Leaves and Shadows

by Christopher Chancy

  The world around her went dark. Erin blinked as the night stretched on before for several more seconds. Then the red flashed back from the images along the corridor, but the picture she was staring at was gone. Before her was empty space again as the picture she had been studying disappeared completely from this hellish reality. Rage flared up within her heart. Sad as her husband had looked in that image, she was drawing a sort of comfort from seeing his face again. And the forces of this place took that from her. How dare they!

  Seething, she continued forward. She passed more images of her getting sick and lying in her own discomfort. In those images, her belly was getting progressively bigger.

  As she passed yet another image of her getting sick in a parking lot. The memory came to her vividly. She had to pull over when a wave of intense nausea struck after dropping Evan off at preschool. She studied the image as she hugged Evan and thought scathingly, I bet they would encourage me to look at this picture all day long. She shook her head in disgust and walked on.

  She came to an image where she had grown considerably larger. This one wasn't from too long ago. She and Scott were sitting on Evan's bed telling him for the first time that he was going to be a big brother. She smiled at the look on Evan's face. He looked as happy as his dad did when she had told him. His smile looks so much like- the image blinked out prematurely, leaving nothing in its place.

  his father's, She finished as the other images pulsed back on.

  This wasn't fair! They would gladly let her stew in the misery she felt during months of her pregnancy, but to even glimpse a key moment that was remotely happy would snatch away from her. Each one lasted less time than the previous.

  Fuming even more so she started forward and froze. The image that lay before her was of that day just less than a week ago when her perception of the world changed so irrevocably. She shook her head and took a step back, "No! Please don't make me relive this! Not again!"

  In the next flash all of the images became identical. She looked around as they began to shift from their stationary place suspended in space and close the gap between them. With each beat they closed around her. She took a step towards a space.

  Thoom Thoom

  Two images pressed in on the gap before she could escape through. Erin looked around. She was trapped on all four sides by a walls of flashing images.

  She exhaled a shuddering breath shifted Evan in her arms, and hugged him tighter in the process as she gave him a light kiss on the top of his head. She opened herself to the fear and pain that she knew she had no power to abate and resolutely stepped forward experienced the images as they came.

  The showed an image of her sitting in a paper gown at the ultrasound clinic. Scott was with her. The picture of her was determinedly looking away from him. Erin laughed despite herself. She remembered being angry at him in this moment. Scott had gone behind her back the previous week and made this appointment without her consent and not mention it to her until the night before. When he finally told her she was livid. He was apologetic, not that he had to do it, but that he had to do it this way. After she screamed at him for over two hours, he spent the night on the couch and woke her up to drive her in the morning. She had given him the silent treatment the entire morning.

  The images pulsed and the ultrasound technician was there, scanning her belly. The young technician’s bright eyes and broad smile were a stark contrast to their haggard faces. Erin noted that somewhere in that transition she decided to forgive her husband. Scott’s hand clasped hers as his stroked her hair absently with his other hand.

  Thoom Thoom

  Erin steeled herself for the next image.

  There it was.

  In her head Erin could hear the technician’s voice, What is . . . Oh God!

  There it was before her. The young girl reacted in horror to what she saw, and her startled words had spilled out before she could rein them in. Erin released a shuddering breath. This was the moment before everything she knew about the world came to an abrupt end.

  Thoom Thoom

  The image changed. She and Scott looked up at her shocked. The technician looked back with wide ones of her own.

  I’ll be right back! The other woman squeaked in her mind.

  She could hear Scott’s response followed. What is it? What did you see? Wait!

  The image changed and she was actually running for the door. Scott held out his hand as he rose from his seat. Wait! he had called out after her.

  But it was too late.

  Erin closed her eyes as she remembered the time that followed. Neither of them knew what to say to each other as the seconds resonated through the room by the ticking hand of the clock. Each tick hammered home their helplessness. The memory of Scott's calloused hand hers clasped painfully tight around hers, made ache for his reassuring touch.

  Thoom Thoom

  Erin opened her eyes. They were surrounded by medical professionals. An older sonographer had taken over for the former one. At the head of the session an imposing man in a white coat directed the room. It was her perinatologist, Dr. Phobos. All eyes were staring at the image on the ultrasound screen. Even with the benefit of hindsight, Erin found her present day self could tear her eyes away either.

  The image changed and all eyes stared at Scott in shock. Erin Heart broke at the image. She had never seen her husband look more terrified. Her husband finally cracked the silence. "Will someone please tell us, what's going on!"

  Dr. Phobos looked up at them in the next image. "Mr. and Mrs. Dearborn your baby is growing, but she has developed some significant complications."

  Erin in the present looked around suddenly. The words came out of nowhere and everywhere.

  "Complications?" Erin could hear her disembodied voice whisper the words.

  Scott voice quaked. “She.”

  "Your baby has developed some major birth defects." Dr. Phobos baritone voice erupted around her.

  “What birth defects?” Erin voice spoke from the air around her.

  When Dr. Phobos spoke next it was devoid of the compassion she had remembered. “Your baby's heart developed an abnormal growth pathway. We call ectopic cordis.

