In January, my husband and our daughter both died in a car crash. They hit a tree at 70 miles per hour and died instantly on impact. My son, Adin, took it the hardest. Harder than me. He had been in the back seat of the car and had barely escaped death, but he did lose an arm. His right arm was taken off by a branch, and he was lucky he didn't also die in that crash. Now, it's just me and him.

First, it was just a change in behaviour, he acted odd, didn't talk much, and avoided coming down for dinner every now and again. He was still eating here and there, but he missed his dad and his sister. Adin was a "daddy's boy", you could say, so I was patient with him for a while. Then he stopped eating completely, and whenever I approached him about it, he snapped and stormed off. Like I said, I understood, I had to be patient because I felt awful, too, but I just didn't want Adin to starve himself. It had gotten to the point where he was having violent stomach aches.

I rushed him to the doctor's. "You have to eat something, Adin." I turned to him on the way home, and he silently nodded at me. When we pulled into the driveway, he rushed out of the car and up to his room.

One month passed. Not one meal. Two. Three. Four. Five. It just went on and on, and every time I asked, he just responded with something along the lines of "I'm not hungry, don't worry Mom." So I didn't. I let him be. I knew he was eating SOMETHING, because he couldn't survive on nothing for 5 months, but maybe he just wasn't comfortable eating at home.

Eventually, I became sick of it. As a mother, I couldn't just let my son starve himself. It was now almost July and the accident was in January, and even I had started to return to some sort of normality. So I took it upon myself to cook something for him. A nice, juicy steak with a side of french fries, and as I prepared the steak, the meat fell off the bone gently, hitting the tray it sizzled in. Knock. Knock. Knock.

I knocked before pushing Adin's door open, turning on the light. "I cooked you someth-" I stopped, frowning. Adin had something in his mouth which he was chewing like his life depended on it, and so I set the plate down on his drawers. "Adin?" I stepped into his room as he swallowed whatever he was eating. "Nothing. Just a snickers from the fridge." Adin seemed nervous, and sort of ushered me out of the room. I accepted it and left the plate in there, standing silently as he closed the door behind me.

The following day something compelled me to look inside the fridge, and when I did, I regretted it. I had taken comfort in knowing Adin was eating something, at least, but it turns out that the multipack of snickers I'd bought wasn't even opened.. So what the hell had he been eating? Something compelled me to find out, so my first course of action was to install a camera just outside of his room to see if I could catch him leaving the room to get food. A little pathetic, but I worry. Mothers do.

I slept well that night, knowing that come morning, I'd know. And I did. The camera picked up movement just after 4am, and my son left his room to go downstairs. And around 30 minutes or so later, it picked up movement again, of him going back to his room with a small plate of meat. Perhaps it was the steak? But I had left that in his room.. it was strange, because he didn't leave his room after that. "Adin? You awake, sweetie?" I knocked on his door. No answer, so I let myself in to see him sleeping silently, and I smiled a little, only to see the steak I'd cooked completely untouched on his drawers. I picked it up and left, going back downstairs.

Just where was he getting the food from? I know that you may be thinking this is no big deal, but I just wanted to know. Because it wasn't from the fridge or anything of the sort, but it was on the plates from downstairs. And then, I decided, I'd catch him in the act. Again, pathetic, but I was seriously worried at this point.

At 4am, I heard movement, so I followed him downstairs quietly, and out into the… garden? In the dark, I saw a figure. It stood with one arm holding what appeared to be a shovel, and the other arm missing. I stepped out into the backyard, causing the sensor to turn on and a dim light to illuminate the garden. The figure turned, revealing my son's face, mouth dripping with drool and standing in front of a small hole in the dirt. I stumbled backwards and fell to the ground, covering my mouth and muffling my screams.

Oh. Have I forgotten to mention my husband and daughter were buried in the backyard?