⚠️ Content Warning:
This story contains dark psychological themes, emotional manipulation, and mild depictions of non-graphic abuse. Reader discretion is advised.
I was six when I met the doctor who saved me.
A quiet man with soft hands and kind eyes.
He stitched my leg after I fell from a tree, and he told me I was brave.
"People who heal," he said, "carry light in dark places."
I wanted to be like him.
But my mother laughed when I told her.
"A doctor?" she said, cigarette smoke curling between her fingers.
"You think that man saved you? You think he cared?"
I nodded.
I knew he cared.
She crouched in front of me, cupping my face.
Her nails were long and painted the color of dried blood.
"Elina, my sweet flower, everyone wears masks.
That man? He only fixed your leg because it made him feel powerful. Because he could.
Not because he cared."
She pulled my bandaged leg up into her lap and squeezed.
I whimpered.
"Pain is the only honest thing in this world.
Learn that, and you'll never be fooled again."
I tried not to cry. I always tried.
By the time I turned nine, I'd memorized the bones in the human body.
My mother made flashcards with little drawings.
Not cute ones—realistic, she said.
Veins, arteries, skin peeled back.
She'd quiz me every morning at breakfast.
"This?" she'd say, pointing at a tendon.
"Flexor carpi radialis," I'd mumble.
She'd beam. "That's my girl."
At night, she'd whisper lessons while brushing my hair.
"You can help people, yes, but you must understand them. Their weakness. Their vanity. Their lies."
She'd tug a little harder when she spoke those words.
"Doctors are puppeteers. Never forget that."
When I was ten, we had a puppy named Teer.
One day, I came home from school and found Teer on the table. Not moving.
"I had to, Elina," my mother said, her hands wet with red.
"She was sick."
Teer's belly was open.
Neatly.
Methodically.
I stood there, frozen.
"You want to be a doctor, don't you?"
She pushed gloves into my hands.
"You should learn."
I helped. I cried, but I still helped.
And later that night, as I sat shaking in bed, my mother climbed in beside me.
"You did well," she whispered.
"You're special. Not everyone can learn to detach."
I didn't sleep. Not that night. Not for many nights after.
By twelve, I stopped flinching at blood.
My mother took me to nursing homes, whispered cruel truths in my ear.
"Look at them. Fragile. Waiting to die. They fear you, Elina. You're youth, you're future. You have power."
I'd nod.
Not because I believed her, but because arguing never worked.
Sometimes, I'd lock myself in the bathroom and pretend I was with that doctor again.
The one who smiled softly and said things like "you're safe" and "you're strong."
I couldn't remember his name anymore.
My mother liked to say:
"Compassion is currency. Use it, don't waste it."
When I was fourteen, she gave me a knife.
"Scalpel," she corrected. "But everything is a knife if you know how to cut."
She showed me a stray dog.
"It was dying," she said. "You ended its suffering."
But the dog hadn't looked sick.
Just scared. Just… cornered.
I threw up.
She slapped me.
"Weakness," she hissed. "That's what gets you killed."
I remember looking up at her that night and wondering if she had ever loved me.
Or if everything she ever did—every smile, every "I'm proud of you"—was just another scalpel.
Eighteen.
I was top of my class.
Teachers called me brilliant. A prodigy.
But they didn't see the bruises.
The way my hands shook when I held a pen.
The way I flinched when someone raised their voice.
"You're too soft," my mother would say. "You need to harden. Peel it off—this mask of kindness—before it peels you."
That year, she took me to a hospice and We volunteered.
There was a woman, skin like paper, breath rattling in her throat.
She looked at me with such gratitude.
"She's pretending," my mother whispered.
"They all do. Makes them feel like they matter."
But the old woman took my hand and said, "You remind me of someone I lost."
I didn't let go of her hand. Not until she died three days later.
My mother was furious.
She made me dissect a pig's heart with my bare hands that night.
The blood soaked my sleeves.
She screamed that I had let weakness back in.
I wanted to scream too.
I wanted to tell her she was wrong, that she was sick.
But her voice lived inside me now, like a second heartbeat.
By nineteen , I had a scholarship waiting.
Pre-med.
"You're ready," she said.
I wasn't. But I nodded.
Before I left, she handed me a box.
Inside was Teer's scalpel, cleaned, sharpened.
"Take it," she said. "In case someone ever lies to you."
I stared at her, unsure if she meant metaphorically.
But with her… you never really know.
At university, people called me the "cold genius".
Efficient. Brilliant.
