For as long as I can remember, people called me “the pregnant boy.”

I was a tall, gangly kid with a protruding belly that extended far past my beltline. In kindergarten, kids poked my belly and giggled. Then, in grade school and high school, even teachers asked, “When's the baby due?”

Sometimes I joked back, made up a due date, or said I planned to name the baby Roger.

Everyone laughed. But kids at school were vicious.

These experiences bugged me more as I got older, especially as my stomach continued growing. I felt like the pregnant woman in that alien movie.

Yet doctors insisted I didn’t have a tumor.

“Some people just carry their weight in their belly,” said my doctor, despite my lack of belly fat.

Still, my appearance made dating difficult.

“Sorry,” said one woman, laughing, when I asked her out. “I don’t date pregnant guys. Too much baggage.”

I hung my head in shame, quit my job, and even contemplated hanging myself. Meanwhile, my belly kept growing.

The rest of my body remained thin, but my belly ballooned like an unstoppable force that I could neither contain nor extinguish.

Then one day, I found answers after a medical emergency landed me on the operating table.

Hours before, I was eating a Hot Pocket when something ripped. At first, it sounded like a zipper busting on a pair of too-tight pants, but that wasn’t the problem. Instead, blood seeped through my white Hanes t-shirt, oozing from my stomach like a crimson river.

I called 911 and was rushed to the ER for emergency surgery.

---

When I awoke from surgery, doctors huddled around me, wide-eyed.

“What happened?” I asked, groggy.

“Robert, we removed the fetus,” one doctor said.

I shot up in my bed.

“The what?!”

The doctor nodded. “Yes, Robert, you had a fetus lodged inside you. He’d been there all your life. Would you like to see him?”

He reached for the glass jar behind him.

“Good god!” I said, panicking.

“Don’t worry,” the doctor said. “You weren’t pregnant. You had a rare medical condition called fetus in fetu. It only occurs in one out of half a million pregnancies. It happens during twin pregnancies when one fetus gets trapped inside the other. Usually, both fetuses die, but you survived, and your brother lived as a parasite inside you.”

Another doctor chimed in. “Yes, your brother was growing quite large.”

But I thought I would faint when the doctor showed me the contents he’d collected from my abdomen. My eyes bulged as I stared at the grotesque creature floating in the jar.

A giant man-child—beard and all—floated inside the container. He had an adult’s head with a full mane, a bulbous nose, and talon-like nails extending from all ten fingers and toes.

He even had adult feet.

As gnarly as the creature was, I followed the doctors’ advice and took him home. I even named him Roger. At first, I didn’t know what to do with him, so I placed him on my nightstand.

The doctors told me to feed Roger like I would a goldfish. So twice daily, I sprinkled crushed nutrients into his glass jar and observed his eating habits.

The first two days were uneventful, and Roger didn’t touch his food. Then, just as I was about to give up, Roger opened his eyes.

I pressed my face against the jar, eyeing my twin like a ghoulish science experiment. I poked and tapped at the jar, studying Roger and taking notes.

One day, Roger pushed to the surface and gobbled the food. Then, he turned to me and smiled. He even had a full set of teeth.

I gasped, then jumped back.

Oh shit, I thought. What now?

I wasn’t expecting him to interact with me. Yet here he was, exceeding my expectations.

So, I kept feeding Roger until he almost outgrew the glass jar.

Then, I returned to the hospital for advice.

“It looks like Roger is ready for Phase II,” said the medical team.

“Phase II?” I asked, confused.

One doctor nodded. “Yes, it’s time to remove Roger from the jar to see if he survives outside the fluid.”

So, the doctors removed Roger from the jar and placed him on breathing tubes, doubting he would survive.

“But you might want to prepare for the worst,” said another doctor. “He might not survive the transition.”

But when the doctors removed Roger from the jar and administered breathing tubes, they were amazed.

Roger had not just survived but thrived, even breathing on his own.

“Well,” another doctor said, smiling. “It looks like you can take Roger home. You’ll have to be patient, though, because he’ll need to learn to talk. But other than that, it looks like you’ve got a new twin brother.”

---

After taking him home, I marveled at Roger’s progress. He was a rapid learner, catching onto English without difficulty and speaking in complete sentences before long. I even arranged to get Roger a haircut and a manicure to trim his talon-like nails.

And Roger had a quirky sense of humor. He made jokes, flirted with women, and was more popular than I was. I even felt a little jealous.

