Chapter Four: False Reality.
She couldn't breathe, she couldn't move, she couldn't scream anymore. Everything was going dark, blurring around the edges. She knew she should move, writhe and scream and try to escape the pull of the witch. But she couldn't. She was too tired to fight anymore. What was the point? Better instead to simply let go and float away forever. And if she was going to die, she was at least glad it was on Narnian soil...she just wished her baby could have seen it: just once, just for a minute. Her final thought before everything went dark was I wish I could see his face again, just once more...
Susan awoke to the sound of screaming. Her face was pressed onto a rough stone floor of what looked to be an English kitchen and she could faintly feel the beginnings of a migraine but the only thing she could focus on was the sound of the child's screaming. She had to do something, had to help, a baby needed her. The screaming abruptly cut off seconds after she managed to pull herself shakily to her feet; only to start up again seconds later, louder and high pitched. Stumbling towards the source of the noise, Susan paid little attention to the spinning of her head or the tremors she could feel wracking her whole body. One hand pressed into her stomach and the other holding her steady against the sooty walls surrounding her, she thought only of finding the baby she could still hear crying.
Other sounds accompanied it now: the wails of at least two other children, the angry voices of rough sounding women, the barking of a dog. But through it all, she could still pick out that one specific cry, that one specific child; drawing her towards it with ever growing fervour.
She thought nothing of the fact she was definitely back in England, didn't stop to wonder how she would ever get back to peter in Narnia and didn't once consider how it would look if she was to be caught wandering around a strangers house. The only thing she could think of was getting to the child. She had to get to it, it needed her. She couldn't leave it to suffer. Not after... she just wouldn't do it. Not to another child.
The noise of the crying began to become louder and louder as she forced herself to walk along the winding corridors of the darkened house. Through grimy windows set high in the cold, bare stone walls she could faintly see the sun attempting to penetrate the gloomy house only to be rebuffed by the twisting creepers that covered the majority of the pane. Simple, unadorned gas lanterns helped her to light her way as she stumbled searchingly along the halls, following only the sounds of the crying. As she finally reached a half open doorway, through which the wailing sounds of the baby could easily be heard, shrieking miserably in its rough, wooden cot while only a single blanket covered its tiny body, Susan sent a small prayer of thanks to Aslan as she slipped silently through the doorway and rushed to the child's side.
Scooping him delicately out of the cot and cradling him gently to her chest while rocking him slowly to calm his cries; tears slowly ran down Susan's cheeks, wishing that it was her own son she held so tenderly in her arms. Smiling tearfully down at the now silent baby, she brought a finger gently to his face and traced the lines around his mouth, noticing sorrowfully how similar it was to her own child's.
Looking away sharply to stop the flood of tears she could feel building, from flowing down her pale, tear streaked face, Susan tried to force herself to remember that her own baby was gone and that she was never going to get him back. No matter how much she wished she could.
As she glanced down at the tiny child in her arms and looked into the eyes blinking up at her sleepily however, she gasped and had to bring a hand to her mouth to stifle her shocked cry. The baby cradled to her chest had her eyes. The same eyes she had looked lovingly into for the first two months of his life before he was ripped away forever. The eyes of her son.
