Petre was human.

He was not a monster.

His children were not monsters.

And Blurb, his treasure, was his life.

Each thought seemed to click into place as they left Kharyov. None had tried to stop them. Petre had been drenched in blood and surrounded by a small cadre of fearsome creatures (Blurt looked particularly frightful with the small child-shaped growth that dragged behind him like some kind of doll). And then there was Sarku who trailed after them like a lost doe.

He did not want her to come (Petre had not forgotten how she had called his children monsters), but he wanted a human (Another human!) to be with Blurb and his children. It was an odd thought, but he wanted his newfound family to be more human. And how could they ever hope to learn without a proper teacher? The red worm that crawled restlessly within his right eyed disqualified Petre from that position.

The children had left Blurb deep within the woods beside the highway that overlooked Kharyov. A small part of him worried if they would be able to find her. Blurm and Blurt were children after all, and Petre knew what his memory had been like at their age.

"Their... mother..."

Petre looked over his shoulder with a sneer, and Sarku's face paled. They were the first words she had spoken since Kharyov had disappeared behind them. Away from the dank and dimness of the building, Petre could not help but notice the massive sway of her breasts. He almost resented her for having this small (They were the size of two watermelons) advantage over his beloved.

"...yes?" Petre asked after the quiet began to irk him. Blurm and Blurt were wholly devoted to leading the way, and Manya did not stir.

"Why... do you c-call her... that?" Sarku asked, and Petre turned to her, dumbfounded. He thought journalists were supposed to ask smart questions.

"Imeanpeople don'tcall queenbeesmothers andtheireggschildren," Sarku said, her words rapid fire and her eyes rolling madly around in panic.

"Blurb is not an insect," Petre said, and not for the first time he wondered just what she was. It upset him that the woman's question made him wonder, made him suspect.

"Thenandifshenot," Sarku began, and she stopped to collect herself. Petre snorted in derision and continued after his children. "If she is not an insect, is she an animal? Is she human?"

"It doesn't matter what she is," Petre said with a snarl. He did not understand why this particular woman filled him with such frustration. In the many weeks since the blast, he could not remember the last time he had felt this way.

"And w-why doesn't it matter?" Sarku asked, rushing to catch up with their small procession. "A-are you human, Petre? Because I think it would matter to- "

Sarku let out a small yelp as Petre rounded on her, his face flushed. He jabbed at the air in-front of her, and the journalist's legs gave out in fear.

"W-w-what are all these questions?" Petre asked. "Is this what you're going to write about? Is this your story? You said you were looking for the truth a-about, about bombs and the virus! Ask about that! Try to find that out!"

Sarku offered him a faint nod. He could not be sure if she could even heard him. The woman's eyes were clouded with fear, made all the more pitiable for her broken glasses and the dried blood that covered her face.

"Gah!" Petre cried out, and he turned back towards his children's trek.

Petre felt Blurb before he saw her. The thin thread that bound them tickled with a pleasant warmth as the highway disappeared, and they began to push through brush and prickly thorns.

His face had been full of shame for his outburst with Sarku, but all those unpleasant thoughts melted away in a wet cocktail of elation as Blurb's grey skin and unkempt hair came into view.

The children reached their mother first, though they offered no warm words or exclamations. They crawled over her bloated lower-half and roosted. Dimly, he knew they were transferring their newfound nutrients.

"Blurb..." Petre said as he hurried to her side. He picked out a few fallen twigs and pesky fallen leaves from her hair.

He loosed a shuddering breath when he held her hand and knew that she would be fine, that the two of them would be fine. It had not even crossed his mind in Kharyov, but with all the nutrients his children collected, she may even wake up.

"F-fascinating," Sarku said as she caught up. She stayed behind some of the trees, her furtive head peeking at the familial reunion. "That's... her then? The one from the v-videos?"

"Blurb," Petre said with a wellspring of pride as he squeezed her hands. Was it a trick of his mind, but he thought he felt her squeeze back.

"Excuse me?" Sarku said, and Petre felt his cheeks redden. Because all at once, Blurb did not seem the most appropriate name for his beloved.

"It's her name," he said despite his rosy cheeks. "Their mother."

