Grendel's 'My Son': A Short Story

He lurches in, groaning, grabbing at the emptiness that used to be his arm. Stumbling around for a few moments, Grendel, my son, my window of happiness in the darkness of my life, slumps against the wall. I scream, my anguish blinding me, choking the air out of my lungs. I feel like cold, wet hands are wrapping around my throat-but I need to be strong. I can't let that abomination on Earth take my sweet boy and mangle him to such an atrocity. I can't let him get away with this monstrosity. I breathe in for the first time since he came in, a deep, rattling breath filling my lungs with the strength of my dark lineage. I can barely look at his body, covered in black blood. He begins to shiver, and my heart breaks. But I can't stay here and howl my anguish into the cold depths. I thirst for revenge, for justice for the dying babe in front of me. I am going to make them suffer as much as I will suffer until I, too, pass from this wretched earth. He whimpers in his fitful sleep, and with one last glance at my dying offspring, I set off to pay back the blood price taken from me.

I need to make them suffer. They have to feel my pain. Pain-that's it. I need to take this pain and make myself stronger. Weakness is for later, for burying my baby, for when I finally-NO. Not now! These thoughts are for later, they must be suppressed. I know how to make them