It was 8:35 pm as I drove into my mom’s driveway, tired after a long day at work. The cars engine sighed as I killed it, extracted the keys, and swung open the car door, only to be assaulted by the cold winter wind outside – a wake-up call in the form of icy wind.
I walked up the driveway to the front door and noticed that all the lights in my mother’s house were off. Typically, she’d have a light on somewhere in the house, a beacon of warmth as she awaited my return in the kitchen or living room. It struck me odd; her usual routine of keeping a light on seemed abandoned tonight. Something about this felt weird, but at the time, I paid it no mind.
I walked into the house, and it felt colder than it did outside. I flipped on the light switch next to the front door and made my way down the hall, directly opposite the front door, to check the temperature, It read a jarring 54 degrees.
Why in the world wouldn’t my mother have the heater on, especially during the winter?
We live in upstate New York, so having a heater in your house during this season is a necessity. As I began to turn the heater on, it dawned on me that I hadn’t seen my mother in her usual spots—the kitchen or the living room.
“Where was she?” I thought to myself.
I called out to my mother as I stood by the thermostat—no answer. I called out again, but this time a bit louder than before—still, no answer. Instead of calling out again, I remained silent and listened.Silence…
Just as I was about to leave the thermostat to check my mother’s room, I heard something—a deep guttural moan, coming specifically from the backyard. I walked over towards the back door and saw that it was completely wide open.
“Could my mom be outside?” I thought to myself.
I walked outside to find my mother standing still. Finding my mother helped me figure out where this deep moaning sound was coming from, it was her. Her arms were locked down by her waist, her head tilted straight up at the night sky as if she were looking at something. Her body was stiff, and she had no jacket on—just her casual around-the-house outfit: a white t-shirt, sweatpants, and slippers, not suitable for this cold weather.
I walked around her to see her face and could only manage to say, ‘Mom, what the hell are you—’ before my mouth closed shut at what I was seeing. My mother’s face looked like she was in the worst pain imaginable. Her eyes were wide open, as well as her mouth, drool seeping out, while she made the deep guttural moaning sound.
I grabbed her arm and tried to shake it, but it wouldn’t budge. Despite my attempts, she remained unresponsive. I shook her over and over, screaming to hopefully snap her out of whatever was happening. I began to cry, and then, in an instant, it was like she just came back. As quick as she was in this trance like state she was now out of it.
She looked at me with a confused expression.
“What am I doing outside?” she asked.
“I don’t know; I just got home from work!”
“Why are you crying?” she asked me.
“Mom, do you seriously not know what you were doing?”
“One minute I was washing the dishes, and now somehow I’m outside. I don’t know what happened. Maybe I was sleepwalking?”
“Mom, come on; you were definitely not sleepwalking.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, honey. Come on, let’s get back inside; it’s cold out here.”
We went back inside, and my mother went on and on about how she didn’t remember what happened. The conversation between us eventually ended, as she had no way to explain what happened. There wasn’t much else that could be said.
I watched her finish up the dishes to make sure she didn’t fall into that trance again. After she finished, I trusted that she was okay now, and I could leave her to go into my room.
I made my way to my room, took off my work clothes, and went to sleep.The next day, I woke up to the familiar smell of my mother cooking breakfast. This smell comforted me because it reassured me that my mom must’ve been back to normal. I hopped out of my bed and walked out to the kitchen to find my mom cooking.
Good morning, Mom,” I forced a smile.
“Good morning, honey. How’d you sleep?”
“I slept well, thanks for asking. Hey, Mom, what was that about last night?”
She blinked at me, the fog of uncertainty engulfing her face.
“Honey, we talked about this. I don’t remember what happened.”
I persisted, my voice tinged with urgency. “Are you sure? You don’t remember anything besides you cleaning the dishes?”
Her patience shortened, her eyes flickering with a mix of annoyance and confusion. “No, no, I don’t. Stop asking me about it. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
Defeated, I obeyed my mother’s request. “Alright, fine.”
“Did you check to see if your dad was awake?”
“Mom? What are you talking about?”
“What do you mean, what am I talking about? Did you check to see if your dad is awake?”
“Mom… Dad is dead. He died 3 years ago, in that car accident. How did you forget?”
“Oh, that’s right! It must’ve slipped my mind somehow.”