"Y-you use that w-word rather often," Sarku said, her voice unusually high. Petre found her own cheeks were full of red, and she was looking at the ground. "Would you be t-the... father?"

Petre opened his mouth, but once more he underestimated how embarrassing it was to discuss his relationship with Blurb. Because by all accounts she was some kind of eldritch horror. Her lower half was an explosion of blackened tentacles!

"Yes," Petre said because he loved her. "Because I love her."

[ ...pet... ...erey... ]

He swerved towards Blurb, his heart in his throat. It had been so faint, but he had heard her.

"And... h-how did this... relationship start...?" Sarku asked, each word a struggle. Petre scarcely heard her over his elation.

"Theft," Manya said. "And with poison."

[ ...peterey... ]

"Sorry, cuz," Manya said, and time seemed to compress around Petre.

He felt Blurb squeeze his hands.

He could see her eyes close and open with tired.

And then a swollen mass of flesh erupted from his right eye. Petre cried out in pain as his right eye socket seemed to stretch and crack under the weight of Manya's explosion.

Blurm and Blurt had roosted atop their mother, stiff and silent as two stones. As tears assaulted Petre's left eye, he watched Blurm disappear in a blur.

A manic cry lanced through his body. It was not spoken, but felt as Blurb reacted to Manya's assault. Petre could feel the rope of flesh push him away as Manya and her enormous teeth began to eviscorate Blurm's newfound bulk.

"Noo̴̱͒o̴͖͊̾o̵̳͗oo!" Petre shouted, and he tried to to reach Manya, tried to reach his child who wailed pitifully as the red worm tore hunks of black flesh from her small body.

But he could not take so much as a step towards the violence.

He saw Blurt rush and slither to his sister's aid, and he screamed.

Petre grabbed the interlocked red veins of Manya's flesh. They stuck out from his eye like a totem pull, and he tried to pull it away from his children. But the red flesh was as stiff as steel rebar. He punched and scratched and even threw himself on the ground so he could kick and stomp.

All the while he watched, unblinking, with his left eye.

Manya threw back her mass of white teeth, each a knight's honed sword. Blurm was thrown into the air, and some distant part of Petre dared to hope. She would catch onto a tree branch. She would sprout wings and fly away. She would overcome.

Blurm fell back to the wretched earth where Manya clamped her jowls shut in a splatter of black goo, and he felt the cold ache of Blurb's shared dread. Because she was gone. Blurb could not reach their daughter.

Manya collapsed onto Blurt. The human tumor he had grown splattered in a grey mist of putrid gore. Manya rolled around Blurt, spreading him like some piece of demonic dough.

"Manya!" Petre called out, his mouth full of wet tears. "Please, stop this!"

She began to eat in answer.

Great clods of dirt and branch and frozen earth filled the air as Manya attacked the forest floor. Black goo coated the debris, and Manya's razorsharp teeth never failed to attack. She ate and ate until not even a speck of black marred the earth.

"You're a real stupid one, cuz," Manya said as she burped in his face. She hovered over him like a hawk, her assault finished and complete.

Petre lashed out like a feral cat, his throat raw and bloody. The length of her flesh extended from his right eye, but he tried to find her head, to find the white teeth that he could shatter and break.

She did not offer him the chance.

Manya wrapped the ropes of her putrid red flesh around Petre. She slowly started to crush and squeeeeze out his innards with a boa constrictor's malice.

"Did you think I had forgiven the incubator?" Manya asked, her breath foul as ash. "Did you forget that she and her little wretches had burned away my flesh and almost d̵͎̂e̸̱̱͊š̴̛̯̮̊ţ̶̑̓ŗ̷͙̿õ̴̥̱̳̇̾y̴̮̅e̷̪͇͆̕d̴̃ me?"

Petre should have taken a knife to his right eye. He should have carved out a bloody red hole, never mind the pain, never mind the insanity it would have required.

"Did you think I would let her regain her strength?"

Manya slithered in-front of his face. He could feel the heat and wet radiate off of her. Slather dribbled off her teeth as she whispered with words full of angst... whispered as her hot tongue dragged across his skin... whispered as though in fervent prayer...