Somewhere in the woods, a baby cries.
No one hears the wail...no one but the mother.
Inside their little cabin, mother and child rest on a chilly winter's night.
Mother and child...
Where is the father?
...
Pain. It's all she can feel. Dominant...controlling...intoxicating. It's insufferable, blind, white-hot pain, searing her insides and tearing her lungs apart.
But through the pain, she feels happiness, because this is it, finally. The moment they've both been dreaming of for the past several months has finally arrived.
Now, at last, they can be complete.
...
The mother picks up her offspring gingerly. Barely a few weeks old, the baby looks most like her father. She has the same dirty blonde hair, like fine strands of straw, and those alluring hazel eyes, a shade between emerald and azure.
She is the picture of beauty and health, yet regardless of her looks and complexion, she brings nothing but sadness to her mother.
What she should be feeling right now is nonexistent. The joy that new mothers all talk about is not there; she feels nothing. Her heart and soul are empty, because what has she got to live for? What is she to do now?
Who is there to turn to?
...
"Sabrina."
Something finally registers in her fog-clouded mind. She recognizes the sound of her name, and for a moment she stops moaning and trying to shut out the pain, and instead she tries focusing on her husband, and what he's saying.
"We're going to be okay, baby. We'll be fine. Just breathe, baby, just breathe."
And so she listens. With each contraction of her lungs, she can feel the pain subside, even though it's only slight. She feels the war-zone that is her head become a bit lighter, and the fog gradually clears.
For now, all she has to focus on is the blonde head next to her, and she'll be fine.
...
Alison.
That's what he'd wanted to call her. Alison Costello Grimm, after the song.
She'd loved the name at first, but now, all it brought was hate.
She shouldn't be hating her own daughter; her own flesh and blood, but it felt right.
For who else was there to blame?
...
She buckles over in pain as another burst of stomach-clenching torment takes over. For a moment she loses sight of the dirt road before them as her eyes shut tightly, and all she can hear is the sound of her groans.
Then his voice breaks through, and she forces herself to open her heavy eyes and face him.
He's sitting in the drivers seat, his hair wild and untamed, his eyes focused on the open road in front. He's talking to her; incoherent syllables she can't quite make out, but she doesn't care. All she needs right now is to be able to look at his face. Just that by itself is enough to keep her breathing.
And then it happens.
He takes his eyes off the road for a few seconds, and she can see that his hands are shaking. Those piercing green eyes look into her very own, and she knows that he's scared. She can tell. He's never done anything like this, but neither has she. They're going to have to support each other.
"I love you," she manages to grate out. He gives her a shaky smile before clasping one of her trembling, sweaty hands in his, and he kisses it before saying, "I love you too, baby."
She doesn't know what happens next. In the expanse of about twenty seconds, their car had slipped onto the side of the open dirt road, and out of the corner of her eye, she sees something tall and dark up ahead. Before she has time to scream or look away from those viridescent orbs, the tall, dark thing is right in front of them, and all she can see now is red.
...
She enters the living room. It's dark and concealed in there, but she doesn't need light to find her way around this place.
Placing her squirming baby on the armchair, she walks into the kitchen and begins her search. She can hear Alison making those gurgling noises, but she doesn't care.
Nothing matters anymore, least of all her child, so why should she care?
She opens the last drawer, and when her hand closes around the cool, steel handle, she smiles.
Here is her escape.
...
She can't feel anything. There's a void inside her, some gaping black hole that opened up the moment she heard that god-awful sound.
Her head rolls the side, and through her half-closed eyes she sees the front window. There's a thick branch through it. It's gone straight through the glass, and as she turns her head to the side, she sees something that makes the organ inside her chest stop.
The tip of the branch has pierced his chest, right through the left side. He's hunched over, not moving, and all she can see is red and gold.
There's blood everywhere, on the car seat, the steering wheel, the windows. She doesn't know what to do...it's all to much...why isn't he moving, god-dammit...they need to get to the hospital...
The hospital. The very reason they were on this trip in the first place. If only the pain would stop. If only she could just let go for a while, be free, not have to worry about all this, because right now it feels like her heart is being shred to a million little pieces and scattered before her very eyes.
Anything, please God, anything but this. Don't let him be dead. Please let him be alive, and please, please stop the pain.
Please...
...
She walks over to her baby and looks down at her pretty young face. She should be feeling guilt and disgust at what she's about to do next, but there's nothing. The black whole has swallowed up anything she used to feel, and now there's only darkness inside her.
On some level, it feels strange; almost surreal, but on another, entirely different level, it feels welcome. Maybe this is how she should be feeling...
She raises the object in her hand, and ignores that small voice in her head that tells her to stop, stop what she's doing and think for a second, because this isn't right, it's irrational...impulsive...evil.
But there's no voice of reason inside her anymore, and if there is, then it doesn't belong there. She shuts it out completely, and focuses on the task at hand...what she has to do.
This is the right thing.
...
Sirens blare. Lights flash. There's noise everywhere, around her...beside her...inside her head. She can't think, can't breathe, can't comprehend what's happening, so she doesn't do any of those. She doesn't think...doesn't breathe...doesn't try to understand what's going on.
She just lets it all happen, because she's powerless against anything and everything. There's nothing she can do to stop it, so she won't even try to.
There's beeping, and the sound of machines whirring and feet pounding against linoleum floors and muttering voices above her. There's hands roaming and fingers nudging, but she doesn't pay any attention to any of it.
She stares up at the ceiling, and eventually the white fades away into black.
...
Somewhere in the woods, a baby cries.
No one hears the wail...and no one hears the unmistakable sound of a gun being fired.
Soon after, the baby's whimpering quietens altogether, and nothing can be heard.
Until a second gunshot fires, and then, at last, the woods are silent.