We didn’t talk much after that. I found myself grappling with the incomprehensible notion that my mother could simply forget the death of her own husband, especially given the fact that she went to the funeral. I mean, a relative that close, how could a person forget something like that? It made no sense to me.
The next day, my mom and I were relaxing together on the sofa. My mom sat next to me, reading one of her books, while I scrolled through Reddit on my phone. We sat in silence for about 30 minutes until a car horn outside disrupted the silence. Startled, my mom, who had been on the sofa, jumped at the sound and covered her ears, screaming loudly as if the car horn was an air horn, being blown directly into her ear. Her reaction scared me because the car horn wasn’t loud enough to provoke such a response.
“Mom, what’s wrong?! Are you alright?”
I reached my arm towards her to see if she was ok, but, without warning, she pushed me away.
“Get the fuck away from me! Just… leave me alone!”
I was completely dumbfounded. I had never seen her act like this before. And she has never cussed at me like that. Unsure of what to do, I got up from the sofa, watching as she cupped her hands over her ears with her eyes closed, as if in pain from the car horn. It was just a honk, which confused me as to why she was still screaming, it was like the honk somehow damaged her ears. She emitted grunts and moans, the sounds becoming muffled as I closed my bedroom door.
I sat on my bed, and I listened to the muffled sounds of my mother moaning and groaning in pain. Eventually, her sounds subsided, replaced only by the sound of her heavy footsteps making their way to her own bedroom, followed by the slam of the door.
I laid in bed, trying to rationalize my mother’s behavior. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t understand what could be wrong with her. Maybe she was just having a bad day, I don’t know. I was desperate for an answer, and couldn’t think of any other explanation. Glancing at the clock on my nightstand, I realized how late it was getting.
Tired, I resolved to take a quick shower before turning in for the night.
As the warm water soothed my exhausted body, I became increasingly aware of a mounting heaviness in the bathroom. Stepping out of the shower, a sort of tension gripped the air. As I wrapped a towel around my waist, I hear a slow, rhythmic knock on my bedroom door. It’s my mother knocking, I know it’s my mother, but something about it felt wrong. The knocks are too deliberate, too methodical. The knocks made me feel as if opening the door for my mother was now, somehow dangerous.
I stayed quiet, standing still in the bathroom with nothing but a bathroom towel around my waist. I was afraid to move; I was afraid that if my mother heard me, she would burst into my room, and something bad would happen.
I walked quietly out of my bathroom, and as quietly as I could, I made my way to my bedroom’s door where my mother was still knocking in this strange rhythm. Silently, I walked up to the door and with a trembling hand, I extended my arm, ready to lock the door and seal myself within the safety of my room. I twisted the lock.
—click.
The second my bedroom door lock clicked, the knocking stopped. I then heard the sound of fast-paced moving footsteps making their way to my mom’s bedroom, I also heard the unmistakable sound of my mother laughing while she scurried to her room. The laugh sounded like the sort of laugh you’d expect to hear from a kid, after they do something they know they aren’t supposed to.“What the fuck was that about?” I thought to myself.
Confusion mingled with fear, surged through my veins, but exhaustion ultimately won the battle for my consciousness. The exhaustion overpowered my will to stay up all night, so I climbed into bed, trying to dismiss what had just happened. I clung onto the assurance of my door being locked, and went to sleep.
When I woke up the next morning, I didn’t wake up to the smell of breakfast like I normally would. I woke up to complete silence. This silence did not disturb me, however; it was my mother’s behavior that did. That was all I could think about.
Hunger gnawed at my stomach when I woke up, yet the idea of breakfast became a paradoxical mixture of comfort and dread. I kept thinking, ‘What if my mother starts acting weird again? What if she’s in that trance again, and I find her the same way I found her in the backyard?’ What the hell was that knocking about last night?
These thoughts swirled in my mind, but I forced myself to push them aside because I couldn’t stay in my room all day. Plus, it was a weekend, so I wouldn’t have work.
I decided that I would leave my room quietly, employing the same methodical caution with which I had locked my door. I swung my body across the bed so that my bare feet could touch the cold wooden floor. I got up slowly so the springs of my bed wouldn’t make noise, and I slowly made my way towards my door. I raised my arm to unlock it. I turned the lock slowly so it wouldn’t make the click sound. I turned the knob, opened the door just a creak, and peered outside. My mom isn’t there. I opened the door fully now, and saw down the hall that my mother’s bedroom door was wide open.
