The baby looked up at the colourful merry-go-round hanging above the bed. At six months, he could do no more than trace its movements with his eyes as it dangled out of reach of his tiny fingers.
But all of a sudden, a much larger and less playful object obscured the toy and highjacked the baby's attention from its contemplation of the unreachable object.
It was a human, or at least had those semblances.
At first Sam agitated his limbs in welcome. Usually someone hovering over his cot meant he was about to be picked up and hugged against a warm chest, at times the soft one of his mom, at times the muscular one of his dad, and less often he got to be held by much smaller and unsure, but surprisingly firm hands.
This time, though, he flailed in vain, for no-one lifted him from the bed, instead Sam felt beads of wetness plop onto his cheeks. At first, he stilled in surprise, but when ulterior drops fell onto his skin, he registered the sensation as uncomfortable and as he opened his mouth to utter a wail, some of the liquid dribbled through his lips and onto his tongue.
Sam did let out a cry then, for the taste was bitter, nothing like the soothing white milk he'd suck from the bottle or the dollops of sweet mush he'd receive in slow, careful, spoonfuls from his smiling mom.
:
The shadow above him was muttering now, but the words were unintelligible to the six-month-old.
'You're my favourite, Sammy,' it said. 'Of all my special children, you will be the one.'
By now, Sam was in full howling mode, oblivious to the door of the nursery flying open, of his mother confronting the intruder, of her impossible slide against and up the wall, to be suspended on the ceiling, her belly slashed open.
:
Soon, all he felt was the familiar feel and scent of his dad's arms lifting him and depositing him in smaller, frailer ones which gripped him in a hold much stronger than should have been possible.
'Take your brother outside, Dean. Run. Now!'
It was a moment in time when destiny takes a three-hundred and eighty degree turn, facing back the way it had come, from the hope and ambition of a life in the light, to one in infinite darkness.
The end