We came back wrong – or, at least, that’s what they tell us.

Teeth just a hint too sharp. Mouths that don’t close right. Limbs and spines that twist and lock in ways that human bodies were never meant to move – or, rather, that their bodies never do. And, under our fingernails, locked tight inside soft skin and all-too-human flesh, the claws.

We came back wrong. Not the human children who were taken, who’d never bite and scratch, never raise their voices, never embarrass them like this in public when everyone is staring do you want them to think you’re mad?

We came back wrong. Which is to say, to some of them, we came back at all.

[Author’s note: Heavily inspired by Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children books – which, if you’ve not encountered yet, are well worth your time to check out]

Copyright © 2020 by Finn McLellan.  All rights reserved.