I walked slowly down the hall, being sure not to make noise. I made my way to my mother’s bedroom door, which was wide open. I peered inside, and from what I could see, my mother wasn’t in her bedroom. Her bed was perfectly made. I figured she wasn’t in the bathroom either, because I could see that the light from her bathroom was off. I stood there, just looking into her bedroom with this weird feeling in my stomach.
It felt as if something was close to me, but I just couldn’t see it. I stood there and listened, wanting to hear where my mom could be. I was hearing something, but it was really faint, but then also close at the same time. It was an in and out type of sound, the in and out sound a door would make when you open and close it while it squeaks. I stood there listening for what felt like forever, when I realized what I was hearing…
Breathing.
I was hearing someone breathing, specifically on the left side of my head. It wasn’t in the hallway but came directly from behind my mother’s bedroom door. I looked towards the door closely, and a chill ran down my spine when I saw it. The gap between the door and the frame revealed my mother.
She was hiding behind her own bedroom door.I held my breath and covered my mouth at what I saw. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. I tried to be silent, but when I took a step to leave, a piece of the wooden floor below me creaked, betraying my presence. I froze. My mother’s face snapped in my direction, and half of her face was now looking at me through the door’s slender gap.I screamed and ran for the front door. As I ran, I heard the sound of my mother running behind me; she was fast. I ran track for 2 years in high school, and I’m much more athletic than my mother, but somehow she effortlessly closed the distance. Behind the door, she should have been at a disadvantage, but somehow I was, instead of her.
As I grabbed the doorknob of the front door, my mother grabbed my arm tightly, and I screamed again. I looked back at her; her face looked as if she hadn’t slept all night. Her eyes were red, her lips dry, and her hair was a mess. We were both breathing heavily.
“Honey, why are you trying to leave?” she asked me, out of breath, genuinely confused.
“Mom? What’s wrong?”
“What do you mean what’s wrong? Nothing’s wrong.”
“Why have you been acting like this?”
“Acting like what?”
“That one night when I got home from work, you were standing outside in the cold. You were freaking out over a horn. You knocked on my door, then ran away while laughing. You forgot dad died. Now, you were just hiding behind your bedroom door. What’s going on with you?”
After I said this, her face took on the look of someone who’d accepted defeat. Her tearful eyes met mine, and she hesitated, as if wrestling with the words itching to escape.
“I didn’t want you to find out like this.” She said softly.
“Mom? What are you talking about? Find out what?”
“Come here, honey, and sit down.”
She pulled my arm, which she had been holding the entire time, and guided me towards the kitchen table.
“Sit down,” she said.
As I sat down, she pulled a chair from across the table and sat down also.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to show you.”
“Mom, what is it?”
“Wait here.”
She got up quickly, walked over to her room, and the distant sound of drawers being ransacked echoed, she was looking for something. She then came back with something in her hands – a document of some sort. She laid it down on the table in front of me.
“Mom, what is this?”
“Just read it.” Tears streamed down her face, smudging the inked words upon the page. And as I sunk into the chair, the document lay before me, revealing the gruesome truth.
I looked up at my mother and back down at the document and began reading.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the document in front of me.
The title, “Neurological Degradation Syndrome,” seemed to mock me with its clinical detachment. This document held the key to understanding the very thing that was destroying my mother’s mind. It was a physiological disorder, an illness that offered no mercy as it devoured its victims in a relentless descent.
The symptoms were a nightmarish litany of horrors. Memory lapses and confusion, heightened sensitivity to external stimuli, distorted perceptions leading to vivid hallucinations. The mind, once a sanctuary, impaired judgment and decision-making, and drastic mood swings.
Then, there were the stages of progression, each one worse than the last. The initial onset, dismissed as mere forgetfulness. Mild cognitive impairment, a creeping fog settling over the mind. But it was the moderate decline that sent shivers down my spine. Hallucinations and distorted perceptions intensify, casting an ever-present shadow over daily life. And the final stage of the illness, oh god, the final stage, the physical manifestation, the widening of the eyes and the mouth.
