u/DrummerOk4846

Grey clouds reel in the afternoon sky, obscuring the weak winter sun as it falls Westward. Between the spindly black pines, a host of fauna encircle a solitary cabin. Myriad eyes fix themselves on the softly glowing windows. Inside, a woman cries out and clutches at the bedposts. Her husband, a wiry, dark haired man, hunches over her from the foot of the bed, waiting. Sweat drips from their gaunt faces and soaks into the dirt floor. She screams, writhing in the sheets. Her bulging belly ripples and distends further.

Behind the man, a moose stands completely still, watching. The door is open to the cold air, and the wind groans through it to caress them.

The man mutters a prayer through cracked lips. But his voice dies at a nudge from the snout of the hulking beast at his shoulder. Its breath is hot on his neck. His teeth clench nearly as hard as his wife's.

Outside, the animals take a collective step closer. Coyotes, rabbits, birds, bears, and every other denizen of the wood wait with baited breath as the storm howls overhead. The air churns and crackles. The cabin creaks a feeble reply.

One last push. The woman tenses every part of herself. Another hoarse scream tears itself from her throat. The man places his hands at the ready, transfixed on a sudden glint of brightness. The light grows, illuminating his face in putrid shades of some unnamed color.

The furred and feathered crowd inhales as one. They lean forward, not daring to move just yet.

From within the woman, a radiance greater than our own insignificant star bursts forth, spilling tendrils of heatless flame into the hands of the now weeping man. His tears turn to steam and rise in wisps from his ruddy cheeks. The woman is gone, utterly spent by the task of birthing this impossible singularity of light. Rising slowly to his feet, the man turns and lays the undulating form between the venerable antlers of the moose. Then, as it turns from him, he collapses to the floor, drained of color and life now that his purpose has been fulfilled.

The great elder beast slowly emerges from the cabin, bearing the newborn answer to the silent plea of the very Earth herself. The other creatures recoil in holy terror at first, then cautiously approach. The light expands and ascends above them. All bestial eyes follow its flight. They know what it is that they've done. What their desire for the old order has wrought.

"Oh, despair!" They cry in the eldest tongue. "Oh Joyous End! Free us from the yolk of the young and prideful race of Man! Give us forms of ruin and of death! Break this broken world, that it may be shaped anew!"

Tongues of flame reach out to them. Their bodies warp and flow together in a braying, howling, screeching, rattling mire of fur and flesh and beak and claw. New shapes emerge, great and terrible. They rise above the treeline and dwarf their unchanged brethren. Then they begin to march. To lurch and lumber and leap towards the object of their ancient fury. Humankind will know their place, or they shall be blotted out.

There it is again. That smell of rotting foliage, of mushrooms moldering beneath skeleton trees. I can almost see the beetles and worms winding their way through the rot, chewing, always chewing. Nurse Loren said this is normal, that it would soon go away and I’d be back to perfect health. Or was that Nurse Clara? It doesn’t matter. The blanket presses down on me like a pile of stones as I watch my twin sister reach out to me from the ceiling. Her neck is smiling. She laughs, and her blood drips onto me. But I don’t reach out. I shut my eyes tight, and whisper the a-b-c’s. This has happened before, enough times that I can't be fooled. She isn’t really there. She’s inside me now. The surgery took hours and hours, but it worked. Her lovely heart beats next to mine, and her brain dreams fitfully, nestled against my own. They had to stretch me out to make her fit, but now she won’t have to fly away and leave me. We can share this flesh forever.

The laughter stops, and I open my eyes again. There, see? Nothing to worry about. She’s still here with me, still breathing and dreaming and existing. I try to look at her face, but they sewed it so close to mine that I can’t see it anymore. I know she’s beautiful, though. We are beautiful. Dr Withers said so, when I woke up and everything hurt. When I asked for a mirror, he said we didn’t need one. All I had to do was think of the prettiest thing in the world, and know that we were even more lovely. I picture us, all dolled up, in an advert or a poster, showing our perfect body to the world. Oh, how jealous they would all be.

Her eye opens, slowly. I can feel the iris contract in the sudden brightness of the room. Our lips are joined, so mine quiver with hers as she gathers a breath of sterile air. She makes a noise. It could’ve been a scream, but her throat is still healing. I reach across our stomachs to her bandaged arm, and gently hold her hand. Our hand.

 I whisper “Wakey wakey eggs and bakey”, and curl my end of our mouth into half a smile. Her brow tries to furrow, but it’s stapled to mine. It hurts.

“Hey, stop that! Everything’s OK now. You’re OK.” I soothe.

My words are slurred by the twisting of our lips in discordant emotion. She whimpers, and her eye flicks from the door, to the window, and finally stops on our wonderful body. Her teeth clench, and her eye goes wide. I feel a wetness on our cheek. My half-smile falters.

“What’s wrong? You should be happy. We get to be together forever. No more needles, or cold rooms, or machines. Once we’ve healed, we’ll run away and be stars!”

I push down the memory of the nurses taking her away from me over and over, and returning her with some fresh bruise or band aid. Or wheeling me in my metal chair into an eggshell room and shining lights through me and asking me questions and giving me cards to sort through and strapping wires to my head and- No! I won’t think of that. None of it matters anymore. It’s just us. Whole, complete, perfect us.

She stirs again, vainly struggling against the heavy blanket. Another tear. Another shriveled croak. I reinforce my smile, nearly tearing the delicate seams. We are one. We are beautiful. And soon, we will be free.