Nothing Left, but Hope

Denial

When the contractions begin, I panic, 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 am, alone, afraid and exhausted. Another pain grips my body with lightening fingers and I whimper pitifully. I’m not ready.

In the past six months, I had aged twenty years. Days and weeks are hard to keep track of, but I know it’s only been six months. I’d just had my three month ultrasound 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. Those of us that survived, lived in fear.

The walls of this small cave that Julian and I made into our home, feel like a tomb. Every gasping breath that I smother wracks my body with ripples of pain. The contractions are now coming closer together.

During the early days of my pregnancy, I had researched labour. There are three stages… but damned if I can remember them. All I know is that soon, I will have to push, and I really don’t want to.

Anger

I curse Julian as I grunt through the pain. He 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 growing 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 that 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. “It’ll be OK.” He kissed me even as I shook my head. “Don’t lose hope. I have to see what’s happening, to see if it’s safe to come out of hiding. I promise I’ll be back soon.”

He never returned.

Biting down on my lip, I grunt like an animal, cursing Julian, cursing the cave, cursing the baby. Tears trace a path down my face, mingling with the sweat leaving a salty taste in my mouth. My lips are dry and cracked as I gasp through the pain. I need water. There’s none left. I need to walk, but I want to die. Every contraction rips through me until I have to scream. I can’t help it. If there are aliens nearby, the sound would attract them, but I am beyond being able to control it.

Bargaining

The pain tears up my spine, and I double over, collapsing on all fours, fingernails gouging the solid rock floor. Our daughter is coming now, whether I like it or not. What a shitty world she will 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 Mars—or indeed 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. Just 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 pant on the floor of the cave, rocking backwards and forwards on my hands and knees, more animal than human in my distress, I plead without words, only guttural sounds exploding from my lips. If I thought I was in pain before, I was wrong. The agony that claims me with each new wave gives me no time to breathe. Instinct takes over as I am gripped by the urge to push.

Depression

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

She shivers in the cold, and I wrap her in my arms, skin to skin, as I guide her seeking mouth towards my breast. She is silenced as she eagerly latches 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 call her Hope instead. She is the last thing I had, after all.

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

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

Hope feeds throughout the night, and I speak to her in quiet words, telling her of the beautiful world we lived in—before the aliens. There are some things a tiny human does not need to hear. I tell her that her Daddy was brave, and that I am sorry that she will never know him. With a croaking voice, still harsh from the screams of her birth, I sing every nursery rhyme I can remember. In the deepest darkness just before dawn, I promise her a world where she will always be loved and protected, safe from all harm.

I lie to her, while the tears roll down my cheeks.

Acceptance

As the sun rises, sending its creeping fingers of light into the cave, I gaze down at Hope’s beautiful face. Her eyes open with bleary focus as she searches for me. Her perfect rosebud mouth makes a little mew, her lips pursing, seeking the nourishment only I can provide. I lift her to my breast, her tiny fist resting against my heart, and I soak her goodness in, basking in her perfect love.

The morning light also brings the ominous whine of high-pitched humming. The alien craft have engines that work differently from ours, and the sound is unmistakable. It isn’t close, the noise only faintly reaching my ears, but it is enough to remind me that in this peaceful interlude we aren’t safe. We will never be safe.

Once she had feeds and falls asleep in my arms, I carefully place Hope on the ground before moving to the entrance of the cave. Here, we are well hidden, so I have to climb up the rocks to see beyond the screening bushes. What I see makes my heart drop. In the distance, a small oval craft hovers, sweeping back and forth over the land. They are searching. Every so often, they stop and a flash of light erupts.

I have no idea what type of sensors they use. Do they get life readings through heat, or sound, or something else? It doesn’t matter. I know they will find us. It is only a matter of time.

I scramble back into the cave, my eyes landing on my reason for living, my one and only Hope. She sleeps still, undisturbed and unaware of the horrors that await her in this world she has been born into.

Tears roll unchecked down my face as I reach a trembling hand to stroke her baby-soft cheek. She turns her head and makes a small grunting noise. This is no life for a precious baby to live.

I place 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 shake, and my stomach clenches and churns in violent protest, but I know what has to be done. I gather up the furs, then cover my daughter’s beautiful face, pressing firmly until she moves no more. She doesn’t need to live through the horrors to come.

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