Prompt: Flash Fiction can be fun and a real challenge. This week focus on the words and the strength of each to contribute to your story. Write a 300 word piece using the following word for inspiration: LIFE.
"You okay, Miss?" The elderly man bent down to where she'd collapsed after running, her back against the wall, test strip still in hand. Positive. It said positive.
"Oh, uh...yeah. Yeah, thanks." But she wasn't, didn't know if she'd ever be. That night, that nightmare, was the only reality she could see.
He'd followed her home from the store, shoving her inside, scattering groceries across the floor. The jam jar shattered, along with her soul. Powerless to stop him, he seemed to feed on her fear, taking innocence, taking everything she thought she was. Even after he was gone, he stayed inside her head, taunting her. Now a piece of him was inside her body as well. Demon spawn. Devil’s child.
"No, you're not real." She managed to pretend for awhile. When she finally made an appointment to rid herself of the death growing within her, she found she couldn't. The clinic waiting room seemed...wrong. It smelled like that night and she found herself running once again.
Hiding herself in her apartment, a love/hate relationship formed with the being inside of her. She enjoyed the companionship of the movement inside but would lose herself in memories of that night, pounding her fists on her growing belly.
Months passed, the contractions began. Pain made sense to her, she found it cathartic. Ready to rid herself of the last bit of the nightmare, she embraced it.
And then she heard the cry.
It pierced deep within her, reminding her of what she'd forgotten. The nurse placed the slippery body onto hers. She stared into innocent eyes that pushed away the horror she'd been living through, beautiful eyes that spoke to her soul.
"Hello, Zoe."
From darkness and destruction, here was life. And suddenly, she was ready to fight for it once again.
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