(by Maria)
I used to believe my mother was the gentlest woman in the world. She had that kind of soft-spoken warmth that could calm a screaming child with a single word.
Everyone in the village loved her. They called her "Saint Celia."
But saints don't keep secrets.
And my mother's secrets reeked.
The first time I noticed something off was a week after her sixty-third birthday.
She had always been obsessive about her nightly prayers, kneeling in the same spot before her candlelit altar.
But that night, when I passed her room to say goodnight, I heard her whispering words that didn't sound like prayers. They were… jagged. Too harsh to be human speech.
The next morning, I asked,
"Mom, who were you talking to last night?"
She smiled that perfect, practiced smile — the one that always made me feel small for asking questions.
"Just talking to your father, darling," she said. "I still miss him."
My father had been dead for twenty-three years.
I tried to brush it off. Grief does strange things to people. But the way she said it… there was something alive in her voice.
Like she was in conversation, not monologue.
That same week, I noticed she kept the basement door locked.
It wasn't unusual, except that it used to be where she stored all her gardening tools.
I needed something from there one afternoon and found the key missing.
When I asked about it, she said, "I misplaced it."
But that night, when she thought I was asleep, I saw her go down there — with the key dangling from her neck.
I followed her once. Just once.
The old wooden stairs moaned under her weight, and the air that wafted up smelled like something damp and long forgotten.
I stayed at the top, holding my breath, listening. There was a faint humming — her voice, soft and trembling, like she was singing to something down there.
Then a second sound answered.
A wet, rattling breath.
I remember my pulse hammering so loudly I thought she'd hear it.
I ran back to my room before she came up.
When I asked her casually the next morning what she'd been doing downstairs, she simply said,
"Some things are better left where they are, Maria."
Her eyes lingered on me for too long, the kind of look that didn't belong to a mother.
It was more like a warning.
That day, I began to write down everything strange she did.
The whispers at night.
The sounds from below.
The way the mirrors in our house had started fogging up from the inside, like someone was breathing behind the glass.
And always — always — the smell.
It was faint at first, like spoiled milk. Then it deepened into something earthy and metallic.
When the electricity began flickering every night around midnight, I stopped sleeping.
I'd sit on my bed, clutching my blanket like a frightened child, staring at my door, waiting for the creak of her footsteps.
Sometimes, they stopped right outside my room.
*********
What Lies Beneath
I finally found the courage to go down there the night the storm hit.
The house had lost power, and Mother was out — or so I thought.
Rain battered the windows, and thunder rolled across the hills. I took her spare keys and lit a candle.
My hands were trembling so badly the flame quivered with me.
The basement door groaned when I turned the lock.
The smell hit first. Sweet and rotten — like flowers left to decay beside something that had once lived.
I descended one step at a time. The air grew colder. The candlelight flickered against the walls, revealing streaks of something dark smeared along the concrete — not blood, not quite. More like tar, but pulsing faintly.
There were jars on the shelves.
Dozens of them.
Inside floated things that looked almost human — fingers, eyes, pieces of skin, all warped and wrong. But what made me scream wasn't the jars.
It was the photograph on the table.
It was me.
As a baby.
But the woman holding me wasn't my mother.
Her face was blurred in the picture, like it had been scratched or burned, but I could still make out her dress — the same faded blue dress my mother always wore on Sundays.
I heard a voice then. Behind me.
"You shouldn't be here, Maria."
The candle flickered out.
I froze.
Her breathing was close — too close — and when she spoke again, her voice was lower, raspier.
"You always were too curious. Just like her."
"Like who?" I whispered.
There was silence. Then a chuckle.
The sound of matches striking. A small flame bloomed, revealing her face.
Mother's eyes were black. Not dark brown — black, like holes punched into her skull.
Her skin looked thinner, almost translucent.
"I tried to keep you from finding out," she said, smiling. "But you've always had his eyes. The same defiance. The same hunger to know."
"Who are you talking about?"
She tilted her head. "Your real mother."
***********
The Face Beneath the Candlelight
My mind couldn't process her words. I thought she was mad.
My real mother?
She moved closer, the candlelight trembling in her shaking hand.
Her shadow stretched across the basement wall, warped and long, its edges moving faster than her body — like it was alive on its own.
"Your father was never supposed to find her," she whispered. "He thought he could hide what she was. But when I met him, he had that thing wrapped in a blanket, pretending it was a child. Pretending it was human."
I stepped back, my heel hitting a jar that shattered against the floor. Something viscous and dark oozed out.
It smelled like rust and spoiled fruit.
