Suddenly there was a flash, and for just a second she could see. It was so quick it didn’t really register enough to make sense. The light was so bright. A loud crash followed, a thunderstorm, she thought. She shuffled towards the shape in the dark. The only other visible thing that existed at the moment.  She heard the other shuffling stop for a second. Alicia’s imagination ran away with her and she pictured the thing in the dark to be listening, to hone in on her in the dark. She stopped moving. She stopped breathing. If she could stop existing at that moment, she feared she might take the option.

               She looked at the shape, the island of substance in the sea of darkness. The only piece if reality in this insane situation. It was roughly the size of a table, she thought. Only a few feet away now, but so was the shuffling, and getting closer. As quietly as she could she backed her self up to the table and faced the shuffling noise waiting for another flash of lightning. Another glimpse of her situation.

               10 seconds passed as she heard the rain falling outside, but no lightning. It was as if the universe was toying with her. The shuffling was so close, she tensed up. Finally, a flash appeared and she screamed. Not a scream like at a fun house, but a cold-blooded, bone chilling scream of sheer terror. She finally saw what was shuffling towards her. It was a….

               It couldn’t be, she thought. I finally lost it. I went nuts and now I’m trapped in this hell. A smile began to form as she thought of the absurdity of it all.

               Another flash.

               That fear returned as her eyes fixed on it. Only 3 feet from her very own. There it was, not imagined. A fetus dragging its umbilical cord. The cord was frayed at the end, chewed, she thought with horror as she took in the scene. Darkness closed in and she prayed for the first time in her life. Prayed that another flash would appear and not leave her alone. Prayed for the abomination she saw was just a figment of her imagination.

               Whether through divine intervention or the force of mother nature, her prayers were answered as another flash illuminated the trashed Doctors office she was currently occupying. The fetus’s face was facing her, its mouth opening and closing in silent screams. Its tiny face resembled her own, she noticed as her heart skipped a beat. Was this her child? She clutched her stomach, and on the next flash looked down at the hospital gown covered in blood she was wearing. Was this where the wound came from?

               Alicia gripped the cold metal table and pulled her self up with a grunt. Fire filled her as she laid on her belly and looked over the edge of the table. The fetus was still there, moving closer and closer, a trail of blood behind it, its eyes focused on hers, they were the same green color as her own. It’s tiny arms pulling it closer and closer to her.

               “Mother?” It asked, in her own voice. “Why didn’t you love me, mother?”

               Alicia’s spine froze in place, she couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak. Fear had locked her down on top of that table.

Darkness.

               “No words for your daughter, mother?” the fetus said as it crawled closer to the table. Alicia had to peer straight over the edge to see it. She was so glad she was on top of the table, a safe place from the monster below.

               “I…don’t have a daughter,” Alicia managed to spit out between short, scared breaths. A flash of lightning illuminated the room.

               “Then what am I, mother?” The fetus asked and sat up crossing its legs. “Am I not real?”

Darkness.

               “You are a... you can’t be real,” Alicia yelled out.

A flash of light lit up the fetus’s face. “Oh no? Do I not bleed?” The fetus said gesturing around with its chubby arms at the floor around it. “Oh wait. This is mostly your blood. Even though when you shed it it was both of ours,” the fetus explained rubbing the blood into its skin. It sighed at her and picked up a piece of broken glass in its tiny hand. Its eyes met hers as it ran the glass across its wrist. Blood poured out of the wound. “There we go,” it said and giggled in a baby’s voice. “I do have my own.”

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