However, her mother was ill, and the desire to see her mother festered from the inside of her stomach, crawling through every bit of her resolve to move on from the bad memories of growing up in this place. Maybe coming back would give her the closure she had always wanted since she cut her family out of her life. Maybe coming back would be sweeter than she imagined. Maybe her mother missed her all this time. Maybe things had changed. 

Ranisha glanced at her car, but then she pushed herself to walk up the pathway to the stairs. She climbed the stairs. When she arrived on the third floor, the humidity had pressed her clothes on her back. A chill skittered across her chest. Her eyes darted to the neighboring door that just closed. Even though it had shut, she still felt as though she were being watched as if they were watching through the peephole. 

Ranisha turned towards where her mother had lived for thirteen years since she retired from teaching. She neared her knuckles to knock, but the door creaked open. Ranisha's heart raced. She never left her door unlocked. She rushed inside, but was greeted with a fetid odor and a lifeless living room. However, everything looked exactly as it did when she left; there was no evidence of a break in. Her alarm dwindled, but what remained was an unsettling dread. Something wasn't right. 

Sunlight crept in through the dark curtains, setting a blanket of darkness over the weathered sofa chairs and her mother's favorite recliner. Her mother's crossword puzzles laid open to one page where she saw her mother had scribbled all over the boxes. In the far right corner, she drew in pen a human-like creature with a wide open mouth and a chest split open. Ranisha shuddered. 

Roaches scuttled from the kitchen. Dishes were piled in the sink. A single plate was on one of her mother's red placemats. Flies buzzed around a rotten mash of meat on one of her mother's favorite decorative Christmas plates with a gold rim. She always thought they made her seem distinguished.  "Mom?" Ranisha called. 

Ranisha wandered over to the hall. She passed her bedroom and entered her mother's room. The first thing she heard was the static of an old television. Ranisha's stomach churned as she approached her mother's bed. She was staring at the screen with her fingers twisted together as if she were laying in a casket. Her hair was white and gray like storm clouds. Her skin was an ashen brown. "Ranisha, darling, you've come back," Her voice was hollow and echoing. A chill like from earlier returned with a stronger force. Her lips were chapped, and she didn’t turn her gaze away from the TV screen though dusty and cracked as it was. 

Suddenly, Ranisha felt as though she had made a mistake. She stepped back, but her mother bolted up, her eyes were piercing, glassy, and Ranisha could see a reflection of herself- a little girl trembling as if she were six years old again. "I'm so glad you're home," she rasped, her voice now distorted. She reached out and grabbed Ranisha's wrist, but Ranisha snatched herself free- or so she thought. Around her wrist was a dark, oily substance. The fetid odor coiled around her like a snake as the substance pulsed and writhed down her arm. 

"Mom, what have you done to me?" 

The front door felt like it was miles away. Ranisha's feet were frozen to the floor, the substance like hot wax melting her to the floor. Ma's mother wrapped her long spindly arms around her as the substance slowly swallowed her. Was this Ranisha's mother or something masquerading in her skin? "I've found a way to survive, my dear." Her laughter crackled as she unhinged her jaw and pulled it open to reveal a dark void. She pulled her chest apart, and she looked just like that drawing. "And you will help me because that's what family does for each other." 

Ranisha's breath lingered in the air as the fetid substance shadows claimed her. She should have listened to her wife.