Amber Lynne's posts

Her breath was ragged, her throat hurt, but she knew she couldn’t stop. It didn’t matter how much pain she felt, how much hatred was in her core. She knew that she had to continue to press on, she knew she had to keep her unborn baby safe. It didn’t matter what it was that would come of this, even if she would die, she had to do all she could to get somewhere that her baby would be safe. She had to make sure he didn’t fall[ into the hands of those that wished to end his life before it fully started.

“I… I r-refuse to give in!” She stammered in a quiet exclamation of determination. She needed to boost her motivation, her endurance. All she needed, was to survive. With a hand on her enlarged belly, she found herself questioning, though. Would she survive? Would she succeed in having her unborn baby survive? There was no way to know what the future held for her, but she did know that she had to try.

She kept running, despite the pain, despite the desperation - or perhaps because of it - until she came upon what looked to be an abandoned shack. It looked to have seen better days, for it was falling apart. As she approached, she watched a piece of the roof fall inward and heard the resulting crash from that debris meeting the floor within. For all she knew, it was in just as poor a state inside as the roof, and the outside was, but she wasn’t going to complain. It was the best she had at the moment.

She approached the door carefully, hesitantly, while peering over her shoulder almost constantly. She kept her ears trained for the sounds of much of anything. She couldn’t risk being caught, and thankfully as she reached the door, she didn’t hear anything. She couldn’t relax just yet, though, and she knew that, but for the moment, she was willing to at least let her nerves rest a moment. She wouldn’t let her guard down yet, solely because someone could come from the trees around her without her realizing they were there, but she could relax a little.

When she tried the door, she found it locked. It wasn’t a surprise, though, as she’d expected it to be. She was willing to bet that whoever had resided within this cabin had left it leisurely. Perhaps they had realized that it wasn’t somewhere that could be saved, and left so as not to have to worry about it any longer. It may have been something else, but she hadn’t expected it to be that they had left it with everything inside and the door unlocked.

She did realize, though, that it was very likely it was left in a hurry. Amid all the fighting that was occurring around the world, she wouldn’t have been surprised. At the moment, though, she didn’t care. All she was worried about was the fact that this cabin while being in a very sorry state, would provide her some protection from the elements. She knew that, and it was enough. Even just somewhere to lay that wasn’t the ground would be appreciated for the moment.

She held her hand over the lock, looking around again, before concentrating as some heat started to collect in the palm of her hand. After she’d ascertained, again, that she was along, she closed her eyes and focused on the task at hand. It took all she had at the moment to not give into her body’s desires and just collapse right there, but that was solely because she knew that once she got inside, she could hide. She could rest. She would be relatively safe for the moment.

She sent the heat from her hand into the metal of the lock, feeling it start to give. After a minute of the heat working the metal, she laid her hands on the door and applied some pressure, wondering if it would open. When it moved slightly, she smirked lightly as she just pushed the door open wide enough she could slip in.

There were strings of metal that were still connecting between the door and the frame, but she didn’t care. She quickly made her way in, brushing aside the liquid metal strings, before closing the door. It was a relief to have finally made it inside, and she allowed her guard to relax now. Even if they were to go by the building, she wouldn’t be easy to find. She could afford to let her guard down here if only just to allow herself to get some sleep, something she knew that she needed.

Inside was as she expected. Normally, she would never consider staying there, but desperate times called for desperate measures. She couldn’t deny the minimal hospitality that this place was giving her, even if she’d needed to break in. It was a place to stay for the night, just until dawn. It was somewhere that she would be relatively safe. Well, as long as she was careful as to where she stepped. It looked as if the floor would give way with just a fraction of a gram of weight in some places if the holes that populated the floor were any indication. The floor, along with the creatures that she watched run past her and out the shattered window, made the woman seriously question how safe she would be there for a night.

“No… It’s just one night. I can’t throw this luck away.” She said quietly in an attempt to try and convince herself to stay there. She didn’t want to, solely because of the state of the place, but at the same time, she knew that she would have to if she wanted a chance to recharge her batteries. She was exhausted, and anyone who saw her would be able to tell. Her black hair was a mess, looked as If it hadn’t had anything akin to a comb taken through it in years. Her skin was pale and covered with splotches of dirt, and her face was gaunt. She looked to be the walking dead, somewhere between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead. She was succeeding in keeping herself, and her baby, alive through sheer determination and self-preservation. She had to keep her baby safe until she gave birth,

“Just one night…” She repeated to herself a couple of times as she carefully stepped around the holes she could see on the floor, each step planned and calculated to try and avoid falling through. She was aiming to get over to the large cushion, hoping to be able to get somewhere at least minimally more comfortable than the decaying wood floor. Thankfully, she was successful, and just sank into the embrace of the rotting cushion.

“I’m sorry Vyran… I’m so sorry…” She said quietly as she laid back. It was far from comfortable, but it was leagues above what she’d been sleeping on for the past fortnight.

