The Deep

by Nick Cutter

Your child doesn’t owe you loyalty or obedience. You owe your child love and understanding, owe it unconditionally, and if you love them strongly enough, eventually that love may be returned.

In any missing persons case, the chances of success drop drastically after a full day.

This is my real true nightmare. I can’t express how this scene made my guts roil around.

I was their queen. The NEW queen.

So terribly awful.

THE FIG MEN ARE DRAWING NEAR

HOW DO THEY KNOW ABOUT THE FIG MEN????

She did not deserve this. But things happened. They happened.

I cried. I almost stopped reading at this point. I’m too soft for this.

The hatch swung shut on Alice’s deformed, gibbering laughter.

Man. Come on. Stop doing this to me.

“You like it, remember? If you didn’t like it, you wouldn’t get so . . . so . . .”

I keep thinking it can’t get worse, and it just does.

“I’m so happy, Daddy. You’ve come home.”

Please just kill me. Like just let me get out of here. I’m a wreck.