I. Birth

When the baby was born with two eyes of different color, shape, and tone, not a tear falling from either of their corners, the town doctor didn’t speak, and was just as silent as the infant in his arms, staring back as it did to him. When the baby blinked its eyes, both simultaneously as if the distinctly different eyes both belonged to one, the doctor opened his mouth, perhaps as if to speak, to scream, or to vomit in horror of what he held, but nothing came out, not even air.

When the baby’s fingers changed color and texture, one by one, coos and gasps leaving its halved lips, the doctor did not stop running, his boots stomping across the sterile floor as a hesitant nurse stopped behind him, realizing what horrible child had been born, stricken with terror at the sight of its striped, sectioned body.

When the baby had its first sight of the night sky, stars shining across the dark-violet abyss, the moon shining the brightest it had that year, the doctor bore the cold of the winter’s night air, running not far from the small, humble home, toward the nearby river, narrow and swift, reflecting the light of the sky.

When the baby first felt water, engulfed within it, it began to cry for the very first time, transforming in every which way to avoid sinking down into the depths whilst the doctor panted, catching his breath, nearly collapsing onto the bank.

When the baby was born, it had already been left behind by its own kind, left to travel across nature’s arms until it nestled into another bank, far down the stream.

When the baby was born, it never got to see its mother.

The doctor claimed it was dead upon arrival, mangled and forsaken.