A few liked me. Some feared me.
But no one really knew me.
At night, I stared at the scalpel in my drawer and tried to remember what it felt like to be six.
To believe people could be kind.
That healing was light.
But all I saw were bones.
And knives.
And my mother's smile, always watching.
When I got the call that she had died—an aneurysm.
I didn't cry. I didn't feel sad at all.
I stood in the hospital room, staring at her body.
The same woman who had taught me anatomy with butcher knives and whispered cruelty into my bones.
I reached into my bag and pulled out the scalpel.
Teer's.
I pressed it to her palm. "You can keep it," I whispered. " whether you will go to heaven or hell, i don't care. I pray we never meet again"
And I walked out.
Into the world she twisted me to face.
I walked past a quiet park, there, on a bench beneath a shedding tree, sat a man in a dark coat.
On his lap curled a black cat with slit-yellow eyes.
The air felt too still around them, like glass waiting to shatter.
The man looked up as if he'd been waiting.
"hi" he said. " mind Joining me?"
I hesitated. But my legs moved without permission.
I sat next to him.
The cat meowed, soft and sharp like a broken violin string.
"I'm Dellen," the man said. "You look just like your mother."
My head snapped. "You knew Lenorah?"
"of course " Dellen said.
Then he pointed to my chest.
"She's already inside you."
"....."
I opened my mouth to laugh—but the sound caught.
Then the cat leapt from the man's lap to mine.
It was warm, but heavy—like a secret pressed into my bones.
Then the cat stared into my eyes.
Deeply.
Unblinking.
And something cracked inside me.
"ugh…"
My vision blurred.
The trees rippled.
I felt a heat—sharp, searing—right between my brows.
It was painful.
When i opened my eyes, i saw it reflected in the cat's eyes.
A third eye.
Bloody red.
Pulsing.
Alive.
And with it i saw my mother's face again.
I laughed. Low. Broken. Defeated.
"I never had a chance, did I?" i asked.
The man leaned back.
"In the end," he said softly, "none of us did."
The cat purred.
I stopped laughing.
And started crying.
I cried for the first time in a long time.
" is there really no other way?" I asked.
But he remains silent.
And that was his answer.
I cry again.
Indeed, we never did.
Stream Commentary; Tape # 25. Elina.
[@Oviesix : The pig… the puppy … the hospice scene… I want to throw up. This is layered abuse.]
[@Jaija I hated Elina in Andy's story…but now I'm sobbing on the bathroom floor because now i understand,she just… became her. No magic. No demon. Just pain]
[@Oviesix: Elina wore her mother like a second soul. Even the way she laughed? It was the same pitch. I had to stop reading and take a walk. My stomach hurts]
[@642: I THOUGHT THAT BROOK WAS A CURSE. I THOUGHT ELINA WAS A WITCH
I THOUGHT I KNEW WHO THE MONSTERS WERE . But the monsters were their moms…and maybe me, too, for enjoying this…ineedtogivemytherapist acall!!]
[@Enchomay: The true horror is not the death. It's the cycle. We heard Andy's story and his mom…i wonder if Andy would also be like her. And if he did…we're going to read it. And it's going to ruin us]
[@Jaija : This makes "A Mother A Monster" so much worse now. Andy really never stood a chance 😭]
[@Oviesix:Why is it that every time I think I understand the story, something worse is revealed?
Kai… this one messed me up]
(Kai sat silent for a while)
I see you.
Yeah, you—the one scrolling through the comments like they're gonna protect you.
Listen.
Elina didn't wake up one day and decide to become a villain.
She was shaped. Shattered. Forged in a place no child should have survived.
And when she did survive, she started bleeding her pain into others.
That's the danger. That's the horror.
Because she was in the hands of the wrong person.
And in the end, all she wanted was to become a good doctor.
Moral of this episode?
"If you don't clean the wound, you become the knife."
You think this is fiction? Look around.
Some of you reading this were Elina.
Some of you are becoming her.
Someone out there has already become her.
Stop.
Break the chain.
Or one day... your story will be archived here too.
And let me tell you a sad spoiler that even Elina didn't know.
The doctor was her father.
STREAM ENDED
Author's Note:
I did my best to tell these two stories without making it overly violent or graphic. While the themes are heavy, I tried to focus more on the emotional truth behind them rather than shock.
Thank you for taking the time to read them.
If this story brought back difficult memories or emotions, please know you are not alone. Your feelings are valid, and your strength is seen—even in silence.
Take care of yourself, and thank you again for being here. 💛