WAR
Mary Jane was in her bedroom, having trouble finding some clothes that would fit her. She looked at her image on the mirror and realized for the first time that she was actually pregnant. Yeah, she was five months pregnant. In that moment, Darcy, Mary Jane's roommate, entered in the room.
"We have less than five minutes. Are you ready?" Darcy asked. Mary Jane just nodded as Darcy was looking at her friend's belly with a sad smile.
A man walked in. Her man walked in. Although the concern in her expression caused by the situation, she was happy to see him and he was happy to see her. It seemed ages from the last time they were in the same room. The feelings in their bodies wanted to explode because of their proximity, but they acted normal. They had to; after all, it was not the best of times to show how much they had missed each other.
"It's time" was the only thing he said before finally looking at her. He shouldn't have. For a moment, he lost his composure. His focus was distracted by the little bump on her belly. He was sorry and sad that he had no time to show his joy. He quickly looked at the two women.
"We gotta go". He turned around and went to go outside.
Mary Jane and Darcy put on a green military uniform over their clothes. They wore a helmet and a green backpack, then they followed the man on the roof.
Darcy was ahead of the couple, preparing herself for the launch. He was fastening his helmet under his chin.
"Don't worry. I'll be with you. You'll be fine" he said smiling. And he was indeed, he was right close to her. They took a run-up before launching themselves together from the roof.
A bit of fear crossed her mind and she pulled the string activating the parachute. She immediately regretted her act. It was too soon. Steve said nothing and the both of them landed on another roof, Darcy some meters ahead of them.
They climbed down from the building and walked through the streets, sometimes shooting at their enemies. They were finally in the battlefield. The sky was dark, the streets were dark, the only lights were from the campfires and guns.
A while later they were separated. "He said he would have been with you" a voice spoke in Mary Jane's head, but she could not blame him. The circumstances needed him in another spot of the battlefield. He went right following some other men, while the two girls had gone left because it was safer.
Suddenly Darcy ran forward. "Stay here" she had said. Five minutes had passed and still Darcy was nowhere to be seen. Mary Jane went looking for her friend and saw her running in a secondary street behind a corner. An enemy following her.
"I have to help her" she thought.
The enemy was tall, much taller than Steve was, big and frightening. She knew she was not able to take care of him alone, so she hid behind a hedge of a house's yard. There she found Darcy's green glasses. Maybe she lost them during her run, she thought, but it seemed like they were positioned there carefully and Mary Jane couldn't understand how was it possible.
The movements of the monster interrupted her train of thoughts. The enemy was walking back to the main street.
She waited until he was out of her sight, then she left her hiding spot and went looking for Darcy. At the end of the small street she called for the girl, whispering so that their enemy could not hear her.
After three calls, Darcy came out from one of the bushes and together they returned to the main road.
There they met Steve and another woman running towards them. "Darcy must have called for help". Steve and Mary Jane looked at each other, both relieved that they were ok. Then they quickly proceeded their way.
Round a corner, they found a dozen worried people looking intensely through a big hole in one of the buildings. They approached cautiously the group of people, realizing that some enemies were coming out from the hole. They began shooting, Steve always by her left side.
She saw a bad man upon a car situated in front of the hole. This man was looking directly at her. Nobody else seemed to notice him and it was almost funny because his armour stood up from the dark surroundings. His armour was shining white as an angel's robe. He also wore a white mask on his face, but Mary Jane could still feel his evil grin while he stared at her.
She started to fire but she couldn't hit him in any way. She looked at her strange gun. It was not working. The white enemy laughed at her and shot, hitting her right in her abdomen. She touched her wound but nothing ached, she just felt fear and started running along with other people to the main street.
When she turned left at the corner of the street she collapsed on the ground, unable to proceed her escape. She lay there still, thinking about what to do. Maybe someone would have stopped and helped her. But what if an enemy found her still breathing and tortured her?
Suddenly someone shook her and she pushed his hand away in a bad attempt to show she was alive. She waited for a touch or a voice, but the only thing she could hear were the fast steps of people running beside her and she realized that her potential saviour had left.
An unpleasant thought crossed her mind. What if someone shot directly at her head to make sure she was dead? Fear traversed her body.
She was suffering and from that moment on, she waited eager for that gunshot. She wanted to be hot in the head.
Somehow, she knew her time had come. The wound in her abdomen ached and she felt the pain for the first time. She desperately wanted to die.
She felt her last heartbeats, one by one. She felt her last breath, an expiration not followed by another inspiration. Everything was darkness now. She was content and waited for her mind to shut.
"I'm dea-" she was thinking, but she could not end her thought though, because she heard the noise of a rewind and saw billions of little images one next to another in front of her. They were her memories; she just knew it. Those images lasted only for a few seconds. A moment later, her sight was pervaded with a white light. She could see something through the light. It seemed a person, but she could not tell exactly because everything was blurred.
She heard someone speaking, maybe they were calling her. She couldn't understand a word. Then she heard a sound that she recognised as a toy for newborns.
And it finally hit her.
She was at the beginning of life.
Somehow she was experiencing being a newborn. Happiness came over her and she began thinking deeply. Did she just reincarnate herself in another body? Maybe in the little one she was carrying? Or was she living again her life from the beginning?
"I have to remember this when I'll grew up" she thought, even though she knew that in a matter of minutes she would have forgotten everything.