“Momma won’t be able to give you a proper welcome into this world.” She added, her voice fading as she laid back on the cushion, her consciousness fading. She had been awake for about three days straight by that point, although she had no idea what the true length of time was, and her body needed sleep. She looked it, too. Her black hair was a mess and looked as if it hadn’t had anything akin to a comb taken through it in years, her skin was pale and covered with splotches of dirt, and her face was rather gaunt. All in all, she looked like she was the walking dead, but alive. It wouldn’t be hard to believe that she was one that was balancing on the cusp of falling into either realm, that she was only alive because of her determination to save and protect her unborn baby.

With a shudder and a small cry of pain due to old whip wounds, not healing, her body gave in to its own desires. She was asleep before she realized how close to that edge she was.

—*—

The silence of the night was enough to allow anything to be heard, and heard clearly. When the sound of hooves on the ground outside was heard inside, she woke with a start and a gasp.

“No!” She exclaimed quietly, her hands around her belly for a moment before she scrambled to her feet. She had to protect her baby since the one in her womb was the one that they were after. She knew what they wanted to do to him, as well, and didn’t dare let that happen.

“I won’t let them take you, Vyran.” She stated with determination in her tone. She knew that there wasn’t a desire to kill her, at least not yet, so she was going to put her life on the line to save her child. This would be her only child, for several medics had told her that the chances of her carrying again were astronomically against her. It was something that she refused to admit, to accept, but some deep part of her did. As a result, she would fight tooth and nail to keep her one miracle baby.

“I just nee-” She started before dropping to her knees, pain wracking through her body. She could barely breathe, could barely see anything with the pain that was deciding to tear through her torso. It was more than she could handle. She had never been in so much pain before and hadn’t expected to be in so much at any point in her life. When she felt something wet start to run down the inside of her thighs, she paled before looking down.

With a hand reaching under the remnants of her skirt, reaching toward her nether regions, she felt what was there and froze. When she pulled her hand away, she saw that yes. It was wet. She didn’t know what to say, think or even do here. She’d never been trained in the manner to deal with childbirth - especially if alone for it - and never had a chance to ask the questions to find out. The last time she’d spoken to a medic was close to five months ago, before she had found out that her baby was to be killed. It hadn’t been something that she felt she’d need to know at the time.

“N… no…” She said quietly, her voice almost pleading with whatever deity would listen. She didn’t call out to one, but it was there. Her unspoken plea for the pain to stop, for the baby to remain in her womb, to remain safe, was there.

Her body didn’t listen. No deities of any sort listened. Before long, she let out a cry (that was more like a scream) and found herself instinctively pushing the tiny body that was within her out. At some point through all that, the pain reached a point that it was too much for her to handle and she blacked out. She wasn’t awake exactly; her body was just doing what it needed to do.

When all was said and done, she laid there, in her own fluids and holding the naked and bloody form of a baby boy with fair skin. She was asleep, as the pain had rendered her unconscious - completely, and utterly.

—*—

At the crack of dawn, she stirred to the infant's cries. She was a bit slow to rise, but when she did finally fully wake, she just pulled her child close. She whispered some sweet nothings to him, hoping to calm him down before seeming to clue into something. He was most likely quite hungry. She didn’t know if she’d fed him before losing consciousness several hours ago, so she removed what she was wearing as a shirt to reveal her swollen breasts and allow the child to suckle some sustenance from one. As he fed, she light pet his hand, stroked his face. He was such an innocent child, so sweet. How could the prophecy have been about her son?

“Oh Vyran, you are so beautiful.” She said quietly as her son continued to suckle her breast. She knew that he didn’t have long to feed before she had to get a move on, and she wasn’t sure she would be able to continue feeding him as she was moving to where she was going. She knew that she had to get out of the country, she just didn’t know where she would go, exactly. There weren’t many places that would accept her; she was sure. She had no one, nothing for her parents had disowned her years ago for being involved with someone that they had not approved of. If they were to find out that she had just given birth to a child that he had helped to create, she knew they wouldn’t be thrilled and would likely try and kill the baby themselves.

“Vyran… I swear to you. I will keep you safe from a world that wants you dead.” She told him quietly.

Once he was done feeding, she grabbed the remnants of a blanket she saw and wrapped her son up in it. She knew it wasn’t a good idea, but she didn’t have much of a choice. And old blanket was better than nothing. Even still, to keep him warm she would have to make sure that she held him good and close, and she did. She made sure it wasn’t a tight enough grasp on him to cause any possible harm but was close and tight enough to keep him safe.

She had to clear out of there, despite the fact that she knew she was no in any shape to. The longer she stayed there, the more of a risk she had of being caught. With one last look at all the blood and other biological remnants she had left on the floor, she sighed and left.

“I have to get to Oretzy.” She muttered as she poked her head out of the window. She didn’t even both checking the door. She knew she wouldn’t be able to open it for it was sealed shut. The sealing was unintentional, but it did allow her a bit of safety in that sense. The melted metal would have dried in the hours that she’d been there, sleeping on the floor.

She climbed out of the window without thinking about it, before heading off into the forest to the east. She had to hide as she traveled, and she had to hope that they would accept her in the big city.