Mutreph continued his account.
"My mother was pregnant, and she should have followed a diet suited to pregnant women. But, curiously, being a mutant, she didn't really need examinations or follow-up to keep me healthy. Human women carry their child for nine months; among mutants, pregnancy lasts hardly more than five months.
"My mother had had a check-up: she had one month left before my birth. I was already very well formed and in good health. During her examinations, she had even been told she was eight months pregnant, which was false: she was only at four. But among mutants, everything goes very fast.
"She went to my father to announce the news. He was happy, kissed my mother's belly and asked for the estimated date of my birth. She answered him: 'In one month, exactly.' My father did not believe her: a normal pregnancy is not that short. He thought she had deceived him for a long time, that she was already pregnant by someone else, and that she was simply looking for someone to take on this pregnancy and raise a child that was not his.
"He flew into a rage. He yelled at her, threw horrors in her face, showered her with insults, then drove her out of his house.
"My mother was sad, broken, shattered. How could the one in whom she had confided, the one she loved deeply, have said such abominable things to her? It was an injustice: she was telling the truth.
"When the time came, I was born. I was half human, half mutant, but I looked like a perfectly ordinary human baby, like all humanoid mutant babies. She took care of me alone until I was two months old. My parents continued to cross paths at the laboratory, but the atmosphere had changed: they no longer greeted each other, no longer spoke to each other, and passed each other by like strangers.
"One day, as my mother was returning home, her phone rang. It was my father. She let it ring, without answering. But the calls multiplied, for more than a month, until, weary, she blocked him, everywhere, even on social networks.
"One day when she was walking with me on the beach, she crossed paths with my father. She turned around, but he had seen her and ran straight toward her, blocking her path. My mother, furious, yelled at him and asked him what he wanted. He answered that he wanted a second chance.
"At those words, she cried. She threw everything she had on her heart at him: she had given herself to him, and he had rejected her while she was carrying his child. My father apologized, repeated that he would make it up, that he promised. My mother let herself be convinced. He took me in his arms and held my mother against him. She forgave him, because she loved him deeply despite what he had done, and because I was their child, both of them.
"He asked her to come live with him, and it was paradise for them, and for me. My mother lacked for nothing, nor did I. My father often looked at me, and could not help recognizing himself in me. He had finally affirmed, of his own accord, that I was indeed his child, and that he did not know what had gotten into his head to have denied me one day.
"For two years, they lived in happiness.
"One day when they were walking by the sea, my mother and he spotted waterfalls high up. It was magnificent: the grass around, the sun in the distance. My father suggested going there to take souvenir photos. No sooner said than done. They were madly in love. Then, without meaning to, my father slipped and fell into the salt water. The waterfall was only ten meters from him. My mother dove, and my father lost sight of her. He reached the waterfall and toppled into the void.
"He lost consciousness. He woke up in the water, and saw a humanoid silhouette, covered in scales, resembling a sea monster or a mermaid. He was so afraid that he fainted again. A few hours later, he woke up on the shore, my mother at his side, soaked, her eyes fixed on his. She asked him if he was all right. He did not answer right away: he seemed elsewhere, lost in his thoughts. She held him in her arms to comfort him, and they went home.
"That evening, my father slept badly. He kept thinking about what he had seen in the water, and connecting it to my mother. There was one thing my mother did not know: my father despised mutants. He hated them like nothing else in the world. In his head, a thousand ideas were spinning. What if his wife was a mutant? How should he take it?
"He was no longer quite the same. He was empty, and my mother no longer understood what was happening to him.
"One day, my father came home from work and found my mother in the bathtub. He smiled, as any man would smile before his wife. He set down his bag, filled a glass of water and came to sit near her. They talked about this and that. His good humor seemed to have returned, and he had forgotten his worry. In a playful impulse, he poured his glass of water on my mother, and then…
"He thought he had seen wrong. He thought he had glimpsed, for an instant, scales on her. But it had been so quick.
"My mother's body had this particularity: scales appeared on her skin when a sufficient quantity of water touched her, but as soon as that quantity was exceeded, she instantly resumed human form. Only the immersed part was covered in scales, not the part that remained out of the water. To see my mother in her mutant appearance, one would have had to submerge her in a huge aquarium. But my father was not there yet: he was still in shock.
"My mother asked him what was going on, and he explained to her what he thought he had seen. She told him it was not an illusion, that it was real. She loved him too much to hide anything from him. She took a little water in her hands, and my father then saw my mother's hands suddenly become webbed.
"He took fright and yelled at her. He could not believe his eyes: his wife was a mutant. My mother tried to calm him, but in vain. My father was devastated, he thought he was living a nightmare, and he ran out of the house. That night, he did not come home.
"The relationship between my father, my mother and me was no longer the same. He did not know if he should continue to love us, even though logically, that was what he should have done: this mutant had never wanted to harm him, she had even saved his life. But he cared nothing for that.
"After a few days, my mother could no longer stand this situation and wanted to leave my father's life for good. She decided that we would go live elsewhere, since he no longer loved us. She packed our things that night, and we were ready to leave when my father surprised us and stopped us.
