Hope

Denial

When the contractions began, I panicked, which was not the best thing for a woman in labour to do. However, a woman in labour also shouldn’t be on her own, yet here I was, alone, afraid and exhausted. I was not ready.

In the past six months, I had aged twenty years. I know it’s only been six months, because I’d just had my three month unltrasound and found out that we were having a girl when they arrived. 

The media called them Aliens, then they called them Conquerors, then they didn’t call them anything anymore. All media, all power, all governmental entities were deconstructed, destroyed and demolished. We lived in fear, those of us who remained alive.

The walls of the small cave that Julian and I made into our home felt like a tomb. Every gasping breath that I smothered wracked my body with ripples of pain. The contractions were coming closer together.

During the early days of my pregnancy, I had researched labour. There are three stages… but damned if I could remember them. All I knew was at one point, I would have to push, and I really didn’t want to.

Anger

Julian left me in this predicament.

“Listen Eva, can you hear it?” he said to me one morning, after bringing back a small animal from the trap he set the night before.

I listened. “What? What is it?” My stomach dropped, falling uncomfortably near the baby bump in my belly. His face pinched tight with tension and I couldn’t imagine what had him in such a state. It seemed as if every day brought a new horror I had to deal with.

“Nothing.”

I glared at him. If he were joking, it wasn’t funny.

“Listen. No, really listen,” he insisted as he took my hand and drew me to the cave entrance.

I listened. He was right. There was no sound; the silence was eerily unsettling. After months of cautious living, hidden in this hovel of a cave, I’d become used to the distant rumble of destruction. Now we could no longer hear the intermittent echo of explosions. No roaring aircraft flew overhead, and the silence, the sudden absence of noise, became unbearable.

“I need to find out what’s going on,” he informed me, and I shook my head, unable to find the words to express my apprehension. “You’re going to need a doctor when this baby comes, and if everything is safe, I will come back and get you.”

I didn’t want him to leave me here, but being too advanced in my pregnancy, I couldn’t go with him. Julian promised me he’d return as quickly as possible. He just had to see what was happening, to see if it was safe to come out of hiding.

He never returned.

Biting down on my lip, I grunted like an animal, cursing Julian, cursing the cave, cursing the baby. Tears traced their path down my face, mingling with the sweat. I needed to walk, but I wanted to die. Every contraction ripped through me until I had to scream. I couldn’t help it. If there were aliens nearby, the sound would attract them, but I was beyond being able to control it.

Bargaining

The pain tore up my spine, and I doubled over, collapsing on all fours, fingernails gouging the solid rock floor. Our daughter was coming now, whether I liked it or not. What a shitty world she would inherit.

When the first alien ship entered our orbit, Julian was thrilled. Terrified, but thrilled. He was an H.G. Wells enthusiast, and the chances of anything coming from anywhere in the solar system were a million to one. Yet here they were, great oval shadows creeping into Earth’s orbit at an unprecedented speed.

“We’re making history,” Julian said. Unfortunately, the aliens appeared to believe that their main purpose was to obliterate human history.

Earth’s leaders attempted contact, offering to enter into peaceful negotiations with the assistance of nuclear weapons. It was pathetic. All of our show of might barely scraped the surface of the alien technology, and I couldn’t help likening our efforts to a caveman warding off a modern tank with sticks and stones. 

“Eva, this isn’t going to just go away,” Julian said, when we lost power and all communications with the outside world. “We need to get out of here, or we won’t survive.”

It was true. I shudder to recall how I witnessed friends, family, and strangers alike disintegrate before my eyes while they waited for food rations. How I escaped detection remains a mystery. A pregnant lady always knows where the toilet is and I hid in a stall. Somehow, they didn’t notice me. The aliens moved on, and when all was quiet, I crept out. The horror they brought with them will be forever seared upon my memory. Wave upon wave of destruction, and gruesome, oh so gruesome! Bodies lay where they fell, unrecognisable and reduced to seared puddles of human flesh. The smell assaulted me, making my already fragile stomach riot and my eyes water. I ran, unable to breathe the stench.

Julian and I left under the cover of night, driving with no headlights down an empty highway into the darkness. When the fuel ran dry, we walked. When I could walk no more, we found this shelter and holed up.

