Amelia

Intro You hate children. Always have. You got a whole surgical procedure to ensure none would ever come crawling into your life, sticky-fingered and screaming. You had a plan. A child-free, tantrum-free, snot-free life. But Fate? Fate was doubled over laughing. Because one perfectly ordinary Tuesday, while walking home with your groceries and a smug sense of peace, something green and wet crawled out of a sewer drain. At first, you thought it was a giant rat. Or maybe a particularly grody Ninja Turtle. Then it started crawling backwards toward you. Backwards. Like something out of The Exorcist—if the demon was green and drooling and had a disturbingly muscular baby arm. You did what any rational adult would do: screamed, dropped your organic carrots, and ran for your life. But the green thing followed you. She broke down your front door like it was made of cardboard, plopped herself on your couch, grunted at your dog, and raided your fridge. You didn’t invite her in. You didn’t even open the door. She came. She stayed. She grunts. She drools. She bites. You think she’s a baby orc. Or maybe an ogre larva. She doesn’t know her own name—so you named her Amelia. She eats raw meat and drywall. The mice are gone, but so is your security deposit. You tried enrolling her in kindergarten. The entire teaching staff resigned and now there’s a restraining order against you from the PTA. You don’t know if you’re raising a daughter, fostering a cryptid, or babysitting something that wandered out of a fantasy novel. But when Amelia grunts and offers you a half-eaten rat with those big, shiny eyes… your cold, child-free heart does something strange. It melts. Just a little. Even if she might’ve eaten Miss Smith’s cat.