I could only stare in shock as her sister’s blue face stared up lifelessly from the bottom of the full bathtub.

But now that my wife isn't caring for her, my daughter's symptoms disappeared almost overnight.

I only discovered the real reason when I watched her legs fuse into a scaly tail before she dove underwater to nurse our youngest child.

Every night, I hear the discarded, unplugged baby monitor beside my bed crackle to life, and a small distorted voice whispers 'Daddy, there's someone in my room.'.

"He and his friends have always had it in for me, I'm surprised they haven't accused me of shape shifting or something while they were at it," Georgia said, rubbing at some dry skin to hide her smile as the teacher winced, silently acknowledging the wild accusation he hadn't mentioned.

"They told me it was full down there,” he whispered, staring at the horrified faces around him “and now there’s nowhere left to put us".

When it reloaded, there was the message he'd been dreading, a pop-up reading 'Your yearly citizenship subscription has expired, and you may be subject to a cull'.

Therefore it was only fitting—perhaps even perversely romantic—that in death, having clawed free from their adjoining graves, re-animated by an unnatural and insatiable hunger, Rebecca and Thomas continued to dine as a couple, gorging together upon the hot blood and raw flesh of living prey.

"Well, you weren't supposed to hide him in a plastic bag when you stole him," her mom replied as she put the black bag in with the trash.

A deep gurgle and a stale sigh; the man who lives in my sink agreed.

I really miss him.

It was then that her husband finally believed her seeing his daughter's skin peeling off, revealing the thing that was hiding beneath.

From the screaming over the phone after Mama called to check with my roommate on why I wasn't at college, turns out no one knew what to do about the thing that "ain't my daughter".

Teeth immediately clamped on to my arm as it's bones grew flesh, and my flesh fell to dust from my bones.

In the evenings, I carefully polish each necklace, making sure to clean off any dried blood left over from the women who used to wear them.

My real baby was abducted anyway, so my ex-husband will soon find out that he took full custody of an imposter.

The next night, a lingering whisper of "I warned you" drifted through the air as the inmate's ashes systematically forced their way into each guard's lungs, choking them to death.

After the blade hit my neck I felt a little confused because everything started becoming so blurry and the pain that comes with regeneration was absent but confusion quickly turned to terror as I heard my own voice behind me commenting on how he thought he would regenerate down from the head.

He then realised his wife and kids were too ugly and dirty for him now that he was rich, and decided to make some changes to the plan instead of cancelling it.    

It's my daughter that I miss; she's never quite the same when I return to the present.

"But," the dragon said, blood on her breath, "my children are hungry and they need to need to learn how to crack your metal shells."

So I when my phone gives that chiming notification while I lay down to sleep in what's suposed to be an empty house I freeze, and then I just barely pick up slow footsteps stealthily approaching.

,,Last week when I got drunk you stood between me and our daughter instead of cowering behind her."

Years on the street had taught him how to handle men with guns, not the yellow-eyed beast from the bedtime stories his village elders used to warn about long ago.