Rapture

Child

I observe the child as he leads me through the utter darkness. I sense something familiar in his golden hair and confident stride.

"Where are we?" I ask.

"Nowhere and everywhere." The boy says, his gaze scrunched up with focus ahead. I realize I have to be more specific if I want an answer from him.

"What's your name?" I ask.

"I don't have one yet."

"Do you want one?" I ask, feeling a tinge of sadness for the lonely boy.

"Not now." He answers, irritated.

"Then when?"

"Later, when I am born."

I blink in confusion. "How can you not be born? You're here with me."

"Nobody is born here, Elena." The boy glances at me with a devil's smile. "Not even you."

"Where are we?" I ask again, a chill gripping me from within.

"Between death and life. Where everything can be created, and nothing can exist."

"What does that mean?" I feel more clueless and helpless with every answer he gives. The boy shakes his head and tugs on my hand to hasten me.

"You can understand later. Now you need to watch."

"Watch what?" Before I can finish asking, the boy stops, and there's someone else in the dark in front of us.

It's a young woman that somewhat reminds me of my sister Alice, should she had gotten the chance to mature. She is naked and down on the floor, panting and groaning heavily, face twisted and eyes squeezed with pain.

It's impossible to miss the source of her misery. The bulge of pregnancy in her stomach is bigger than I thought a woman could carry, made even more obscene by the slimness of her hips. Breasts weighed with milk show she's ready to be a mother, but the skin of her belly is stretched so tight I fear it'll tear.

A sharp scream breaks her constant moaning as I see a little handprint pressing out from inside. She twists on the ground as pain takes possession of her, shaking legs spreading wide apart.

"What's happening to her?" I call out in panic as her bulging stomach is shoved and struck out from the inside. By the number of bumps, it has to be more than a baby in there.

"I devour my brother in the womb," The child starts explaining, observing the struggling mother with odd peace. "My sisters are different. They like each other's individual bodies. And they like to compete."

The woman screams again, her spine jerking and her head tossing back. The pitch of her scream keeps ringing in my head as her waist writhes against the black floor.

"Why can't she give birth?" I ask seeing the opening of her woman part, knowing a baby could start his way through.

"I told you, my sisters like to compete." The boy smirks. "They're fighting who will come out first."

"She will die." I stare in horror as the protrusion of limbs keeps jabbing against the surface of her stomach.

"Yes." The boy nods his head in confirmation."My sisters are equal in strength, and the mother is too weak to make order between them."

"There must be a way we can help her."

"Of course. There is no other choice." The boy releases my hand, and steps forward. His nails extend as he lifts his hand and stretches his fingers; gleaming with an edge of razor.

The three years old child kneels between the woman's legs, and before I can get an idea, he slides a knife-like nail in her lower abdomen. In a fluid motion, he carves all the way up to her chest - flesh parting and blood flowing in the trail of his finger.

The mother's scream sounds almost relieved. The boy grabs the slit of the stomach and pulls it apart before he shoves his arms inside her.

My eyes pour with tears as I watch frozen in shock.

The woman groans and whimpers for the last time as the boy pulls out his arms. He turns to me, covered in the blood, holding two babes to his chest.

The baby girls in his bloodied embrace stare at me both. One with eyes that burn gold like the sun, and the other with eyes darker than a moonless night.