2024 Story Collection

Hope & Her Child

She was a woman, but she was anything but human. She was as old as time and existed through all of space. She is everywhere and nowhere.

Their were stories of her. Some called her a reaper, some called her a saint, some thought her to be a God, but she was none of those things. She was simply a woman doing her job.

And this was one of those times when said job tested her. She existed only for one purpose: to make people care again. Her goal was to make those that had lost all emotion feel again. Make those who wished for death want to live again. Hope.

Sometimes it was something physical that did it, sometimes mental, sometimes lust, sometimes joy, and sometimes love.

Love was one emotion she'd been told of, and seen, but had never quite understood. It was as foreign to her as aging, as living in a single moment in time, rather than being a part of it.

Some people needed to experience love to gain their emotions back, so she would find a way to bring love into their lives. It was a beautiful thing.

She'd never experienced love and figured she never would. Some human emotions she could feel, some she knew well. Some she was sure she'd never have the pleasure of knowing. So, she watched others feel them.

But sometimes she failed to bring people back to themselves, to make them feel again. Sometimes people were too far gone. She could do nothing for them but escort them to the next life, and so she did. Those moments filled her with sorrow. It was the only emotion she knew so well.

The boy before her was young, too young to be filled with such anguish, such hopelessness, such emptiness. He was looking like he would be one of the few she wouldn't be able to save. It was the youngest one yet. She didn't want the small child to die. She wanted to give him a life. She could see an infinite amount of futures where he becomes a man, has a family, is happy. She wanted that for him. She couldn't bear the thought of him not even getting the opportunity to be happy.

This is fear. She'd thought as she glanced down at the child.

She stood now in a small alleyway behind an old butcher shop in the center of town, pacing. Her black heels clacking on the cobblestone beneath her feet. Her dress blew in the wind. It was a deep burgundy that almost looked black on nights like this and hugged her curves elegantly.

She took a puff of her cigar, stopping to look at the poor boy at her feet. He was shaking from cold and was so thin not even his old worn clothes could hide his bones. His stomach groaned in pain and his cheeks were hallow.

He is pitiful. She thought as she stared.

She takes the fur coat off her shoulders and lays it over the child. He blinks his eyes open for a moment before widening.

She simply just nods and he quickly falls back into dreams. His eyes dart in different directions underneath his eyelids. She smiles at it. Placing a hand on the child's bony cheek. He unconsciously leans into her touch.

A longing for something human hits her and she quickly pulls back her hand and stands, taking another puff of her cigar.

The longing to be a mother, to love and be loved unconditionally by something that came from you. She knew she'd never have that, and so she turned away from the child. He was precious and pure as all children were, but a darkness lingered in him that she would have to exterminate.

He was everything she'd want in a child, though ideally healthier. Her thoughts ran rampant, thinking of what it would be like to have a child, a family. To love and be loved.