It was late in the evening and I had a stomach ache. But it wasn’t a normal stomach ache, it was the kind that wrenched my insides as if something were being wrung out like a wet towel. The pain was overwhelming, but I swore and clenched my fists in the bedsheets. It went on for hours before I felt something start to change; I listened to what my body was telling me, screaming, and then you were here.

They put you into my arms and I knew my life would never be the same. Your eyes opened to peek at my face, small fingers wrapping around one of mine. I smiled with tears in my eyes; I loved you before I even knew you at all, and you were and always will be the most important thing to me. It’s true sometimes that we suffer most for the ones we love, and you were definitely worth it.

Another fleeting glance. Another shiver. Shivers don’t belong in the balmy evening warmth of summer… but this one did.

All Hallows’ Eve had long since fled. Waiting to once again herald the return of All Hallows’ Day. Yet something had awoken that creeping sense of dread.

You knew it as you fled. They knew it as they took up the chase.

If they were a horse, they would have taken up the bit.

If they were a bloodhound, they would have taken up the scent.

If you were a pheasant, you would have felt the sting of lead shot.

If you were a rabbit, you would have been skinned.

Either way they would be the victor, and you would be the victim. There was no place for you both in this world. A world of changing views and ideologies meant that radical evolution needed to happen in order to survive.

Phantoms hissed through the static, irritated at the persistence of the heat. Somewhere a queen yowled in furious desperation for any tom to heed her call. Such a diabolical sound, it had claws of flashing power to turn the still air into ribbons.

The foreshadowing of the perfect storm.

Drawing your sweat closer, you scuttled onwards on sticky soles. Drinking in the heavy soup to nourish your muscles, you shook beads of exertion from your brow. That sense of being watch had momentarily fled.

You knew that it would come again.

Nodding politely at the raised hand in the corner shop window, you turned the corner. It was not worth the apprehension to spend thoughts of anxiety on the future.

The future would come, the future would pass, the future would come again.

Pushing open the reluctant gate that squealed on its hinges, you juggled with your bag, searching for your keys. They should be here, in this inside zipped compartment… where they always resided on your long days at work. In a last-ditch effort, you shook the bag violently by its handles, scolding its forgetful ways. The fabric flapped and sighed as if saying, “I told you, there are no keys in here.”

Hurling your closest ally in the fight against the Governmental changes to the ground, you winced as you heard the yip of pain. Slamming your clenched hand onto the stubborn glass of your front door, you slumped dejectedly against the panel. There was only ten minutes before the curfew bell rang, even if you ran you would not make it. Nor did you have an exemption card that granted you access to the night’s shadows. Your job was daylight hours only, not like some other jobs.

How you hated your job, you didn’t get to choose what vocation to enter. That was decided by the official dressed in sapphire behind a stout desk and protective glass. They took your name and ran their filthy rich finger over your files, searching for your credentials and potentials. After several minutes of being raked by scowling orbs lined with judgement did they nod, and reach into a draw and pull out a crisp card. On which your future, your status, and the city rules were printed.

“You must carry this with you at all times,” That was the stark warning, forget it once you were warned and forget it more you would regret the day you were born.

Hurling a silent plea at your watch you groan, four minutes and thirty seconds. If the patrol found you, they would have you carted away to the local gaol. Again, that sense of being watched returned.

“Are you looking for these?” Soft and innocent a voice rose from the violet whisps of dusk.

Spinning around, heart pounding in alarm, your wild eyes landed on a willowy figure resting easily in the gateway. From nimble fingers dangled a single key, and twisted keychain. Relief lightened your panic, “I am! How? Can I repay you in some way?”

A light chuckle took flight, “It matters not how, and you have already repaid me.” With a seductive flutter of their eyelashes, they held out your possession.

Reaching out you snagged the distinctive keyring, except you never reached your prize. Your outreached arm was twisted violently behind your back, with a sickening pop of tendons trying to anchor the joint into the socket.

“What are you doing?” The more you squirmed the greater the pain that sent slithers of ice through your veins and nerves.

“This.”

A slender tongue pierced the thin veil of your neck, injecting a slippery dose of venom before retracting. Then you knew no more.

Impenetrable penumbra shrouded your vision, casting a backdrop for scenes of pure terror.

People. So many people.

Some had their throats torn out by dancing talons in a glittering display of red crystals, hypnotic in a single harsh stream of Leukos light. Pent up anguish lost to the drowning gurgling of fleeing haemal cells of life and breath wrestled away by the cruel hand of fate.

