The Birth

The Creeper cleans out the cave in the mountains as best he can and puts down a pile of sweet smelling hay and clean blankets for Maria. Maria is nine months pregnant and terrified. She begs constantly to the Creeper to let her go to a hospital but he refuses. She lays on her bed most of the day just waiting. The Creeper helps her go outside to relieve herself or to bathe in a small stream down a steep slope. Her ankle is much better but still not fully healed.

The day the birth comes Maria is in a full out panic. She feels terrible about it, since she's endangering another life, but she begs the Creeper to kidnap a doctor, a nurse or a midwife, anyone who can help her. He refuses again, paranoid about their hiding spot and their safety. He sniffs her periodically and tells her everything is fine.

Maria labors long throughout the day, utterly terrified something will go horribly wrong. If the Creeper leaves she begs him not to, and he stays with her. He keeps telling her everything is fine and she believes him and calms down somewhat. The monster knows very little about childbirth, humans rarely give birth where he can see and it's not something he's interested in much anyway. But animals seem to manage fine on their own and everything about the mother and baby smells and feels ok anyway so he's not worried. The Breeder begs him to stay and he does, even though he's getting a little hungry. He eats stored human meat. Her cries of pain make him uneasy and he's glad they are in this remote location. He periodically checks to make sure no one is around them. He does not want other humans around her anymore.

The birth is painful, like all births. But Maria truly suffers more from her own fear. She lays there, whimpering and praying. The Creeper does everything she asks: Get me water, wipe my sweat off, tie my hair back, but he's not really a comforting presence. She feels terribly alone.

Maria feels it's the longest day of her life, longer than the day she first met the Creeper and almost as terrifying. She dreams or hallucinates of Darius who is comforting, then of her dead mother, who tells her to be strong, everything will be ok, all mothers must go through this. Maria feels slightly better.

By the end of the day she's utterly exhausted because she doesn't know when to really properly push, sweaty and dehydrated. The Creeper feeds her little sips of water. He also starts a fire and heats some water. Maria is understandably hot and miserable.

But the final contractions comes soon enough around sunset and she's screaming and thrashing in panic. The Creeper calmly picks her up and holds her, resetting clean hay in her bed. Maria calms down somewhat against the Creeper's rock solid presence. He holds her up a little, letting gravity work on the baby. Now is the moment. Maria can do nothing but push and she draws on some deep inner strength to go through the final moments. She pushes hard several times, the Creeper holding her up. After several of the most agonizing minutes of her entire life the baby is pushed out, caught by the Creeper and gently eased onto the bed. Maria immediately leans back against him and falls asleep.

The Baby

Maria wakes up on her back less than an hour after having fallen asleep. However the sun has gone down and the baby has been born. It has cooled down in the cave considerably and she the sweat makes her cold and shivery, a blanket has been thrown over her by the Creeper. A crying sound chips away at her sleep and she realizes it's the baby.

She's immensely thirst so she croaks out for water, which the Creeper promptly brings. She can only take little sips. The crying continues and she asks to see him.

It is a him, is the first thing she notices. It's a boy but obviously not human. Like the Creeper he has a human shape, a baby's body, fat head and pudgy little limbs and body but its skin is a soft grey. It's large head is covered with bumps and where she realizes it will grow head spines like the Creeper. She feels his back- he has tiny wrinkled wings folded against its back.

The Creeper is a little nervous. The Breeder might utterly reject the child, or worse try to hurt or kill it. But it's been crying since its been born and it needs its mother he tries to get her to hold it. She doesn't and he's worried but he notices that she tries to lift her arms but can't. She's way too tired and weak, so he holds it to her. She does not reject the baby.

Maria continues looking in fascination. It seems hungry but she can't hold him. The Creeper holds her on his lap lifts her shirt and holds the baby to her and it nurses for a while. Maria dozes and after a bit the baby does the same. When it seems content the Creeper puts it in a blanket lined box.

