I do not own Terminator: Rise of the Machines.
I am not in a machine apocalypse. From a certain point of view. ;)
Not A Church Youth Group Sleepover
*Trigger Warning For Disturbing Content*
After Birth
The nearly catatonic woman allows them to clean her up.
Kate and Ava.
She has not torn, a small miracle, probably because the child is so small.
The placenta has issued out, they cut the cord, clear the refuse away.
She allows them to change her into a clean shift, clean dressings to catch the continued shedding of her womb.
As pliable and compliant as a dress-up doll.
So detached from the world around her.
But not from the only one that, at this moment, really matters.
Tears roll down her cheeks, drip down onto the child.
She wipes them off, the tears, with trembling, bloodsoaked fingers and quietly sobbing kisses.
And Kate and Ava work carefully.
Gently.
Wipe off the dead baby.
His mother will not relinquish him even then, keeps him close so they only may wipe his deformed head, his eyeless face.
And they also clean the room.
It is a shower and easy to clean, Bella was right about that.
It would seem obscene to thank her for it.
So they don't.
Only continue to work in silence.
And when they are done, . . .
"Bella, will you come to the infirmary with me? To rest?"
"Can . . . can the baby come too?"
"Yes."
"Okay."
. . . they leave.
She still won't give him over, won't let him go.
Only lays curled on the cot Ava has guided her to. Lays with the white sheet up to her waist Ava has covered her with.
Lays.
And cradles her dead baby to her chest.
Rocking the still bundle, kissing the tiny forehead.
Vacant gaze fixed upon the slack, almost translucently pale face.
And Kate thinks.
Carefully, while she pretends to arrange supplies.
And then . . .
"I'll come back and check on you in a couple of minutes, okay?"
"Okay."
. . . leaves the room.
The men have gathered.
Men who know nothing about life and death like women do.
Or Kate for that matter, she guesses.
Not personally.
Not like this.
Not like Bella.
And they huddle.
Kate feels John close to her.
Feels him wanting her to look at him.
But . . .
"We have to take the . . . the body soon."
. . . she can't.
She just can't.
His face, that face she has grown to love, to rely on, will break her if she looks at it.
And so she doesn't.
Because she can't.
And they all talk.
"I know."
She manages to exchange looks with Ava, now silent again that she has done what she must, cared for Bella and her dead child.
"I know."
And the men are as gentle as they can be.
"It's going to start to . . . you know . . . rot and make her sick."
As gentle as they can be.
"I know."
It's not their fault.
"We have to burn it."
It's not any of their fault.
"I know."
But they still have to deal with it.
"It could spread disease in the compound."
They still have to survive.
"I know. Just . . . just give her the night, okay? Just a few more hours. She's . . . very upset. She's been throughout a lot. Just give her a little time. She needs to say goodbye."
Everybody knows it.
"Okay. But then we've got to take it, Kate."
They just have to steel themselves enough . . .
"I know."
. . . to do what they must.
"We'll dose her if we have to. To get it out of her arms."
"Okay."
Because they are still, in fact, human.
"The longer we let her keep it . . . the harder it will be to let go."
"And the sicker any of us might get."
"I know."
No matter how much it hurts.
So that's the grim plan.
And it makes them all sick to their stomaches, their hearts, their souls to consider it.
Except . . .
Oh no.
. . . they are never forced to enact it.
No.
Because the decision . . .
Oh god, no.
. . . is made for them.
Kate is rigid, upright in the otherwise empty bed, heart pounding, before she even knows she's heard a sound.
And even though she doesn't know what made the sound-
Bella. It was Bella.
- or even what the sound was-
A gun. It was a gun.
- she knows she has to go.
She killed herself.
And that she is . . .
Because of the baby.
. . . afraid to.
And everything she knew, before she even knew she was awake, . . .
Oh god.
No.
. . . is true.
Bella is dead.
But she didn't use a gun.
That was a part of Kate's mind that made her wake up.
Instead, . . .
Oh Jesus.
I thought I put everything up.
. . . a bloody scalpel lays next to the body.
Placed down on the shower room floor, returned to the scene of her very own personal apocalypse, it's churning to the stomach that a woman in such pain insists on being so courteous with the easy cleanup of her suicide.
And the baby, her dead baby, . . .
Oh Jesus. Oh god.
. . . is still in her arms.
Soaked now more than ever with the blood of his mother that drained her own empty life away through her wrists as she laid down on her side, put her face to her baby's, and wrapped her arms lovingly around him.
And died.
Silently.
Oh god.
And all . . .
Oh god, this is my fault.
. . . alone.
She feels them gathering behind her, this small band of afraid, uncertain, vulnerable humans lost and alone in the machine apocalypse, everything ruined and destroyed forever beyond any true repair of any kind.
She supposes she may have screamed, her or Ava, screamed without knowing it.
Screamed out her shock, her horror, her anguish at this dead woman and her baby.
Screamed and awakened everyone.
Everyone now seeing what she sees.
The death of the human race, one extinguished soul at a time.
And she cannot stop thinking about it, cannot stop seeing it.
This is my fault.
This is all my fault.
Oh god.
I'm so sorry.
This is a mini story arc of four chapters so there's two more after this.
I'm posting them all at once because there should be no waiting for all this grim awful horror.
And it's okay if you don't want to read or review. It's pretty ugly.