Happy Anniversary, 667
The Dark Apocalypse begins three years from today.
Chapter 12: AdamOn a cool afternoon in the Spring of 2009, Alice walked briskly through a crowded parking lot and flung her nametag into the concrete. Minutes ago, Alice had finally quit her dead end job at Wal-mart. After two years of grueling study and anti-social hours, she became a certified nurse and found work at a hospital in Dallas. Her life was finally coming together when she lost her friends and family on June 22, 2012. For the first time since her Wal-mart days, she felt that she was living without purpose.
A thousand miles away in New England, Songbird was grieving. Her husband had tragically passed away on an open construction site during the gamma ray burst. However, a few days after Josh’s death, she was shocked and overjoyed to discover that she was two months pregnant. She was due to give birth around Christmas of that year. But without her family, she felt alone and unsupported. To make matters worse, she did not know any surviving medical professionals. Shortly after Songbird discovered she was pregnant, she contacted Alice to ask for help.
When Alice received the call for help from her old 667 acquaintance, she was happy to be of service. While she was carrying her child, Songbird lived with Alice in Texas. They needed each other. Alice provided Songbird with medical care, and Songbird provided Alice with companionship. Over the months, they grew closer and closer. In late autumn, Alice moved Songbird into her old hospital to prepare for the birth of her child.
Soon, the Christmas season was upon them. The birth of Songbird’s baby was set to be a momentous and joyous occasion. After all, the previous six months had been difficult, troubling times. Everyone needed something to celebrate. Bearing this in mind, Songbird and Alice invited all 667ers to come share the special event with them. Unfortunately, most 667ers had other commitments during the holiday season, and transportation was very sporadic in the post-GRB era. Triangle Eyes was busy eating dirt in a forest. Gigi and her fanfic girl assistant teachers (Emma, Elle, Jenny and May) had taken their students on a field trip to deserted DisneyWorld. The Team Squad was lost in Mexico because Charlotte held the map upside down. Linda was still recovering from her horrible Mormon ordeal. Mysteriously, Sixteen could not be reached. Tragedy was “busy.”
Luckily, a few members were able to join in Songbird’s elation. Fancy was able to drive down from Michigan, and BSam and Shelly took a long voyage by sea from Australia. Libitina made a journey by train from Rhode Island. Euro was only a few states away, and made the trip with her daughter, Edie Cameronrae, who had just turned 4 years old. They all arrived on December 24, and celebrated Christmas together in the hospital. One week later, on New Year’s Eve, Songbird went into labor.
BSam, euro, Edie and Shelly volunteered to wait downstairs in the waiting room, so as not to overcrowd Songbird’s birthing room. Libitina and Fancy helped Alice. The evening proceeded uneventfully, although Alice did notice some unusual discharge from Songbird’s dishwasher. Alice was also aware that the process seemed exceptionally agonizing, but she could only compare Songbird’s pain to videos she had seen at nursing school.
Over the course of the night, Libitina tried to distract Songbird from the pain with a bit of cheerful dialogue.
“Songbird, dearie. I’m absolutely chuffed for you. Darling, you’ll be a mother soon. And I’m so proud of you for postponing sexual intercourse until after marriage. Oh, it’s simply marvelous!” said Libitina britishly. “What are you going to name him?”
“I’m going to name him Adam. It’s a classic Jewish name and as far as we know he is the first newborn in the world,” replied Songbird, wincing with pain.
“May I please be his godmother?” Libitina asked excitedly.
“Sorry, but Alice is going to be the godmother. She’s become like a sister to me and if anything were to happen to me I know she would care for my child as if it were her own. Besides, you have a weird fake accent and I don't want my child to watch the O'Reilly Factor,” said Songbird, her face contorting as she faced a final bout of contractions.
"You're nearly there, Songbird. Ten centimeters dilated. Just one more push!" Alice said. Nearly five hours after she had goe into labour, Songbird took a final deep breath and pushed with all her strength, moaning in agony. She was overcome with the pain and screamed at the top of her voice. The noise echoed deafeningly around the room. As Songbird’s pain peaked and declined, a bloody mass was forced into Alice's arms. A putrid stench filled the room, nauseating its occupants. The creature that came from Songbird’s uterus made no noise, for it had no voice. It flailed silently in Alice’s arms before all hell broke lose.
What Songbird had brought into the world was barely recognizable as human offspring. In the few seconds of its terrible existence, the onlookers could barely register its horrendous appearance. “Adam” was a sickly yellow color. It had no lips, but a gaping mouth that was stretched in a perpetual silent scream. It had bulbous, blind, pupil-less eyes and a misshapen, oblong skull that rested on an unnaturally long neck. It had only one leg, which emerged from Songbird detached from the rest of its body. Many of Adam’s joints had developed facing the wrong way so that his arms and fingers moved at unsightly angles. Its skin was extremely thin so that the baby seemed almost skeletal. It had no ears and it had many small, jagged bones protruding from its abdomen.
In the fractions of a second after the women in the room realized what they were witnessing, many things happened at once.
“OH SNAP!” yelled Fancy, before vomiting copiously.
Libitina dropped all pretenses and proclaimed in a strong Rhode Island accent, “It is THE DEVIL!” before passing out and slumping against the wall.
Alice, totally petrified with the deformed newborn in her hands, stared in horror. She gave an unearthly scream and dropped the squirming form of the would-be baby as she was overcome with horror. Adam landed on the hospital floor with a sickening crunch, it’s deformed head bursting in a bloody, pus-filled explosion that spattered the room’s occupants. Its decapitated body writhed on the ground for a few seconds before becoming still. Approximately four seconds after his birth, Adam, mutated offspring of the gamma ray burst, was no more.
Songbird died at the combined shock of seeing her malformed baby, and of seeing her child die at the hands of Alice. Alice curled into a ball, sobbing and muttering “Save money. Live better.” over and over to herself, rocking back and forth. She had lost the only two people that she really cared about anymore.
Of the many horrors chronicled in 667 Dark Apocalypse, none is more difficult to put into words than the birth of Adam. What should have been a wonderful occasion was instead a night that would only ever be discussed with hushed tones and expressions of fear. It was not cries of exuberance that filled the hospital as the clocks struck twelve and the year 2013 began. Rather, it was moments of sheer terror followed by a silence that only supernatural fear and despair can bring. That silence echoed through the hospital - through the operating rooms, the empty hallways, and the all the way to the waiting room, where BSam, euro, Edie and Shelly were waiting hopefully with balloons, gifts and signs that read "Welcome to the world, Adam!"