Time ticked by (It's just a concept, brother. It's irrelevant.), a continuous ticking at the back of my head, counting down— until what? I felt heavy, dirty, a soiled disaster between falsely virgin thighs. Something felt so sickeningly off, a monster rooted beneath chestnut hide, planted in damned flesh. The sickness of the broken, the undeserving, it spreads through my body, a parasite to eat away at the rotting flesh of my insides. The spawn within is growing, stretching the walls of chestnut and grasping at the world it cannot meet (not yet).

I felt the first trickles of fear when my sides began to swell, abdomen bulbous and grotesque as extra weight hangs from me like some sick display (This is what whores get. You've done this to yourself.) of shame. The idea of overeating comes to pass, my stomach empty and derived of anything, refusing to take in anything that could provide such extra weight. My hips return, protruding gruesomely and all the hard work of gaining more weight— trying to look normal— is washed away. All that's left is the denial, overwhelming and destructive as my body falls apart beneath me.

I didn't— I didn't. No, no, n o n  O n O NONO NONONONO I DIDN'T I'M NOT NO. When? When did it—? How? I... I certainly didn't, and oh gods what will I tell Sia? The knots in my insides tighten, suffocating as I gasp and pant and convulse. My organs constrict, jaw gaping and spit pooling at my torn lips and dripping down over my chin. Gods, no no NO I DON' T WA NT THI S DI DN' T AS K F OR T H I S I— "You may have no asked for it, but someone else did. Are you going to selfishly take this life now, before it has a chance to take yours? Will you deprive this thing of what you were given, through the sacrifice of your own mother?" They're there, wearing ebony, coated in ivory spots and sneering in disgust. "Even I wouldn't fall so low," They preach, head high and grin expanding, taunting and teasing as they look down at me (Don't you dare look at me like I'm nothing to you! Do you hear me, I will kill you!). "I wasn't— Yes, I was. In the subconscious crevices I was plotting, planning, waiting for the opportune moment to cruelly end the life of whatever was growing within my womb. A battered body, a starved body, a reckless mind to which chaos will surely demand a life. And I will pay, I will pay with the spawn within me, the spawn of who?

"Volterra, you know the name. I know the name, we all know the name." Ears slide back, thighs on fire and withers burning at the mention— all of his rough touches, sizzling upon speckled skin as my mouth tastes bitter. "I— I can't keep it." I whisper, looking to Them as if they can provide me with some form of guidance, like a demon could guide me through the acceptance process. "Seek someone out, abandon it. Kill it when it comes out." Heartless, cold words, devoid of the emotion the living (the real) feel, shoulders shrugging to reflect the lack of care. "This child is your problem, not mine."

Nono, don't leave! But They're gone, out of sight and mind, and I'm left alone to listen to the whispers, twisted and wicked as they praise the idea of murder. Slaughter it, take away the burden of motherhood before it happens too late, before the child gets too big. Hide the evidence of stretching skin and expanding organs before Sia can notice, before she has time to investigate the source— the reason behind the extra weight, before she knows. Because she will know well the swelling sides, the blatant signs of pregnancy, the unease in my gut. And I will have to confess to her, bleary eyed, the sins I did not indulge in— the sins committed against me.

Sameira has taken me astray, led me from the population of the Throat as I struggle to come to the idea that yes, I have a child. It's in me now, taking what little I have to offer. At first, I think to end it, to starve it out before it can even take a look at the dark world before it— "Amara needs to stop trying to kill Baby. Let Baby live, even if Mara don't want it." My head nods, eyes meeting yours, the passion and ferocity of motherhood hidden behind them— all the positivity of being a mother, all the instinct to protect, it's all fallen to your shoulders. You are the one who feel most for this child, not me, the true mother. How odd.