"Let the tests begin." |
Harper awakes, groggily, to the sound of hospital machines beeping, nurses shuffling by her door hurriedly. "What happened...?" she thinks to herself, looking down at her forearm and noticing the large, almost too large, needle bulging out from her lifted skin. Her abdomen swollen from the child ready to leave the womb. She sees two military officers speaking to a doctor outside the ever-so-slightly cracked open door. She suddenly feels so tired, her eyes fluttering close slowly; before realizing it, falling asleep. "Do you think the baby would like this?" Harper turns to her husband with an elephant toy; made of soft material. "Yeah, I guess." her husband, Liam, responds, fake enthusiasm lacing his voice. "What's wrong? You've been so grumpy all day.." Harper asks, curious why Liam was being so distant. Today, of all days, should be a happy time. Only two weeks until the baby comes. "Listen, Harper, I'm fine. I already told you I'm fine. Just lay off." Liam responds, snapping at her and walking out of the store to wait in the car. "I'm sorry I married him.." Harper whispers, holding her stomach, seemingly talking to the unborn child. "Ah, such a nice guy!" the cashier of the store speaks up, in sarcasm, an attempt to lighten Harper's mood. Harper lets out a bitter laugh and puts the elephant toy on the counter near the register. "Yeah, he's been like that for weeks. I don't know what his problem is." she sighs. The cashier looks at her with sympathy and nods her head, "Yeah, my husband was like that before he ran off with some 5'3 blonde with two big fun bags of reasons that were apparently more tempting than our three kids and life together." the woman responds, bagging the toy in a paper bag that had the store logo on it. "I'm sorry to hear that.." Harper says with sympathy, taking the bag from her. The cashier shakes her head, "It's okay, not your fault, have a nice day." she replies with a smile. Harper nods with a smile, and walks out the door. Once she walks out, she realizes that her husband isn't in the car. "Liam?" Harper calls out, wondering if he was close enough to hear her, perhaps puffing on cigarettes; or as Harper liked to call them, "cancer in stick form". Once she realizes that he's not near, she looks in the car to see if he left a note. Upon looking inside, she saw a folded note on the dashboard. She unfolds it with care and looks at its contents. "Harper, I'm sorry. I fell in love with Alexis from my office. I've been cheating on you for the past two months and I've decided to leave today. I wish you luck with your pregnancy, and I'm sorry it has to be this way. - Liam" Harper sits in the drivers seat, re-reading the note for at least twelve minutes. Each time she reads the note, the words get blurrier as she realizes she is crying. She crumples up the note and throws it on the floor of the passenger seat. "Fuck you.." Harper mutters under her breath as she reverses out of the parking lot and drives home. Once she is home, she slams the front door shut and walks upstairs, into her bedroom. She realizes that all of Liam's belongings are gone. He must have been quickly driven home by Alexis to grab everything. She sighs, refusing to cry anymore after crying the whole drive home. Suddenly she feels her water break. Water suddenly starts coming out of her, gushing out and down her pants legs. She suddenly feels a presence behind her and a sharp pain in her neck. A needle injecting mysterious fluid. She passes out immediately. Harper's eyes open back up after they had closed previously, the large IV still stuck into her arm. The previous two military officers gone. "Six centimeters dilated." she suddenly hears a female voice to the left of her. As she looks over, she sees a nurse writing down things on a clipboard. "I don't know how you didn't wake up when I was checking, but makes my job easier." the nurse says, finishing her writing and then looking at Harper. "I don't understand.. where am I? I remember going home.. after Liam left me, but... what happened after?" Harper has to exert great effort to talk, the grogginess and the contractions not making it any easier. The nurse tilts her head a bit in confusion, "Uhm, ma'am.. you got to the hospital yourself, you didn't make it home. You drove your car here and told the doctor your water broke in the baby boutique. We got you back here immediately and administered some pain medication to help ease it, and you were out like a light. Must have been a rough day." the nurse finishes, her hand reaching up and brushing the hair out of her own face. Annoyed, Harper shakes her head, "No... no that isn't right, I made it home, I know I did.." she looks around disoriented. The nurse suddenly adds a gross looking fluid to the bag to steadily pump into Harper's vein. "Shh, this will help you rest easy.." the nurse says, smiling with falsity. Suddenly, Harper felt a burning pain in her forearm and passed out. Once Harper awoke, she was tied down to a different bed, one made of cold metal, almost an operating table. Her legs were spread open and tied. Her abdomen contracted again, painfully. She realizes her mouth is taped shut. She looked around and realized one doctor and two nurses were present in the room. One of the nurses being the one who injected the fluid into Harper's IV bag. Panic started to rise in Harper as the doctor started getting various tools near her for easier access to grab. Harper tried to yell out through the tape for help but to no avail. "Oh, you're awake!" the doctor announced, a slight Spanish accent in his tone. "Good, good. Listen, Mrs. Jones; I need you to calm down and take deep breaths. It'll only be painful for a moment.." he says, grabbing a scalpel up and motioning for the nurses to hold Harper down. Apparently it was going to hurt a lot worse than the doctor had previously let on, evident in the way the nurses held Harper down despite her being already restrained. The doctor got in between Harper's legs and got to work. He made incisions in both sides of the vaginal wall, cutting them open and out. He made use of his scalpel and scissors, cutting into her as blood poured out of her opening. "Listen Harper.." the doctor started speaking as Harper was screaming pass the tape, trying to tear away from the grip the rope and the nurses held on her. "My name is Dr. Jimenez; you are special, Harper. This is why this is happening. If I didn't cut you open like this, the thing inside of you would rip you apart. Only being birthed while extreme pain is happening, will it be born safe. We need this to be born safely so we can experiment on it and find out where it came from. You understand, don't you?" Dr. Jimenez finished, chopping out the last bit of lingering flesh there. Harper was shaking from the pain, unable to even move anymore as tears still streamed from her eyes, her throat bloody from how much use it went through. Suddenly she felt a burning pain coming out of her, it felt like the head of the baby, but it was as if the baby was on fire. Harper saw Dr. Jimenez putting on thicker gloves as the nurses, who were already wearing those types of gloves, were slowly leading the baby out of the bleeding sack of flesh that used to be Harper's vagina. Harper wished she could have passed out to be away from this pain she was experiencing. The doctor walked back over once the "baby" was out of Harper, holding it cautiously with gloved hands. Upon closer inspection, Harper realized the thing that came out of her wasn't a baby, or anything that even resembled one. Its small body was made entirely of flesh that looked leathery, one eyeball was hanging out of its socket, one eyeball still in. The eyeballs were fully black, no sclera visible. The doctor nodded towards Harper, "I hope you understand that this must be done.." once Dr. Jimenez said that, one of the nurses injected Harper and she was gone. Harper's lifeless corpse lay on the bed, still tied down as the nurses got to cleaning up. Dr. Jimenez walked down the hallway with the "baby" that had skin as hot as fire. Once he made it down to the private laboratory he owned, he put the demonic being inside a large test tube and filled the tube with excessive alchemical liquid. "Let the tests begin." |