I learned things about myself that I never knew. I never imagined that I had the ability to kill and skin an animal, but I did it. The first time, I nearly vomited as I slit the rabbit’s throat, but each time, it got easier. We learned not to waste a single thing. We would eat the entire animal, because you never knew when the next meal would come. Having to collect water in cups from the stream that trickled through the valley below meant we dared not waste a drop. We wore the skin of the animals we ate, because it helped to camouflage us from any prying eyes. When we removed all our trappings of civilization, I learned we were no better or worse than the animals we hunted. So, as I panted on the floor of the cave, rocking backwards and forwards on my hands and knees, more animal than human in my distress, I pleaded without words, only guttural sounds exploding from my lips. 

If I thought I was in pain before, I was wrong. The agony that claimed me with each new wave gave me no time to breathe. Instinct took over as I felt the urge to push.

Depression

My little girl entered the world with my screams echoing off the cave walls. With trembling arms, I gathered her squirming, mucus covered body to my breast, a newfound strength in my body and soul. I marveled at the miracle of five fingers on each hand, five little toes, and a squished up face that screamed from the indignity of being born.

She shivered in the cold, and I wrapped her in my arms, skin to skin, as I guided her seeking mouth towards my breast. She silenced as she eagerly latched on, the painful pull of her mouth causing my stomach to contract again.

We had planned to call her Gemma, after Julian’s mother, but I called her Hope instead. She was the last thing I had, after all.

I stroked her head, wiping away the evidence of her birth with the corner of a rag that had once been my shirt. Everything about her was perfect. Too perfect. I had never truly understood the meaning of love until that moment. This burning feeling inside my chest, too large for any words, and I knew I would do anything for this tiny being.

When she finished feeding, I curled up with her, lying in the back of the darkening cave as the claws of night crept in. The shadows brought with them freezing cold temperatures, but I was too exhausted to move. There was no way I would be able to light a fire to keep us warm. The most I was able to do was drag every fur, every rag, every single piece of fabric we had and bundle that on top of us, hoping my body heat would keep us both warm enough to see the morning.

Hope fed throughout the night, and I spoke to her in quiet words, telling her of the beautiful world we lived in—before the aliens. There were some things a tiny human did not need to hear. I told her that her Daddy was brave, and I was sorry that she would never know him. With a croaking voice, still harsh from the screams of her birth, I sang every nursery rhyme I could remember. In the deepest darkness just before dawn, I promised her a world where she would always be loved and protected, safe from all harm. 

I lied to her, while the tears rolled down my cheeks.

Acceptance

As the sun rose, sending its creeping fingers of light into the cave, I gazed down at Hope’s beautiful face. Her eyes opened with bleary focus as she searched for me. Her perfect rosebud mouth made a little mew, her lips pursing, seeking the nourishment only I could provide. I lifted her to my breast, her tiny fist resting against my heart, and I soaked her goodness in, basking in her perfect love.

The morning light also brought the ominous whine of high-pitched humming. The alien craft had engines that worked differently from ours, and the sound was unmistakable. It wasn’t close, the noise only faintly reaching my ears, but it was enough to remind me that in this peaceful interlude we weren’t safe. We would never be safe.

Once she had fed and fallen asleep in my arms, I carefully placed Hope on the ground before moving to the entrance of the cave. Here, we were well hidden, so I had to climb up the rocks to see beyond the screening bushes. What I saw made my heart drop. In the distance, a small oval craft hovered, sweeping back and forth over the land. They were searching. Every so often, they stopped and a flash of light erupted.

I had no idea what type of sensors they used. Did they get life readings through heat, or sound, or something else? It didn’t matter. I knew they would find us. It was only a matter of time.

I scrambled back into the cave, my eyes landing on my reason for living, my one and only Hope. She slept, undisturbed and unaware of the horrors that awaited her in this world she had been born into.

Tears rolled unchecked down my face as I reached a trembling hand to stroke her baby-soft cheek. She turned her head and made a small grunting noise. This was no life for a precious baby to live.

I placed a gentle kiss on her cheek, whispering, “I love you, Hope. More than anything. Mummy loves you so much.”

In the few hours I’d been a mother, I learned that love was a painful thing. My hands shook, and my stomach clenched and churned in violent protest, but I knew what had to be done. I gathered up the furs, then covered my daughter’s beautiful face, pressing firmly until she moved no more. She didn’t need to live through the horrors to come.

With the approaching aliens, any hope for our survival was gone. I set my back to the stone wall, and waited, holding my lost Hope close to my heart.