  "Ectopic cordis." Erin heard her voice wrap around the unfamiliar syllables.

  Dr. Phobos voice sneered. "What that means is that your little girl is going to be born with her heart outside her chest."

  The image showed her hand covering her mouth. Scott staggered against the wall. Her voice that spoke around her wall was full of terror. "Outside her chest! How could she possibly survive that?"

  Erin could feel her mind wrap around these words for countless time. She recalled this thought in every still moment in the week before she fell down the slide. She was having a little girl who might even survive birth.

  Thoom Thoom

  Thoom Thoom

  Thoom Thoom

  All the images pulsed over and over, flashing only the grainy picture of the ultrasound screen. With each pulse, they zoomed in closer and closer and the red light flashed brighter. The light seemed to originate from the heart itself. Erin and Evan were bathed in its crimson incandescence.

  Then everything went black and silent.

  Thoom Thoom

  Thoom Thoom

  Thoom Thoom

  The beat and pulsing light returned, but only from a single source.

  Her breath caught in her throat as she stared into the darkness the walls of images gone now. Nothing in this twisted world could have prepared her for what she saw next. The light source of the blood red illumination emanated from a giant disembodied fluid sack that hung suspended in the air. A chill shot down her spine. The entirety of it was bigger than her living room.

  Splayed hands the size of ovens pushed the membrane of the disembodied amniotic sack. An umbilical cord twice the size of a firehose floated undisturbed between an enormous placenta and fetus. The red light seemed to glow from every cell of it . . . of her.

  Giant eyes stared down at her
with need. It was truly the only word to describe the indecipherable instinct she felt. Erin stared up at her baby. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought the eyes looked like Scott’s.

  The demons of this place played the cruelest of jokes. She could not tear her eyes from the pumping heart as it beat outside her daughter’s chest just above the protruding intestines and stomach. Organs that should have been growing within her child’s form were growing outside for all in this dark world to see.

  She shivered and her free hand drifted down to her pregnant abdomen as the pulse continued.

  Thoom Thoom

  Thoom Thoom

  She now understood that pulsing drumbeat was in fact the amplified sound of her baby's heart.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Baby

  It was strange, really. Erin was simultaneously repulsed and in awe. She approached the unborn baby reverently. Her hand moved from her own abdomen to the strange amniotic sack that floated before her. She brushed the place where the fetus’s foot rested on the other side of the wall. She could feel a soft fluttering on her belly.

  The baby girl pushed at her hand in response. The membrane bulged outward as Erin simultaneously felt the kick inside her. She took a surprised inhalation in at the sensation. Tears burst from her, along with much to her surprise a giggle.

  She placed her hand on the red membrane and pushed in holding the pressure. She could feel the sensation on her flesh. She was sure that if she had lifted her shirt that at that moment, she would have seen a divot on the skin of her abdomen.

  The fetus . . . the baby . . . her baby moved in closer in a combination crawl and swim motion of clumsy, jerky movements. She rested her massive palm against Erin’s, touching her through the hovering barrier. From the base of the palm to the ends of the fingertips, her outstretched hand was almost as tall as Erin was.

  Her baby brought her enormous head down closer to look down at her mother and her “big” brother. Her eyes stared at them intently. Now that she was so much closer, Erin could see that she definitely had her father’s eyes. This made Erin smile.

  Her gaze held no experiential wisdom, but she stared down at them with a kind of understanding. Erin did not know how, but her baby seemed to know whom she was looking at.

  Whatever was happening, it felt right to her on a soul level. Just as she knew when she met her mother, she knew that this was her child. Somehow, her unborn daughter dually existed in this form outside of her and within her.

  It was truly humbling. “Hi,” Erin said in a small voice.

  She knew why the dark forces of this place had chosen to show her this. Whatever controlled this domain was trying to fan the flame of her fears by goading her with the horrible images of her unborn baby’s disfigurements. They were trying to entice her into hysterical madness.

  It had almost worked, but the effect was momentary at best. Then Erin looked again at the baby’s eyes and shamefully wondered how she could ever have thought that this baby was not beautiful. Her shame burned away instantly as the radiant love within her swelled almost to bursting.

  “I’m your mommy,” she told her warmly. She held up Evan. “And this is your big brother, Evan. I’m so glad to meet you. We are both so glad to meet you.

  “You gave your father and I quite the scare. I’m still afraid for you, but that doesn't matter now. I promise you that I will do everything in my power to help you. I don’t really know how and, I don’t care what the odds are but, somehow I will save you.”

  The giant amniotic sack and baby began to glow brighter. The sensation to her hand was warm yet not unpleasant. Erin didn't think it was possible, but her child looked even more beautiful in the radiant light.

  Suddenly her baby and the amniotic sack began to shrink in size. She watched in amazement as they mysteriously began reduce to normal dimensions. Moments later, the she was a normal size, but still floating in the air at the level of Erin’s abdomen. Erin watched with rapt attention as her baby began to slowly drift towards her. Erin held open her arms and a small voice inside her heart told her to remain perfectly still. She watched transfixed as the disembodied figure floated closer to her.