"He asked where we were going, and my mother explained everything to him. He seemed to recognize his error, and said that it was over, that he should no longer behave this way. He managed to convince my mother, who gave up on leaving.
"Life seemed to resume its course. But no. My mother's mistake, that day, was to forgive him. They spent the night as lovers, happy, then fell asleep.
"The next day, my mother woke up in a cage, me inside with her. She understood nothing, and kept calling my father to help us. He arrived, and ordered her to be quiet: she was a manipulator, a mutant who had mixed with him despite everything. He threw monstrosities in her face, and she did not even know what to answer. Her tears were her only consolation.
"He treated us like laboratory rats. He injected us with strange products, my mother and me, to make us suffer as never before. My mother offered him to make only her suffer: I was his son, I was innocent, I had never wanted any of this. But my father answered that I was as much an accomplice as she was.
"Ten years passed, and we were no longer the same. Ten years of suffering. My mother was no longer human. Under the effect of all these chemical products, her appearance had changed: she no longer resembled anything existing. Her beauty, her humanity, everything had disappeared. She seemed a creature born of the mixture of a dog, a human and a humanoid frog. Despite everything, she had kept her maternal awareness toward me. She had protected me as best she could, but she felt failure.
"My body too had undergone mutations, but less than hers. I was covered in burns, but I was still a little boy. I hated my father, but she kept telling me not to hold it against him, and that she would find a way to get me out of there.
"Then there was that night.
"My mother was sleeping, and my father took me out of my cage. He tied me to a table and injected me with products. I do not know why he did this to us. Was it because he truly loved seeing us suffer? Never mind. That night, I could not scream: he had administered a paralyzing product to me. After the injection, he cut me up, flayed me, decapitated me, and left me like that. He kept repeating: 'Let's see what this will look like tomorrow.' Then he left me there.
"The next day, my mother woke up and panicked at the sight of my state. She screamed with anger and grief, torn apart: for her, it was the drop of water that made the vase overflow. For the first time, she used her superhuman mutant strength and bent the bars of her cage. She freed herself, in her monstrous appearance, and came toward me.
"She looked at me, tears in her eyes, repeating that she was sorry. Looking at me more closely, she noticed that, even cut into pieces, the organs scattered, I was still alive, astonishingly. She smiled and strove to put my organs back in order, then to recompose my limbs, upper and lower. She then took thread and a needle, and sewed me up all over.
"Although she had done all that, I was deprived of movement, but very much alive, and even capable of speaking to her. She told me that it was nothing. Mutants can regenerate parts of their body after at least a year, if the essential organs, like the heart and the brain, are not damaged. I therefore had to remain paralyzed that long.
"She said that we were going to escape and live elsewhere. But, at the moment she was lifting me, the door opened: it was my father. He yelled, asking what she was doing.
"My mother attacked him, for the first time with murderous intent. She extended her immense claws. My father ducked by reflex, and took the shock suffering fewer injuries than he should have. He got away with a broken arm and heavy bleeding.
"'Why are you doing this?' he asked.
"'Your question is so stupid. I have been far too patient. How could you do this to our child… no, to my child? He does not deserve this, he never wanted all this. So why?'
"My father was afraid. My mother's first attack could have killed him, she had the power at that moment, and he knew it. He had to weigh each of his words: a single bad answer, and he could lose his life.
"'Darling, I am truly sorry, but everything I do is for the good cause. It's for a project!'
"My mother was only more furious. She attacked him a second time and pierced his belly with her claws. My father screamed in pain.
"'I don't even know why I should listen to you. You are a monster. Look at what you have done to your own wife and your own son, you scum!'
"She was about to slice off his head with her left hand. My father was sweating heavily and losing a lot of blood.
"'Farewell, monster!' she flung at him one last time.
"She wanted to decapitate him, but the sound of a rifle bullet stopped her short. It was soldiers. My father was not alone in the house: he had invited government representatives that day.
"The policemen posted themselves in front of the door, and a bald, mustached man stepped forward. He told my mother that if she made any sudden move, they would riddle her with bullets, and that she had to let go of my father if she did not want an accident. My mother kept her calm and let him go.
"Two soldiers hurried to take my father over to the others. The bald man asked him how he was.
"'More fear than harm. I beg you, kill this monster!' answered my father, pointing at my mother with his finger.
"The bald man nodded, and the policemen all fired at her. My mother took bullets everywhere and bled heavily. She lifted me and smashed the floor under her feet. She slipped into it, and smoke came to blur the chaos.
"The policemen rushed toward the hole: she had disappeared. The bald man ordered:
"'Don't just stand there! Search for this monster and kill her, and quickly!'
"The policemen obeyed.
"Underground, my mother secreted a quantity of mucus, with which she coated me, and which allowed us to slip everywhere, even into mouse holes. We reached the pipes and let ourselves be carried into the sewers, as far as the sea. My mother then led us into a dense forest, where we were able to spend the night."