[ WP ] DNA has been extracted from the Shroud of Turin and Jesus has been cloned . The host mother is 8 months pregnant with a healthy baby boy . The world is in an uproar ...

Hushed gasps still echoed through the supermarket aisles as she aligned her cart beside the checkout line. It was the same as it always had been before, the perplexed and damning and skeptical faces all cast upon her with a weight greater than the life she carried. She could feel another panic attack creeping on, that telltale blur of vision distorting and twisting them all into lumbering, ravenous beasts. How they loomed, grimaced, leered, and uttered under shrill breath, all looking to- 
 
 `` Ma'am?'' A clear deep voice intruded into the noise. 
 
 `` It's okay,'' she lied, managing a relaxing exhale to her agent's inquiry. 
 
 `` Ma'am, we have bravo team at standby in the door, shall we establish a perimet-?'' 
 
 `` No,'' she pressed down on the cart, pushing it to the register. She made quick eye contact with the teenager behind the scanner, but had to turn away as his shocked expression gnarled into just another one of the demons her mind painted. `` No, it's... it's nothing you ca n't handle, Americh.'' She rested her hand against her hip, and pressed her palm along the bulge extending from her abdomen. `` He's kicking,'' she lied again. 
 
 Americh grunted, and shot a tough eye at the gathering onlookers. Rolling back his shoulders, he adjusted his tie, pulling it tight in a sharp snap of his wrists, cracking them. The cashier took a step back, his jaw falling slack. 
 
 `` M-M, Miss...'' he stammered, reaching to the groceries. She did n't respond, only took a step back after giving him a second quick bout of eye contact, and then pulling away in a panicked cracking of her voice. He looked up to the agent guarding her. `` N-n... so n-nice to have you c-come back again, A-Amer-Americh was it?'' 
 
 `` Agent Gabriel to you,'' the agent huffed. `` And you will not speak to her, do you understand?'' 
 
 `` Y-y-yessir,'' the cashier quickly swung the wet wipes over the register. `` Yes M-Mister, Agent Gabriel.'' 
 
 Americh's stern glaring subsided as the teenager got into the full swing of checking out all necessary items. He had much to worry about. The Turin project had been going for a solid eight months of resounding success, and any residual fears of the project's disastrous implications seemed to be falling into the comfortable niches of the fundamentalist and the insane. He was n't worried about the lingering crowd sneaking guilty glances at her, or internally reveling at the baby she carried. 
 
 And he could n't feel the shock necessary with a member of the public overhearing his real name instead of the Gabriel moniker he shed every night before clocking out. Americh looked over to the magazines, once again his client's face featured prominently and beautifully on the cover. 
 
 But unlike the magazine, she had sunk low, once again falling into an inexplicable depression that usually hit her when they went outside of the cold hum of the laboratory's halls. 
 
 He chuckled. `` Come on,'' he put his hand on her shoulder, hoping she would look up. `` You said you wanted to get some fresh air and see some faces, is n't this what you wanted?'' He grabbed the magazine, laying it down in front of her. `` And look at that, this picture they used of you is wonderful! Even better than the one they ran two months-'' 
 
 `` Ghegh!'' Her shoulder twitched heavily, her head swinging quickly away from the cover picture. 
 
 Americh's hand lifted from her shoulder as he stepped back. His bottom jaw sank behind tight lips, but quickly reasserted into a firm smirk to fling at the gathering crowd again. A ripple of coughs and cautious steps followed a loud cracking of knuckles as the agent adjusted his tie again. 
 
 `` G-G-Gab-Gabriel?'' The clerk tentatively inquired. 
 
 Americh's attention did n't waver, his focus stayed firmly on the mother to be charged under his supervision. `` Something is wrong? Something with the baby?'' 
 
 `` No, he's fine, he's...'' She looked up to him, but did n't even get a glance above his neck before drooping her gaze back to the floor. `` But over the last few days,'' she slowly breathed out, `` I can see... how he sees.'' She inhaled deeply, righting herself back up, the crowd of spectators lined in a ceremonious choir of demonic visages. 
 
