That night, the crescent moon hung like a blade in the sky. Its pale light flickered across the withered forest surrounding Ngoc Trach—the same forest the elders once called the forbidden woods, where ancestors burned the bodies of stillborns to stop their souls from finding the way back.
Master Dam stood at the edge of the old path, gripping a bamboo staff etched with seals. On his back hung a pouch barely large enough for a sealing charm, a vial of fetal ash, and a cracked bronze mirror.
Beneath his feet, the earth was soft and warm—like the flesh of a living belly.
Each step forward felt like walking across a breathing womb.
He knew what he was entering.
Not a forest.
But a second womb.
The place where H'Lanh had become mother.
Where the unborn had taken root.
After thirty minutes of pushing through thick vines, he reached a clearing. Once, long ago, this was the shrine of the Stone Midwife, toppled during the French colonial days.
Now, in its place, stood a clay hut—grown out of the ashen pit like a tumor.
Surrounding it were thousands of dried umbilical cords, strung like spider silk.
Each cord was connected to an offering: a rusty blade, a doll made of human hair, or a fragment of human kneecap.
Master Dam didn't knock.
He stepped in.
The air inside reeked of amniotic fluid and old meat.
On the earthen floor, H'Lanh sat, her face hidden beneath long, matted hair. Her stomach had swollen to twice the size of a normal pregnancy. The skin over her womb had turned translucent—and inside it, dozens of tiny fetuses squirmed, swimming like fish.
"Mama…" whispered one of them.
"We're home…" murmured another.
Master Dam said nothing.
He sat before her, gaze steady.
Not afraid.
Only deeply, profoundly sorrowful.
"H'Lanh," he said softly, "Are you still human?"
There was no answer.
Only breathing.
Then she lifted her head.
Her eyes were milky-white.
Her skin cracked like sun-dried earth.
And her mouth curled in a smile—gentle like a mother, cruel like a snake.
"There is no H'Lanh anymore."
"Only The Mother Hive."
Master Dam raised a charm, flinging the fetal ash into a protective circle around them.
A golden glow flared—a barrier against the unborn.
But H'Lanh's belly began to ripple.
Beneath her skin, tiny hands pressed outward, some with sharp nails, some clutching torn charms, defaced and bleeding.
"You think you can contain me?"
"I am not here to live.
I am here to give birth."
She leaned back.
A horrible crack echoed—her spine bending like a serpent.
Her belly began to split, the skin rupturing like a breaking egg.
From within, a child with no eyes, no mouth—only teeth crawling across its face—slithered out, dug into the dirt, and disappeared.
One.
Then two.
Then three.
Each was a different horror.
One had the head of a man and the body of a dog.
Another had no legs—just a massive umbilical cord, dragging behind it like a root.
They were not children.
They were ideas.
Born from fear, blood, and generations of misbegotten wishes.
Master Dam pulled out the cracked bronze mirror and shouted:
"I do not seal the spirit.
I seal the source of birth!"
The mirror reflected her womb.
Inside—thirteen fetuses, all facing outward.
Each face bore the likeness of those villagers who had died with split bellies.
H'Lanh screamed.
It was no human sound.
It was the voice of a species—a low, ancient, echoing roar like the rumble of stone beneath the ocean.
"I AM THEIR WOMB!
I AM THEM,
AND THEY ARE ME!"
The entire hut trembled.
Cracks tore through the walls, revealing eyes—hundreds of eyes, blinking from within the clay.
Each was a child's eye.
Each bleeding.
Some weeping.
Some laughing.
Master Dam didn't hesitate.
He slashed his palm, dipped a finger in the blood, and drew the final symbol across the ground:
The Womb-Ending Sigil.
As the last stroke was made, a wind howled through,
All the umbilical cords caught fire,
And H'Lanh's womb exploded into ash,
Her monstrous children disintegrating, vanishing into mist.
The clay hut collapsed.
Silence fell.
Days later, when the villagers dared return, they found only H'Lanh's body—dry as bark, curled in a fetal position, lying atop cracked earth.
There was no sign of Master Dam.
Only one message, carved into the dirt outside the ruin:
"I killed the mother.
But not the child."