Chapter 10

BALQIS’S POV

I ran through the woods despite my condition, my whole body raging with fire I couldn’t quench.

Thankfully, the sun was still up in the sky.

Nobody was chasing me, no one sent me out, but I had to leave.  There’s actually a limit to everything and I think this is how far I could go.

All these months of dancing through my heavy condition, faced different humiliation, harassment, and mischaps, with the hope of smooth landing before giving birth to my child only to hear that my source of earning can only come from sleeping with men?

If she had told me before signing the contract, then I wouldn’t have  gon to such extents to expect anything from such a vile woman as Mrs Kathy.

I leaned against a tree and breathed erratically for a while before slumping to the ground due to the sharp pain that has suddenly rose to my abdomen.

I groaned when a ache invaded my head from nowhere. “This is not the time to feel tired” I said to myself and tried standing up to go back but the pain has suddenly spread to my waist and thighs, a wail escaped my lips.

All of a sudden, I felt my panties wet, and I looked down and saw water mixed with some blood flowing out o my pussy.

I gasped. My water just broke? At just seven months?

“Humpph” I groaned in agony. I had angrily walked away from Mrs Kathy’s presence earlier and ran away until I got here, if I had known this would happen, I wouldn’t have left.

I writhed in pain alone for several minutes, then I felt some movement in my belly.

I don’t know anything about giving birth to a child or have I ever done something relating to childbirth and this one is very tiring and hard.

However, despite the confusion, I managed to pull my panties down, which only made me yell more and surprisingly, no one was in sight to help out, not even an animal like I have been deserted by both animals and humans.

I laid on my back and pushed like I see women do on the TV while crying so much.

It was so painful, I couldn’t tell  if I was still alive or dead, but the feel of air and the pain of the childbirth proved that I was still alive and I continued to push it until I heard a tiny scream.

My heart stopped for a moment, my baby is finally out? I breathed shakily, and resumed yelling all alone in the middle of nowhere while my baby’s cry rented the whole forest.

“hummmmphhh” I cried the more, pleading silently that I get some help.

This went on for more minutes more than I could count then I heard the rustling of leaves beside me. I couldn’t turn my head, but I could only whisper, “help, help me”

Then footsteps approached me, revealing a man and a woman. The woman rushed to me immediately, “Hey, are you fine?”

I continued whimpering without saying anything, then she nodded. “I got this. You have to stay strong” then she bent down before me while the man not saying anything turned around.

The agony of childbirth was too much that I wished I could die right now. The woman seems to be an healer and in the next five minutes, she brought out two tiny lives before me, smiling beautifully as she exclaimed. “You’re very lucky, dear. You just deliver a set of twins”

I was still in pain and my belly was still protruding but I managed a smile. I was happy. Even though my pain, this is the most beautiful news ever. I gave birth to a pair of twins…

“I need help please” She called the man standing around and he turned with a wide grin on his face.

I find his grin and expression strange, but who am I to ask? He took the two bundle of joy from the woman while she untied her scarf and cleaned me.

I managed to sit up and the two little lives were placed on my arms. I cried in joy and of sadness at the same time. ‘Adonai you should see this. Our little babies are here, but where are you?’

That moment, the bite of the Gamma revenant on my neck burned slowly for a second and I stopped.

Why is it burning now?

I looked up at the woman, “Thank you so much, I don’t know what I would have done without you”

She grinned widely again. “The pleasure is mine. But why are you in this forest all alone?”

“I….” Suddenly, one of the babies in my arms stopped moving and crying. I looked down in panic before looking back at the woman who had also stopped grinning. “What happened?” we both asked each other almost at the same time. Even the man behind us that seems not to care bent down and touched the baby before taking it from me.

My heart was slamming against my ribs wildly. “Wh… What happened to my baby?”

He touched its neck again, the woman stood up and touched it. Her eyes froze. His eyes also turned grime.

“What happened to it!!??” I yelled this time, and managed to scramble to my feet.

The woman quickly rushed to guide me but I pushed her hand away while the baby I had in my arms was still crying. “Give me my baby back” I demanded, but the man stepped back; denying me the access.

The woman came to me again. “You have to take heart”

“Take heart for what!!” I yelled in petrification. “Give me back my child!!”

She held me back again. “You shouldn’t stand up yet. Your….”

My knees became weak. “What happened to it?” I plead. “Tell me whatever that has happened to my child!”

She gulped hard before starting. “It seems like…. like it’t not breating again”

“What?” I asked.  “Who is not breathing again?”

She helped me sit down again. The reality of what she said drowned on me and I realized it that the baby is not breathing again anymore.

The baby I suffered, starved, danced, to carry through seven months is dead.

“No” I denied the reality. “No. My baby is still alive”

The woman withdraw back from me and stepped back like she was leaving me. “I’m sorry. But you must survive to keep that one alive”

I couldn’t shout as much as I wanted to shout. I was too weak, too shattered and hollowed out to cry all I could whisper was ‘Why?’

~~

I stood before our house, my baby in my arms, now safely cradled and my body now cleaned.

Tears falling from my eyes, my body shaking with extreme pain and agony of loosing my child and not seeing my baby’s father after that one mistaken glance.

Mrs Kathy is not yet back from club so she wouldn’t know that I have came home and I don’t plan on letting her see me because I have my bags at hand and I have stole some of her golds.

The baby in my arms was a boy and I can’t let him grow up to know a stripper who sleeps around as his mum.

‘By the goddess, I will come back and repay this evil aplenty, Mum’ I whispered and turned back.

I have zeroed my mind. Adonai obviously doesn’t want me to see him anymore. Nirvana too, I heard nothing from her which means she planned this with her mum.

The time is almost midnight, I have my passport at hand, so I hailed a cab and made to the airport to buy a ticket.

I will leave. This way, Adonai who only haunted me and doesn’t appear when I need  him the most wouldn’t see me anymore. Mrs Kathy and her daughter who sued me to dance at their club wouldn’t see me anymore to use.

‘I will live for you, my baby’ I whispered. ‘Fuck Adonai and everything. I will make sure to take care of you alone’

Sooner, the cab arrived at the airport and I walked to the ticket counter to book my ticket.