My little Bear. He was born on a windy Thursday afternoon. Most of the babies being born that day had already come to light. Not my Bear, he took his sweet time, as if the world needed to prepare for him. What I knew then was, this was the most excruciating labor I’ve ever endured. I was already a mother to 3 older children; Reece my oldest and only girl, Luka my oldest boy, and Hutton my last boy. Compared to Bjorn or Bear as we like to call him, those three were not only fast but pleasant.

I lay in the hospital bed, screaming, holding onto my husbands hand as my last life line. My husband, a a tall and quiet man with Jet Black hair and a stern yet sweet face, he is my perfect match. How long must I go through this agony of labor. The steril blue walls of this hospital room, the giggles and laughs of the other mothers holding their new babies heard echoing down the hall. The epidural, the morphine, nothing helped. It’s as if Bjorn was making sure I got no relief as he kicked and thrashed in my womb.

“I’ve never seen anything like this!” My nurse told me, with an expression I couldn’t quite understand. Her slender frame shook As if she was scared, thrilled and murderous all at once. She noticed me looking at her and quickly hurried over to the medicine cart to busy herself as her sandy brown hair covered her freckled face.

“Hey!” I call her over to me.

She turns toward me with her fake warm smile and says, “Yes Cass?” A hesitation in her voice.

“What is going on? Why is this taking so long? Why isn’t the pain medication actually helping?” I plead.

“I…I don’t know. We are trying everything we can.” Her voice trails off as I feel a searing pain an the lights in my room begin to flicker out of control. The hospital machines begin crashing and beeping and alarming loudly. The outlets where the machines are plugged in have sent sparks onto the floor as I feel an incredible urge to push and a moment later by boy finally made his arrival and everything slopped and went silent.

The crying I expected to hear from my baby never came. As the room took in a deep breath after realizing what has happened. He silently stared up at me with the sweetest on smiles, like he was completely present in this moment. His eyes told a story like he knew something I didn’t and yet all I could see was this beautiful boy in my arms. I was blinded by love and bliss of having this new child as well as finally being out of the horrid pain I had endured.

The nurses and Doctors were in shock when they would look at his face. They had never seen a baby so beautiful and couldn’t believe their eyes. Bjorn’s beauty was too much to handle at times, many tears were shed just staring at him. His hair was a golden blonde, to golden that it glimmered in the sun. His eyes were a piercing blue, gray eyes, like a cold steel or cold lake water in a montainess terrain. He has the perfect fair skin that had been kissed by the sun, and the sweetest dimple on one side of his face when he smiled. To say he was perfect would be an understatement. No matter how perfect he looked, I had this tightness in my chest, as if waiting for the shoe to drop.

All at once I saw it, there was some thing wrong with my little bear, I held him close and my breath caught in my chest as I looked into his eyes and I see the dark pupil suddenly light up as if on fire. I see and actual flame dancing in his eyes. I gasp, terrified of what I am seeing in my sweet baby boys eyes, a dark red flame that isn’t going away. Am I hallucinating? Are all the drugs finally kicking in? No. I blink, I turn my face away then come back to see the same image in his eyes. The fires of Hell. I’m certain of it. My fourth child I was hoping would complete our family, is now about to tear it apart. This child I was holding was pure evil. How do I take this child home to my other children, is anyone else aware?

I pull my husband over to me, he gently kisses my head, so proud of what I have just accomplished, it I pull him closer to whisper in his ear, “Look in his eyes” I say, hoping I don’t sound like a maniac.

He looks closer at BJorn. I hear his gasp, just as I had. “What the…” he just stops suddenly and stares as if he is frozen in place.

In a moment I’m relieved I am not the only one seeing this, but also terrified because I’m not hallucinating, my son has literal hell fire in his eyes. My husband and I look at each other, both stunned, scared and worried. What are we supposed to do next. Then I see an idea form in my husbands eyes. “Let’s call our priest and have him baptized, played over, exorcised for all I care. We need help.”

Relief washed over me, of course our priest could help. Our son will be saved by God, I know it.

Then suddenly, as if BJorn knew exactly what my husband said, he squeezed onto my fingers, much harder than a normal newborn should be able to. “Ow!” I yelp in pain as my newborn begins to crush my fingers in his tiny hand. “What the fuck!” My husband shouts as he pulls the baby from my arms. The one or two nurses who were lingering in the room cleaning up the mess of birth stopped suddenly as they watched the scene unfold. The nurse from before was gone and in her place was an older gray haired woman and a young girl who looked like she just graduated high school, with her brunette hair in braids and hot pink glasses. The older nurse kindly smiled and said, “sometimes babies are stronger than they appear, he is going to be football player for sure.” Trying to brush off the fact I’m cradling my hand as if it were just broken. The young nurse grabbed BJorn from my husband and said, “Why don’t we take him into the nursery so you both can rest.” She added a kind smile as if we were first time parents just overwhelmed by our new responsibility. We both quickly said, “Take him!” And both nurses exchanged a judgmental look before hurrying out the room with our new baby.

My angel of a husband hurried to my side, “I’ll call Father Jacob right away. This is already out of hand.” As he caresses my injured hand with a small sarcastic chuckle.

“I just don’t know what happened, wha happened to our sweet baby, he seemed absolutely perfect when he was first on my chest, the perfect little bear I’ve always dreamed of this entire pregnancy, but then something changed and his eyes were on fire or something. Was he cursed? Why is this happening?” I said as hot tears began to pour down my cheeks.

“I don’t know hun, I thought the same as you, he was perfect until…he wasn’t…” he paused, took a breath and said, “It’s going to fine you’ll see. I’ll call Jacob now, he will know what to do.” At that he walked out of the room, leaving me alone, plagued with thought I never thought would be in my head. My newborn baby, my sweet little bear, the last addition to our family is evil, a demon straight from Hell, or at least is completely controlled by one. I have to do something, we will do something. I will save my son if it is the last thing I do.

And it will be…

End.