I gagged.
"You're lying," I managed to say.
But mother only smiled, and for a moment, I saw something flicker behind her — a darker outline, tall and bent, clinging to her shadow like a parasite.
She raised a trembling finger and pressed it against her lips. "Do you hear it, Maria? It's awake now."
A sound rose from below the floorboards — a soft thump, then another. Like someone knocking from the other side of the earth.
The jars rattled on the shelves. My heart raced.
"What did you do?" I whispered.
She didn't answer. Instead, she turned toward the far wall, where a section of bricks looked slightly different — newer.
She reached for a crowbar resting by the table and began prying one out.
"Mother, stop!"
The brick fell, and behind it was a small hole. Something glimmered inside — not metal, not stone. It shimmered like oil on water.
She smiled again, and her voice softened. "I kept her safe, Maria. I promised your father I would. But she calls for you now. She remembers your scent."
Before I could stop her, she reached her arm into the hole.
There was a sound — a wet, snapping sound — and her body stiffened.
For one horrifying second, I thought she'd been pulled in. But she turned back toward me, her hand dripping with something black and glistening.
It moved.
Whatever clung to her skin pulsed like it was breathing. The veins along her arm turned black as the substance crawled upward, sinking into her flesh.
Her eyes rolled back.
"Mother!"
Her head snapped toward me unnaturally fast, her mouth twitching open. "She's awake," she whispered again. "She knows her child's voice."
Then she dropped to the ground, convulsing.
I didn't run. I should have — but the fear pinned me where I stood. The air around her shimmered, bending like heat. A low hum filled the basement, vibrating in my teeth.
Her back arched, and from her mouth came a faint whisper — not her own voice. Higher. Younger.
"Ma…ria…"
The whisper crawled into me, familiar and wrong at once. My knees went weak.
When I finally found the strength to run, the candle blew out again, and the last thing I saw was her hand reaching toward me — her fingers splitting apart like petals, black liquid spilling between them.
***********
The True Mother
I don't remember how I got upstairs.
When I came to, it was dawn. The storm had passed, but the air in the house felt wrong — heavier, as if the walls were soaked in something invisible.
Mother was gone.
The basement door stood open, its key still in the lock.
For two days, I didn't go down there.
I sat by the window, watching the rain return, listening to the soft, rhythmic tapping from beneath the floor.
Sometimes it was faint, like breathing.
Sometimes it was furious, shaking the furniture.
On the third night, I heard her voice again.
"Maria… come downstairs, sweetheart. It's time for breakfast."
I froze.
She sounded… normal. Kind. Loving. The same tone she'd used when I was a child refusing to wake up for school.
But I hadn't heard her open the front door.
I waited, heart pounding, as her footsteps creaked up the stairs. She stopped outside my room. The handle turned slowly.
"Mother?" I whispered.
The door opened just an inch. Through the crack, I saw her eye — not black anymore, but too bright, too still. Like glass.
"Come," she said softly. "You need to see her."
Before I could scream, she pushed the door open fully.
She looked… perfect. Her hair combed, her clothes clean, her smile gentle. But her shadow — it moved wrong. When she stepped forward, it lagged behind, stretching up the wall like a puppet pulled by invisible strings.
"Where have you been?" she asked. "You made her wait."
"I don't understand," I said. "Who?"
"Your mother, darling." She smiled wider. "You thought it was me?"
She reached out and touched my face. Her skin was ice-cold. "I only kept you safe until she was strong enough. You were never mine to keep."
Then she turned and walked toward the stairs. I followed — not out of choice, but something in her voice compelled me. Each step down felt heavier than the last.
When we reached the basement, I saw that the wall was completely gone.
The hole had expanded into a tunnel, its edges slick and glistening. A faint light pulsed deep inside, like a heartbeat.
"Go on," she said. "She's been waiting to meet you."
I shook my head. "No. I'm not going in there."
Her smile faltered. For the first time, she looked sad — truly sad. "You sound just like him," she whispered. "That's what he said before I had to bury him."
She stepped closer. "You don't want me to bury you too, do you?"
Something broke inside me. I turned and ran, shoving past her. I didn't look back.
But before I reached the top of the stairs, I heard it — the sound of something crawling from the tunnel. A wet dragging noise, slow and deliberate.
Then came a voice — not my mother's, not mine — but hers.
"Come back, little one. I made you. I never stopped loving you."
I don't remember leaving the house. I remember the road being empty, the rain washing over me as I ran through the woods.
I remember collapsing by the river and staying there until sunrise.