The next morning its cries wake her up and the Creeper repeats the process of feeding. Maria is still terribly tired but she feels much better. She feels lighter without the child within her and relieved it's all over. She does not hold or coo at the baby but neither does she try to harm it. She notices its tiny little feet have strong grasping toes like the Creeper, and that his cord has been cut and tied.

She begins to look around. Her pajama top is still wet with milk and sweat but she's wearing clean bottoms with a pad to catch any excess blood from the birth. Her beddings have also been changed. She flashes back to an old health class and asks the Creeper, "Where is the placenta?" He looks blank. "You know, the afterbirth?" He merely smiles and licks his fingers. Revolted, Maria and the baby sleep again.

Sickness

A few days pass, Maria loses count of them, but they are not many. She sleeps a lot. She can hold the baby now. She feeds it, she studies it carefully, it is small and weak and squirmy as any other baby. Despite her fears it has no sharp teeth, or any teeth at all for that matter. It's a baby, but it's a Creeper. She nicknames it the Creepling.

The Creeper brings her human food. He helps her up, takes her to the stream or outside to relieve herself. She feels better, she feels stronger.

Until one day she doesn't. She feels weaker, she feels slightly feverish. He abdomen cramps and she bleeds. It's worrying to her and the Creeper as well, who smells her thoroughly and doesn't seem to like what he smells. He tells her he must hunt, he is hungry after taking care of them so much, but while he is out he will look for human medicine. She says nothing but stays worried. She feeds the Creepling but she seems to have less milk than before. She lays him in his box/crib, and thinks. She has a fever, she is still weak, but she needs help. She's gave him his baby, she's done her forced job. She is leaving.

Slowly and with a pronounced limp she leaves the cave.

Escape

Every step is pain, not just from her recent childbirth, but from her still swollen ankle. She wants to go back. She is scared, this is a stupid idea, her fever is getting worse. But she keeps going forward.

I'll get caught, she thinks with fear, I'll get caught and he'll rip my foot off or something worse. Her abdomen cramps painfully and she thinks the fear makes it more painful. She desperately thinks of what to say when she is caught as she slowly and agonizingly makes her way down the mountain. I am sick, I need help, I was looking for you, please help me. Maybe if she was weak and pathetic enough he would not punish her.

Blood stain her pants as she walks holding onto trees and rock walls. Several times she stops, thinking it is impossible but she foolishly keeps going, rolling or sliding her way down if necessary. It is torture but she is feverish and not thinking very clearly now. All she needs now is help, whether from the Creeper or someone else it doesn't matter. The trail turns into a dirt road then into a paved one. She sees a building. She stumbles towards it and nearly collapses. The blood stain between the pants of her legs grew even more.

When she comes to the building all she can see is that it is closed. It looks like an old bar. It has a FOR LEASE sign on it. She crawls up the steps and knocks but no sounds come from within.

She is tired, exhausted from everything. Just before she falls asleep she thinks of the Creepling, and with a jolt of guilt realizes she left him back there alone.

She wakes when the sun is down. But there are red and blue lights, and a white light, one that shines in her face. Her fever feels worse.

She hears the weird electronic voices before she hears a man shout. "We know you're there, the locals saw you!"

The white light sweeps over her. She blinks to clear her confusion but the fever makes it hard to think. Maria looks up to see the light in the hands of a man, a cop. His police radio beeps and sputters with strange voices.

His light shines in her face, weakly she shields her eyes with her hand and he can see blood glistening on her fingers. The light travels down her prone body and he can see the blood stains on her legs. Maria hears a muttered "Oh Shit", before the cop calls for an ambulance.

A/N: Well, I finally updated hooray for me. If you want a better picture of the Creepling there are pictures of him on DeviantArt. Both by me under the name LinkxNabooru4ever and by a wonderful artist named Pilar-sama. Give them a look!

Also I've never had children, I asked women who have had them a lot of advice for this part but still experiencing it a whole lot different then reading/hearing about it, so if you've been through childbirth please don't laugh at my feeble descriptions.