 `` As in...'' Gabriel's voice hung on the note for a bit. He peered down at the magazine. The headline seemed innocent enough, nothing that would cause any emotionally triggering effects. It was the exact headline the Turin Project wrote and sent to them, it was what their promotions department had approved verbatim. 
 
 *DNA of Jesus Christ 1 Month Away From Birth, the Turin Project Weighs in on Pure DNA Analysis and Addresses World Fears. * 
 
 So why was the world so afraid? Why was she so afraid? 
 
 `` Mary, I-'' 
 
 `` Do n't call me that,'' she coughed. 
 
 A stern expression washed over Americh's face. `` It is your designate, Mary!'' He immediately caught his outburst, soothing himself. Seemed the pressure was getting to him, too. `` It is your name used to protect you.'' The pressure of not knowing what had been causing her to act this way for the last two days. `` It is to protect you and your family, Mary.'' 
 
 `` I'm not her.'' She clenched her fingers against her abdomen. `` Americh, I'm just a scientist.'' 
 
 `` We've discussed this in the weekly briefing,'' Americh interjected. 
 
 `` I'm not actually that mother.'' She sighed, peering out into the rippling sea of curious onlookers, their sheared faces contoured and woven into monstrous abominations. `` But I see what he sees. And this is how he will see us.'' 
 
 The agent reached again for his tie, but stopped short, his knuckles tensing. `` See... us?'' He leaned over in front of her to try and look into her eyes, but she quickly clenched them shut, turning away. `` See us... as what?'' 
 
 `` As...'' She paused. She was a scientist. Nowhere in her repertoire was there a word to describe the imps, creeps, and demons that her mind was rendering in place of everyone else. She could not call them those things. Neither heretic nor beast nor non-believer nor even sinner. But those words, those images, were all that her maternally charged instincts could muster. `` I see how...'' she threw reservations to the wind, she was too aware of how much Americh pried when he knew something was wrong with her. `` I see how he will judge us.'' 
 
 A heavy silence fell between them. The agent looked up to a face of concerned onlookers, many of whom already recording what they were seeing on their phones. 
 
 `` It's just his DNA,'' Americh tried, reciting the weekly briefings. `` After all, Jesus probably became the way he did because, because, well, I know you'll be a great mother too but his was really special.'' She did n't respond. Her hand slowly crept across the cashier counter. `` And, it's not *literally* him, per say, you get to raise him however you want.'' 
 
 Her hand gripped the magazine cover, sliding it towards herself. The procession of monsters around her seemed to grow and bend in impossible angles. She exhaled deeply, looking up to Americh. 
 
 `` You can raise him to be your's,'' a blistered miasma of fetid peeling flesh spoke down to her, adjusting its tie with a crack of its festering knuckles. `` Have him do what you want.'' 
 
 She looked down at the magazine, red swathes of fiery wisps rolling over it. The soft smile melted under the warping heat, the pages curing inward to give the woman on the cover a soul-searing smile that permeated through her, the hair curling and peeling into multiple horns jutting at wild angles. The letters of the cover story burned away, word after word dissipating into twirling embers. 
 
 *Turin Project Weighs in on Pure DNA Analysis and Addresses World Fears. * 
 
 *Turin... in... Pure DNA... World Fears* 
 
 `` You can have him do what he wants to do.'' 
 
 The woman on the cover's mouth opened wide to a maniacal toothy grin, her inhuman jaw pulsing with laughter behind ever lick of fire wafting over it. 
 
 *Pure... World* 
 
 A muffled pop swept over the world, the simmering molten hues peeled away in a quick blink. She stepped forwards, finally making eye contact with the cashier after a quick shake of her head. `` I'm sorry, sir,'' she shook off the reverberating feelings of the last few minutes. `` Just my... my mind is all.'' And while expected of a women deeply invested in science, her words suddenly felt bitter in the prophetic sense of their delivery. `` Final month.''
