A story I read in Mystery Bonita or some similar magazine. Late at night, a mother drives with her unconscious son. The son had suffered a severe head injury in an accident and was beyond medical help. The mother sneaks her son out of the hospital and heads to a village where her grandmother used to live. At the edge of this village stands a shrine with a god that can heal any injury. In fact, when the protagonist had severely injured her hand as a child, it was completely healed thanks to this god.
Days later, the son makes a miraculous recovery, is discharged, and comes home. "I never thought he’d get this well. When you secretly took him out of the hospital, I had no idea what was going to happen," her husband says, overjoyed. "A mother’s love is strong," the protagonist smiles back. The son returns to elementary school, completely free of aftereffects and full of energy, bringing relief to everyone.
One day, the husband gets burned while taking a bath with their son. Suddenly, boiling water blasted from the shower while he was washing his head. "I turned it off right away, so it's no big deal. I'm just glad the hot water hit me instead of him," the husband says. Yet, a lingering sense of unease haunts the protagonist. For a fraction of a second, her dead grandmother's words flash through her mind. ---The god at that shrine can heal any injury. But...
At the elementary school, the son plays with his friends. "I'm so glad you're feeling better. It's hard to believe you were ever badly hurt," one friend says. "It's true. Want to see?" the son replies. Through shadows only, the son is depicted taking his own head off his torso.
That night, one of the friends whispers to their parents. "Today, [Son's Name] showed me his injury. It was really scary." "You shouldn't say things like that. He had a terrible injury, so of course scars are left behind. You need to be nice to him." "But, [Son's Name]'s neck..."
After that, mysterious accidents and injuries happen one after another at the protagonist's house. Though skeptical at first, the protagonist gradually realizes that her son is behind all of them. Finally, the husband gets into an accident and falls into a coma (I think it was a car crash or something). She can't take it anymore. Having reached her breaking point, the protagonist takes her son and heads back to the shrine.
Inside the shrine, a creature with a human-like body and a distorted head was chained up. This creature possessed powerful regenerative abilities; whenever the villagers got injured, they would cut off the wounded part and exchange it with the creature's body. When the protagonist injured her hand long ago, she had severed and exchanged her own hand with the creature's to heal it. That day, the protagonist had exchanged her badly injured son's head with the creature's head. ---Never touch a head injury. You must never exchange a head. You'll become a monster. Her grandmother had warned her so, but she wanted to save her son no matter what. However, her grandmother was right. What stands here now may look like her son, but it is a monster spreading disaster. "You're not my child. Every accident that happened at our house was your doing, wasn't it?" Crying out, the protagonist raises an axe toward her son. At that moment, the chained creature looks at the protagonist and whispers. "...Mama..." Stunned, the protagonist realizes the truth. Because of the head exchange, the son's body had been taken over by this creature. Then, what if the consciousness inside the creature chained right here is actually...
Before her frozen body, the son—having snatched away the axe—swings it down. The protagonist's corpse is left abandoned inside the shrine. The chained creature mutters, "Help me..." The son has degenerated into a bizarre entity, doomed to remain imprisoned inside the shrine forever. Most likely, trapped in a fate where visiting injured people will continue to sever and exchange parts of his body. The ending leaves you with a deeply unsettling aftertaste, not even knowing what became of the creature that replaced her son.
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