Preface:

When the Bough Breaks

When I heard the news, I could barely breath. Parchment crumbled in my hands like so much sand and the distant scream echoing in my mind, I could not tell from whence it came. Was that me? Or was that the sound of my reality being torn apart, like screeching metal when something that should not be broken is laid to waste.

The missive was simple.

Your son lives.

~S

I knew, with every fiber of my being that the declaration before me was true.

The trouble was…

I have no son.