NEW AFK ARENA/WORM STORY PROLOGUE

Taylor couldn’t help but think that her mother had become different after the car crash.

It wasn’t the sort of thing she could explain, not even to herself, because on the surface, nothing had changed. Annette Rose Hebert still smiled when Taylor walked through the front door after school, still leaned over her shoulder to correct the way she worked through English questions, and still insisted on cooking dinner—or at least trying—on the nights when dad was too tired to bother. She still kissed Taylor on the forehead before bed and told her she loved her. 

All the motions of being a mother were there, just as they had been before. But beneath it all, something fundamental had changed.

Where her mother had once been gentle and warm, like the morning sunlight through a kitchen window on a Saturday morning, there was now a sense of melancholy to her disposition that never left her. She was more withdrawn and prone to staring out into space for long stretches of time, her lips pressed tight in thoughts she never shared, as though listening to something no one else could hear.

She also spoke less, and when she did, her words carried a certain heaviness that hadn’t been there before. Her laughter—rare now—sounded thinner, almost strained, like it had been pulled from her throat against her will.

The doctors had said this was normal. Survivors of serious accidents often came back changed, they explained, using that exaggerated, high-pitched voice adults typically reserved for children. Trauma rewired the mind in strange ways; depression, mood swings, and even bouts of detachment weren’t uncommon. Healing took time, and the best thing for the family to do was be patient, be present, and let her heal in her own time.

Her dad had clung to that explanation almost religiously. He repeated it whenever Taylor asked questions he couldn’t answer, whenever her mother’s behavior frightened her, or whenever the house seemed colder despite the heat running. Your mother just needs time, he’d insist, as much for himself as for her.

But Taylor couldn’t make herself believe it, despite fervently wanting to. The changes were too sudden, too obvious, and carried with them an odd sense of dread. 

Her mother’s eyes seemed darker somehow, not in color but in feeling, in the way shadows seemed to linger just behind them. She was still helpful, still loving in her way, but the easy optimism she’d once exuded had withered. And in its place was something grim, almost fatalistic. Taylor knew Brockton Bay—and by proxy, Earth Bet—was an awful place to live in, but in those rare times where the truth was more apparent, her mother spoke of the world with a tone that made Taylor’s chest ache.

And then there were the nights.

Sometimes Taylor would wake to find her mother standing in the hallway outside her room, utterly still, watching. The first time it had scared her so badly she’d screamed, certain something was wrong. Her mother had apologized, explaining softly that she’d only been checking on her. The next morning, they all pretended it hadn’t happened as they ate breakfast.

But it did. More than once.

Taylor tried to tell herself she was imagining things, that it was the stress of the crash and the doctors were right. She wanted so desperately for it to be true, to believe her mother was still her mother, and for everything to make sense again.

And yet, the suspicion never left her. It clung to her in those quiet moments, in between conversations with Emma where she couldn't silence her thoughts, stubborn and inescapable.

The woman who smiled at her across the kitchen table, who wore her mother’s face and spoke with her mother’s voice… wasn’t really Annette Rose Hebert anymore.

She was someone else entirely.