When I finally returned, the house was silent. The basement door was open, but the tunnel was gone — bricked up again, neat and clean.
Mother sat in the kitchen, drinking tea. She smiled when she saw me.
"Good morning, darling. You must have had a bad dream."
She looked exactly as she always had. The same calm eyes. The same loving tone.
But when she turned to pour another cup, I saw it — her reflection in the kettle.
It wasn't her face.
It was mine.
The Aftertaste of Silence
I've been here ever since. The neighbors say she moved away months ago, but the dishes in the sink are still wet.
Her clothes are still in the closet. And sometimes, when I pass the mirror in the hallway, I see her standing behind me, brushing my hair.
The basement stays locked now. I threw the key into the river, but sometimes at night, I hear the door creak open by itself.
And when I walk past it in the morning, there's always mud on the floor. Footprints.
Small ones.
Last night, I woke up to the sound of whispering again. I pressed my ear to the floor and heard two voices.
Mother's — soft and rhythmic.
And another, higher one.
Mine.
I don't know if I'm alive anymore.
Sometimes I find dirt under my nails, like I've been digging. Sometimes I wake up with a mouthful of soil, and I tell myself it's just a dream.
But this morning, I saw something that made me tremble so violently I nearly dropped my cup.
In the garden, where she used to plant roses, a new sprout has pushed through the soil.
Only… it's not a sprout.
It's a hand.
Small. Pale. Reaching toward the sunlight.
And when the wind passes, I swear I heard a child's voice with it —
"Mother, why?"
*********
Epilogue
They found the house three months later, empty. The basement had caved in.
No trace of the women was found.
Only a garden of roses, their roots black and pulsing.
And beneath one of them, buried in the soil, a photograph:
A baby in a blue blanket.
Held by two women — both wearing the same face.
*************
Stream Commentary; Tape #56."Mother, why?"
"So that was "Mother, Why?" by Maria herself".
[@Ovesix:That ending wasn't an ending, Kai. It was a loop. If both women shared the same face, the question isn't "who's the real mother?" It's "who's the copy?]
[@Jaija: Ooooh, spooky! Maybe they were twins! Like, separated at birth! Or one ate the other in the womb—ew, can that happen?]
[@642: Twins? Nah. That's too human.
I think Maria was never born. She was made. You heard the thing in the wall say "I made you." That's not motherhood, that's creation. The kind that bleeds backwards]
[@Enchomay: If Maria wasn't born, then who was her father? Maybe he was the one who found the original creature — "the real mother" — and tried to humanize it. That line about "pretending it was a child" sounded like he stole something that wasn't supposed to exist]
(Kai thought for a moment)
"You're all assuming there was a father.
What if "father" was just a symbol for control? A human trying to claim ownership over something cosmic — something that could give life without permission"
[@Jaija: …So like, alien mom? Or demon mom?]
[@642:Does it matter? They both end the same way: you wake up as her]
[@Enchomay: Exactly. Maria didn't survive. She became what her mother was protecting — or containing. The mirror scene wasn't a reflection. It was a transfer]
(Kai smirks)
"So you're saying Maria wasn't real by the end?"
[@Enchomay: Not by the end, Kai. But by the beginning. The story starts with her describing her mother's "warmth" and the village calling her Saint Celia. Saints don't lie — unless the saint's reality is a mask. The daughter inherited that mask. The "why" in Mother, Why? isn't her asking her mother. It's the mother asking her creation why she existed]
[@Jaija: Bruh… my brain's doing cartwheels]
[@642: That's the point, kid. The story's not about family. It's about inheritance of madness]
(Kai, who was silent for a while finally speaks)
"You ever notice how every story like this starts with curiosity?
"Don't open that door, don't ask that question."
But we always do"
[@Enchomay: Because the unknown whispers louder than reason]
( Kai smiles, leaning toward camera)
"And that's the real horror, folks. Curiosity.
Maria didn't die because she was weak — she died because she wanted to know.
That's the same reason her father died, and probably the reason you're still watching this stream alone, lights off, scrolling through the dark corners of the internet, looking for one more story that'll "explain everything."
(He pauses for a moment)
"Don't go looking for truth in old houses.
Don't listen to voices that sound like family
.
And if the mirror ever smiles before you do—run.
(The stream chat slows. The screen flickers. The followers' icons fade one by one.)
(Kai, now smiling)
"Anyway…
Tomorrow's story is called:
"I Died."
If you thought "Mother, Why?" was unsettling—
wait till you see what happens when the narrator tells you exactly how death feels.
STREAMENDS