moonlight coating you. You stood before that wall which captured your image, displaying it for you to inspect and examine. It captivated you, and I too, was captivated.

Your ritualistic maneuvering was graceful in the way you honored the night. I did not know you too worshiped the Nightgod, and that your kind gave maternal offerings to the Moon. You were so beautiful there, and I soon joined, hidden behind you, watching you, watching your body. Mimicking. I flowed with you. We faced forward, hands on our hips. Breathing, holding, flexing this muscle and straightening this limb. Turning to inspect our profile as hands slid across the abdomen. We were small at first, and your eyes scoured over everything. But with time, your lips eased, anger receding; I tasted it all. You massaged oil into your porous skin as I too secreted my glandular lubricant to bring on our softening, our mutual ripening.

We grew, our bodies synchronous.

***

We readied ourselves in the passing moons. 

Even though we were together more than you would ever know, you screamed in isolation. Everywhere we went, sourness trailed behind, stinging my tongue. I never left you. Even in sleep, only a thin wall separated our nests.

Our bodies stayed together, growing.

I slithered through the spaces, busying myself like you, always listening to your heart. I learned the songs of your love. I grew with you. And toward you. I became attached in ways I should not have. It was a mistake; I should not have done the things that I did. I know now that I was helpless. I could not stop, just as we can’t stop our little ones from growing inside us. 

Part of me wanted to be discovered, and I begged for you to know me. To see the hints, hear my breathing. My taps on the wall at night.

You came close, once. Your hand on the wall and ear pressed firm. I lay opposite of you, my hand longing to touch. My voice needing your ear. I wanted you to pull me out. To bring me into your light. You did not, and I do not blame you; I could never fault you.

Our little ones are growing big, and soon they must meet. I must carry out my task to completion. You embolden me, though, and I admire that quality in a mother.

***

Despite what you hiss, your tears are not a weakness.

Despite the words you whip yourself with, you can do this.

You will do this.

I know you want to give up; I too feel it. We ache with exhaustion, but the work is not yet done. I will be done before you, and for that, I am sorry. You will struggle. But most importantly, you will continue.

You must continue.

***

I risked everything one night.

I came out of the wall and slid into your darkened room. I listened from the floor to make sure you were truly asleep before I crawled into the bed. I pressed myself against you, savoring the touch of our skin for the first time. I gained more knowledge about you than I ever could hope to learn, our essence more alike than I imagined, and I told you everything as you slept. I reminded you of your strength. Your beauty.

It was that night, pressed against you, that I knew what had taken root inside my heart. What had formed deep within me as my little one grew outward.

I knew what had been forbidden had happened.

It was love.

***

You were bleeding. 

Iron tang was thick in the air and I knew something was wrong. Our Birthmoon was approaching, but it had not yet arrived. You were too soon.

You rolled, hunched and crying, out of the bed. The timing was wrong. We were not ready. It was not to happen this way.

You hurried through the small skins in the nursery and found the loveliest one, the one you admired many nights before: the one with little Moons, our shared love. You folded it carefully, silent, blood flowering from your groin.

You placed it in the crib and cried out, leaving me behind.

You will be ok. You must. I will wait for your return, and I will continue our worship. I will celebrate you. For as long as I am alive, I will honor you. I must finish what I came here for; my species depends upon us. In the end, this will take everything from me, the way it has always been for us, for mothers.

A mother’s love is utter destruction of oneself for the other.

***

I waited.

The Moon crept as I paced within the walls. I held vigil to the moonlight. I prayed to the Nightgod.

I waited beneath the crib and licked the mattress. I tasted where my—our—little one would lay, imagined the weight and creak of springs as it tussled with sleep. The great things it would become. I rolled in your bed, covering myself in your scent and imagining you there with me.

I did not know how long it would be, but I knew my time was running out. The Birthmoon was coming, and I grew weak.

I would blossom soon.

***

You returned.

I scurried back into the walls as you entered. Alone.

Your body was deflated, your face drawn, stained by tears so thick I tasted the salt. You held a paper, and it held your gaze, your love.

Footprint next to pink footprint. Your fingers traced the edges and lingered over every toe. Followed every wrinkle. You did this so many times your finger came away pink and lovely. In the dust beside me, I traced along with you, curled around my swollen body, drawing those same feet.

They took form inside me with a wiggle and kick. With every flutter, my life waned.

You fell to the ground and I crawled with you, past the nursery, pausing but refusing to look, pushing into the bedroom. You burrowed within the covers and wept.

I retrieved what you left on the counter and brought it into my nest. To study it.

An image of a little one.

Your despair rolled out of the room in noxious waves and pressed down around me, smothered me with pungent suffering.

Was it yours? Why was it not here with you now? Where had it gone?

My body quivered and ached from deep within.

I understood then. Our motherly bond was severed. Your little one was dead, its life flowing down your leg that night.

I had failed; I did not protect you.

I needed to see your little one alive, you understand. I needed it here with you now. I needed to watch, to study the way it sucked, stretched, and kicked. To see how it nuzzled you, fed from you. To hear its cry.

This is what my species depends upon: to mimic.

I needed to observe and learn to provide for my little one, to give it substance, to mirror it in your likeness. It still needed to take shape; I could not give up. I studied your little one in the picture, for all I could tell, asleep. The dirt brown hair, the color of life. The nose, small, perched above a mouth at peace. Delicate appendages curled around itself in eternal embrace.

It was beautiful. It looked just like you.

The picture would not be enough, but I must try.

With every detail, my little one took shape within.

***

You will reject it.

That is what they would tell me. That this cannot succeed, because there is nothing here to replace with my little one. That you will reject mine without your own blinding love.

They would tell me that humans are only capable of loving themselves and those in their likeness. But they do not know you like I do. They do not know that you are different.

The Birthmoon approaches, and I ready myself for what is to come.

***

My little one was silent at first.

My body ripping open was not.

I left it in the crib, but there is nothing to check the appearance, nothing to compare side by side. There is no way to ensure the mimicry is complete, that the skin is supple enough, warm enough. How can I be sure the fingers bend correctly? I know not what the inside of the mouth feels like. Should it smell like earthy dampness on a wet morning or the dry breeze of a moonless night?

More concerning, there is no first meal. My little one snuffles around the empty crib, hungry, but there is nothing for it to consume.

Nothing for it to replace.

There is no more time. I must hide the shell of my body.

With every moment, I risk being unable to leave. It will cry out for you soon, and I must be gone.

I drag my emptied body back into the walls and wait.

I hope my instincts to trust have been right, and I hope you can trust me. I will not be with you by the Sun’s arrival, and I am sorry I cannot say goodbye. Remember, you are not alone. My little one will be there with you, and you will always have my love.

It is crying for you.