Others obliterated by the seething eruption of pent-up rage and liquid anger. Any remaining tatters of flesh were eagerly lapped up by the burning xantho-tongues of starved demons.

While a handful watched their own demise. Lashed to tables of cold steel they screamed, primal and gut wrenching a disease that spread uncontrollably in a new-born epidemic. As their warm form fitting coats were unzipped revealing muscles striated and multinucleated. A single wicked blade sunk in with a delicious crunch and squelch of a warm feast. Peeling back the nutritious meal exposing the shy sheen of membrane and below the rich tapestry of organs. One by one they fell, dead to the cries of help, blood loss caused a final wracked quiver and saline to moisten the brow.

There would be no tomorrow.

A sharp slap of kerato-hands roused you from your slumber, before sliding down the pocked plains of your face and disappearing under the hem of your shirt. You felt mortified that they had crawled with callousness down over the hidden skin of your torso.

“Welcome back to the realm of the living,” Chirruped the same voice that brought you false hope.

Lunging forwards your arms yanked you back, shackled to the wall of filthy grime by rusted chains and gnashing manacles, you snarled, “Why should I believe your guise of jollity?”

“Feisty one, aren’t you? You will serve me well,” They did not flinch at your attack instead raised your chin in skeletal hands of menace, boring deep into your soul through the flashing windows in your skull.

Shaking your head wildly, you snapped your teeth together barely grazing their alabaster skin, “I will never serve you!”

“Oh, you see... you will serve me and only me.” Raising a solitary hand, they drummed their fingers on their curved cheek bone, haloed by a strange artificial ring.

“You will have to kill me before I bend to your will.”

“Is that so? Well, you shall get your wish, but not here in this stinking cell. No, in my brand-new laboratory, where things are not as they seem-”

“-Is that all you can do, twist your words in empty threats?” You held their gaze defiantly.

You would regret ever challenging them.

Out of nowhere two burly… creatures marched. Bowing low to their leader they took you bodily, raising you high so that no matter how fast your feet paddled they would be futile in their search for solid ground. By some luck the chains burst apart in a shower of dull sparks… how your arms not been torn off you would never know.

Dumping you onto the pristine table they pinned you down- a hand on your shoulder and a hand on your hip, flanking the table. Smirking as they saw your face freeze with dawning realisation.

Softly, the door swished as your captor breezed in. Only now entirely clad in blinding white, except for the hypothermic blue of their gloves. Looming over they wheedled with persuasive lure, “The brain cannot feel pain, only knows of it by the screamed alarm of nerves. So, if I may, I would like to examine your brain.”

With something like relief, you shot back, “If it achieves in killing me, at least it will be the end.”

“There is no end. This is your birth. This is the turning of a new age, an age where glory will reign, and we will be free from tyranny.”

“You are the only evil in this world,” Was all you could muster as milky liquid slipped into the vein that ran through the crease of your elbow, the last thing you saw was the conspiratorial wink of the scalpel.

She remembered the first time she held her baby boy. She remembered the slight weight of his little body pushing against her arms. She remembered being so scared because he looked so fragile and she never wanted to hurt him. She remembered thinking that there was nothing as perfect as beautiful as her baby. He was amazing no one would ever replace him. She remembered the first time he cried. It broke her heart but at the same time, she knew that crying was good. She remembered that she promised to protect him forever. She remembered everything. She would never forget she couldn't. He was perfect her baby boy. He was perfect and she loved him.

Before the sun was up I felt the trickle So scared, I turned to him “It’s time to go” Every bump Every turn Felt deep in my body And then there was a pop A gush A puddle The pain that never came My body didn’t work like that They wheeled me away and sliced at my belly Not what I’d hoped for But still, you were here. I cried You cried And you were mine The perfect of the world Was in my arms I never knew how much love could exist Until you were here.

She’d waited so long, and so patiently.

She didn’t care when the doctors had told her she couldn’t helped.

She didn’t care when she was told she would be killed.

She didn’t care when her family had left and she was quarantined.

It was just her and the baby, and she couldn’t wait another moment longer. He was coming, she could feel it and she knew the rest of the world could too.

Long slow dreadful breaths, quick sharp harrowing pain. He’s nearly here. It was just her alone now as it had been for the last year, apart from the doctors coming and going. Then they’d been replaced by scientists and finally, replaced with silence.