But one thing concerned me about Roger: he played mean tricks on people and didn’t feel guilty about it.

Once, he tripped a woman at the pharmacy and laughed when she fell face-first to the ground, then spit out her two front teeth.

“Watch where you’re going,” he said, stepping over her and strolling off without a second thought.

“Roger?” I said. “You can’t trip people like that.”

Roger shrugged, nonchalant. “Why not?”

“Because it’s sociopathic.”

But Roger looked unfazed.

I hoped his behavior would improve, and I tried to stay patient, but events escalated, suggesting I needed to rethink my plans.

As Roger grew more independent, I decided we needed to part ways.

“Roger, it’s time for you to get your own apartment,” I said one day.

He shot me a sour look. “You mean, pay for my own place? Why would I want to do that?”

I sighed. “Roger, no one wants to do these things, but it’s what responsible adults do.”

“Who says I want to be a responsible adult?”

My posture stiffened, annoyed. “Roger, this isn’t a request. I’m telling you, it’s time to get your own place.”

But Roger didn’t get his own place. Instead, things took a darker turn.

---

Over time, Roger stayed out later, often returning home at dawn.

“Where do you go all night?” I asked, feeling like a suspicious spouse.

“Out,” Roger said, refusing to elaborate.

I figured he had a new girlfriend and hoped whoever she was would ask him to move in with her soon. But Roger said nothing more.

Later, after midnight that night, I awoke to a loud crash from the living room. Alarmed, I grabbed my baseball bat and prepared my cell phone to call 911. Then I tiptoed into the living room toward the sound.

But I dropped my phone and gasped when I rounded the living room corner. Roger stood in the doorway holding an overfilled trash bag as dark fluid dripped onto the carpet.

My hand flew to my mouth. “Holy shit, Roger. What’s in the bag?”

He glanced at the bag and shrugged. “Oh, this? Nothing. Just doing some house cleaning.”

“What’s in there?”

Roger’s eyes darkened, and his body stiffened, sending chills through me, and something told me to stop talking.

I pretended to believe him, then returned to my bedroom panicking, desperate for an escape plan.

What was I supposed to do? If I reported Roger, the police would do nothing without evidence of a crime. And at that point, Roger had already disposed of the bags, so there wasn’t evidence of anything. There were some dark stains on the carpet, but the police wouldn’t have bothered with those. Besides, calling the cops would have worsened Roger’s wrath.

But what the hell was in the bag? I wondered.

That night, I decided I didn’t want to know, and I returned to sleep, telling myself I was overthinking everything.

But these incidents continued. Roger would return home late, sometimes carrying stuffed trash bags, or I would find dark stains on the couch and carpet the next day.

Sometimes, I found random wallets and car keys hidden in desk drawers, but I learned to play dumb. Still, I felt like a fearful partner walking on eggshells to appease a volatile spouse.

Then one day, I couldn’t pretend anymore. It was time to confront Roger whether he liked it or not.

One morning, I was making waffles when a musty odor wafted from the basement.

It smelled like old seafood or rotting meat.

What the hell is that? I wondered.

Roger wasn’t home, so it was my chance to investigate.

I usually avoided the basement because that’s where Roger slept. But this time, I turned the basement door knob and tiptoed downstairs.

“Roger,” I called, making sure he wasn’t home.

Silence.

“Roger,” I called again as I reached the bottom step.

Nothing.

But the putrid stench intensified, forcing me to breathe from my mouth.

The basement was piled ceiling-high with junk—sweat socks, dirty sheets, food crusted to dinner plates—but nothing looked amiss.

But that stench—what was that?

I inched toward the kitchen. Then, as if by instinct, I hesitated before opening the refrigerator, as though my body knew something my brain didn’t.

I took a deep breath, paused, then flung open the door.

But I wasn’t prepared for what awaited.

---

On the middle shelf stood six severed heads staring back at me. All were twentysomething men with beards, their eyes bulging in horror behind wire-rimmed glasses.

Chunks rose in my throat, and I projectile vomited into the sink, unable to control the direction or intensity of the vomit.

Then, with trembling hands, I dialed 911, shaking as I reported the incident.

The police arrived minutes later and removed the severed heads from the refrigerator.

But they never found Roger, not even after their nationwide search.

And Roger never came home after that.

Or at least he hasn’t yet.