  The baby girl floated up to her belly, and Erin’s breath caught as her child’s glowing self began to pass through the barrier of her clothing into her. The skin of her abdomen began to glow strangely, but there was no other sign of the strange passage into her being. Somehow the dual beings through some strange unfathomable circumstance were once divided and now began to merge together, creating a warm pleasant feeling within Erin’s core. The sensation intensified with each inch that passed into her. Erin found herself doubled over by the sheer power of it. It felt very akin to labor pains in its intensity, but not unpleasant. She inhaled deeply, and until that moment she had not realized that she was holding her breath. The odd feeling lasted for all of a minute before the heat began to dim within her. She stood motionless as she savored this feeling of wonderment.

  She looked down at her stomach and saw that it was still glowing slightly. She rubbed it gently, completely in awe. She very much wanted to tell Scott about their daughter’s beautiful eyes. In that moment, for the first time on this harrowing journey, she finally believed with all her heart that she would make it out of this place with her family intact. She could not conceive of another possibility.

  She was more than sure that, while not the intent of the evil in this place, the dark forces here had actually managed to give her several gifts: a reunion with her mother, the chance to finally express her love, letting her mother hold Evan. It all had been invaluable to her. And to see her daughter from this very unique vantage point had granted the perspective to look past her daughter’s flaws and finally see her for how truly beautiful she was. Most life changing was the liberation she now felt from her own self-doubt. She was still afraid, but not in the debilitating sense that had plagued her for so long.

  The warmth in her abdomen finally subsided completely. A part of her felt an abstract longing for the odd yet pleasant sensation. She looked down at her protruding belly and rubbed it lovingly. She felt something push within her. She suspected lifted her shirt and a bright smile bloomed across her face as she looked down at a tiny, well-defined hand pushing up from her skin. She touched it with her fingertip. They remained there for a blissful moment before the hand receded back down so her daughter could perform what felt like aerobics within her tiny living space.

  Erin mused over that for a minute. She had not felt her baby move so much before this moment. It was one of the reasons that prompted Scott to make the appointment with the OB/GYN. The movement felt good, reassuring.

  She could not contemplate this line of thought long, for she looked up to see another source of light within the expansive room, coming from another door. It was directly behind the position her daughter held only moments before. She recognized the flickering nature of the light fixtures within the door’s frame. She had failed to notice it before because it paled in comparison to the illumination of her daughter’s much brighter light.

  She approached it without hesitation. She peered through the threshold of the door. Inside, the familiar sight of mirrored maze corridors lay within. The passages seemed much darker now.

  She looked sharply in the room. She heard something. She peered into the room with wide-eyed shock. It was very faint, but could it be?

  Beneath the heavy shadows, the reflections suddenly pounded on their individual mirrors. Erin staggered back from the explosive cacophony, twisting her head around in reaction. Less than a moment later, Erin plunged into the room with Evan held tightly to her chest in a full out sprint. The sound she heard before the din erupted: her little boy’s desperate voice crying, “Momma!”

  Chapter Twenty

  Mirrors

  “Evan!”

  Erin could barely hear her own voice over the racket her twisted doppelgangers made behind their glass prisons. Collectively, they pounded mercilessly on their mirrors so h
ard that the glass rattled against the wall. The sound was deafening.

  She frantically looked around. She couldn't see anything of use. The corridor was either darker than the ones before or she was still light-blinded from the previous room. There was plenty of movement, but only from her malicious reflections’ hostile motions. The reflections themselves were much darker than before. Now she could only see their violent silhouettes behind the glass panels. The flickering nature of the room’s lighting did nothing to help matters.

  She moved forward purposely. Her mind and heart were wild with panic and hope, torn between rushing ahead to search and keeping a more methodical pace so as not to miss any important details. She succumbed to both mindsets as she assumed a fast-paced walk. Thanks to the new rush of adrenaline, her burning arms from the weight of her son were pacified slightly. A part of her that she very much wanted to ignore knew that her strength’s ability to be taxed was coming to a swift end. Inside her, her daughter continued what felt like somersaults within her abdomen.

  She approached the end of the corridor and reached another fork in the road. She looked down both paths, identical shadowy passages that quickly turned down other corridors. She futilely strained her ears to listen for Evan’s disembodied voice. As before, it was impossible to hear anything over the thunderous banging.

  She finally chose a direction and strode down it without hesitating. Once again, she went left.

  “Evan!” she called out.

  Now that she was further into the maze, her voice was no longer audible over the din. How could she possibly hear Evan’s? No, she couldn't afford the self-doubt this time. It was useless and dangerous. She had more than one reason to suspect that Evan’s spirit was trapped somewhere else within this dark place. Her mother had told her so. Even the dark voice had alluded to as much.

  The very idea of her son being trapped, alone and scared in this black purgatory made her cringe. She pushed her fear away roughly as she doggedly moved forward. She had to focus on finding her son, not her fear. She scanned the area ahead for the barest hint of his little form.