She still remembered the night she awoke and saw Him standing there, she wasn’t scared. Oh no, she was excited. She knew it was all she had ever wanted and more, and she was ready.

The pain is worse now, but almost pleasant, her mind reeling from memories flooding back to her she had no previous recollection of. Ancient worlds long dead, ravaged by one pair of blood stained hands permanently cold. Those eyes as black as the furthest most desolate reaches of space, a void untouched by time and decay.

She had mere moments before he was here, outside she could hear despair and panic grip the air as death slowly gripped her and it made her laugh, a deep bellowing laugh that unsettled even Him. The world was not prepared, but they knew this day would come. The nay sayers had not believed, but it was was too late for all.

A long black shrivelled tendril snaked it’s way out from between her bloody legs, rising slowly as almost to sniff the air, he was here..

..and so was the end.

The startling cry fills the too full room, already brimming with heaving breaths and panting screams and a mother’s smile. The baby, a girl, a 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭, screams her newborn life for the world to hear, echoing in the room, in her heart. She’s small and squealing and perfect, eyes already scrunched closed with the exhaustion of surviving. It’s 8:52 A.M. and the young mother knew her life had changed forever. Nothing mattered anymore. Not her aching body and dry mouth, not her ringless finger and empty waiting room. Nothing except for that small bundle in the nurse’s arms, nothing except for that tiny child that she knows she would give up anything for. The nurse smiles at her, the baby in her arms wrapped tightly in soft blankets. “A perfectly healthy baby girl. What would you like to name your daughter?” Daughter. My daughter. The word rang in her head like a bell, and she knew. The perfect name for her beautiful, strong, baby daughter. “Anastasia,” The woman said as she held the world in her arms for the first time. “Her name will be Anastasia.”

Drip-drip.

That sound was insufferable, constantly beating on the Gravedigger's skull like a hammer.

Drip-drip.

He wanted it to stop so badly, he wanted just to sleep and to forgot, to forgot his troubles and his worries, to just fall into Charlene's arms and have them protect him from the bad men and their cattle prods and their shotguns.

She was there now, staring down at him, offering her hand to his. He did not take it, and could only mumble his protests. They were coming for him, he needed her to protect him. Charlene, he thought to himself over and over. It was so good to see her once again, but what had happened to her face? It was covered in small red marks, scars, and gashes. She was saying something now, telling him to do something, telling him to wake up.

Drip-drip.

But the Gravedigger did not want to wake up. He wanted to stay here and be with her, to slip into her bubble that would take him away from the torture, to save him from the acid.

She stands at the alter, her head held high while trying not to cry. Her soon-to-be husband stands across from her. Their eyes are locked and everybody can feel the amount of love circling between them.

He takes her hands in his and begins to recite his vows, and halfway through some stray tears tumble down her cheeks. She still looks beautiful, though.

Once he finishes, she begins her vows. They’re gorgeous, just like her, and I try my hardest not to imagine myself in her fiancé’s position.

She ends her vows with a clear, “I love you,” and then they kiss. It’s simultaneously the most happy yet sad moment I’ve ever experienced. Happy because it brings me joy to see her so content, but sad because I wish it was me who stood across from her.

The two of them turn to face their wedding guests once the passionate kiss ends, and that is the moment I can almost see their future.

I see their honeymoon: a warm paradise where they spend their days on the beach and evenings dining at expensive restaurants.

I see them buying their first home as newlyweds. It’s small but it’s the start of the rest of their lives together.

And I see them in a hospital, her small frame laying in the white hospital bed holding a newborn baby: their baby.

It’s everything I could’ve wanted with her: marriage, a home, a family, but I know it isn’t mine. I open my eyes and see them smiling at each other like they’re the only two people in the universe.

“She’ll be a great mother.”

First birth was hard. She didn’t want to come out and play. I pushed her for 3+ hours of hard pushing. We told the dr before hand that we didn’t want to use the forceps or vacuum unless absolutely medically required for life saving procedures. So I pushed and pushed.

Number two was much easier. I barely pushed and he slithered out so fast the dr almost dropped him.

I kind of want the experience again. I never went into labor naturally, both times I was induced. I would have enjoyed to surprise feeling I think. I guess I’ll nEver know.

you were born, and then you were gone

that moment felt like heroin to me

but then, i overdosed

i just wanted to know what you felt like