The causes were as elusive as they were terrifying. Genetic predisposition, environmental factors. Neurochemical imbalances and abhorrent protein buildup in the brain, playing a macabre symphony that led to the illnesses progression.But it was the final stages that clawed at my soul the most. The document revealed the true nature of this illness, the point of no return. The eyes widening, the mouth gaping open in a silent scream. A crucial indicator, signaling that the illness had conquered the person’s very essence. They were lost.
I slowed down my reading because there was a part of the document I found strange. This part read, “Peculiar patterns in the occurrence of NDS have been noted. The disorder tends to manifest most prominently at specific times, with 7:42 am and 8:35 pm being the most commonly reported. Understanding these temporal aspects can aid in anticipating and managing the challenges posed by NDS, offering valuable insights into potential preventive measures and interventions.”
The disorder seemed to revel in its sadistic dance, manifesting most prominently at specific times. 7:42 am and 8:35 pm being the most commonly reported, they were the witching hours when all hope seemed to wither away. Understanding these temporal aspects offered little solace, instead serving as a grim reminder of the inevitable.
As I read through the document in shock, a horrifying sound ended the silence between me and my mother. A guttural groan emanated from across the table. Fear clutched my throat. I was afraid to look because I knew what it was – I knew that it had happened again. I looked up slowly and there she sat, arms locked, face twisted in agony. Eyes wide, mouth wide, drool seeping. A chilling revelation mirrored in my mom’s eyes – the irreversible descent into the final stages. The only change in her expression now, was that her eyes were locked onto mine. But the worst change of all was that, she was now smiling.
I was frozen to my chair, tears streaming down my face. In that moment, I knew. It was too late for my mother. The final stages had claimed her. Her actions will now be unpredictable, a danger to herself and those around her. Only one option remained, a specialized facility where she could receive the care, but I knew deep down that it was a futile effort. The final stages were relentless, unforgiving. There was no escape.
As I sat there, paralyzed by the horror unfolding before me, a realization dawned on me. This document, this treacherous revelation, marked the beginning of my own descent. I too, carried the seeds of this abomination within me. The invisible thread that linked my mother and me grew stronger with each passing moment. I couldn’t help but wonder, when would it be my turn? I looked up behind my mother, catching a glimpse of the clock hung up on the wall. The clock read,
7:42 am.
It was a moment of clarity, a chilling reminder of the cruel nature of NDS. As I left my mother’s house that day, the clock’s digits burned into my mind like a scar, a constant reminder of the disease’s grip on my mother. It was a fate I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
From that day on, I couldn’t shake off the constant fear that I too would be struck with NDS. I’d catch myself forgetting little things, questioning if it was a symptom or just a simple lapse in memory. The darkness of my mother’s fate loomed over me like a constant weight.
I dove into researching NDS, determined to find a way to prevent it from taking me too. It became my obsession, my only reason to go on. The more I read, the more hopeless it all seemed. There was no cure, no treatment. NDS was a death sentence, an inescapable fate.
I started taking preventative measures. I took up meditation to maintain mental stability. I made sure to eat healthily and exercise regularly, anything to keep my mind and body in top shape.The years swept by, carrying my mother away with them. She was sent off to a sterile facility, tucked away from the prying eyes of the world. She didn’t pose any threat, no dangerous behavior. She was simply stuck—trapped in her own mind, with a visage frozen in a perpetual state, her eyes widened and her mouth agape.
As the years went on, I stayed vigilant, but the fear never left me. Every moment felt like a ticking time bomb, with the possibility of NDS always lurking around the corner. The fear of losing control of my mind was a constant shadow.
But as fate would have it, when the time came, I was powerless against it. It started with small things, a misplaced item here, a forgotten word there. Slowly but surely, the symptoms began to pile up. I tried to ignore it, to believe that it was just a phase. But deep down, I knew the truth.
As I sit here, staring into the void of my own mind, I can feel the widening of my eyes, the widening of my mouth, the telltale sign that the disease has taken over. And yet, there’s a strange sense of peace within me. I fought as hard as I could, but in the end, it was pointless.
It’s a terrifying thought, but I find comfort in the fact that at least I’ll be with my mother again, even if it’s in this eternal descent into madness. And as my mind slips further and further into the abyss, I know now that our minds, are our most fragile and precious possessions.