"Screaming"
In one of the many cells buried beneath the world, a woman lay sprawled on a slab of cold stone – the only thing the prison had given her. No bed. No warmth. Just hard rock beneath her spine.
Her scream echoed through the passageway, outside her small cell. It was the cry of a mother, dragging a new life that was not ready for this world.
Her hands clutched the edges of the slab as another wave of agony tore through her. She wasn't just crying out – she was fighting, enduring and waiting for the moment she could finally see her yet to be born child.
"Please…" she cried, her voice trembling with pain.
She was alone, trapped in the basement cells carved in the earth. Her only hope was the distant guards who stood at the edge of the hallway, unmoved. Her screams reached them, but they remained still – figures frozen by command.
Maybe she knew somewhere deep in her heart that no one would come. Nevertheless, she hoped. The guards stood unmoved, and the stone swallowed her voice like it had swallowed many before hers. But still, she pleaded.
"Cowards!" she spat through clenched teeth.
"You hear me. You hear me!!"
No reply. No movement. Only silence as if there was no one in this world except her and her unborn child.
Then the suffering came again, as if reminding her that there was no one left who would help her now, that she was fated to give birth by herself. She had never imagined giving birth alone, enduring the agony of childbirth without support.
She wanted to pass out. To disappear from this world that was toying with her and never come back again. But nonetheless she persisted – maybe not for herself, but for her unborn baby, she knew that her child would have their own life and that they would not be imprisoned here with her for eternity.
That's why she didn't faint, the pain felt like fire from hell, burning her from inside out. Her body locked, her vision blurred. Her breaths were so heavy and loud that she was feeling pain just by sucking the air. Her back screamed, hips collapsed, and the stone slab felt like the hardest metal known to humankind.
Another wave of agony hit her — worse than the ones before.
"Ahhhhhhhh—!!!" she screamed.
And then, suddenly, it was over, a tiny voice shattered the silence.
"Waaaah… Waaaah…"
The pain lingered, but she no longer felt it, the cry of the newborn was loud yet it calmed her heart.
She reached out, trembling, to lift the child still covered in her blood. She realized that it was a boy. His eyes were closed, mouth was wide open, crying endlessly, but life was cruel, she couldn't clearly see his face in the faint glow of a lonely, dim lamp outside her cell.
But she was not depressed, if one could see her face now, they would find not the look of a woman who had been in agony moments ago, her face had a motherly smile.
Her arms, though trembling, tightened around him. Her eyes closed — not in exhaustion, but in peace. Her skin was pale, her breaths slow… and then they stopped. The newborn whimpered against her chest, but she didn't stir again. Hours later, the boy still lay cradled in those arms, but the warmth was gone.
She was dead.
With severe bleeding and no help to stop it, her death was inevitable.
She wanted to at least see her child clearly, she knew that she would be separated from him but the least she could do was name him.
The now lonely child didn't even get a name from his mother.
An hour passed in an instant.
The temperature in the cell was around 15°C, enough to be uncomfortable for an adult lying on stone, but dangerous for a baby within hours.
The child was still naked, and the warmth from his mother was gone, without any clothes or blankets it was hard to say if he would survive for even half a day.
Tap… tap… tap…
A sound echoed down the stone corridor. Both guards straightened, their hands tightening on their spears.
A figure emerged from the shadows at the top of the stairs — a man descending into the underground jail. He had a striking face, golden hair, and cold blue eyes. He paused in front of the two guards and stared at them.
The guards wore dark, worn leather armor. Their eyes were emotionless, indicating they had not been in touch with human society for many years.
"You confirmed that she is dead?" the man asked in a cold voice, laced with something that almost sounded like amusement.
One of the guards nodded.
"Yes, sir. We heard her. Screaming during labour. Then silence. When we delivered her meal, she was dead. The child was still in her arms. We reported it immediately," the guard replied.
There was not even a hint of pity or sorrow in his voice, he had long forgotten these feelings. He had seen enough scenes like this in his years as a guard of this cruel underground prison.
The man said nothing. The silence pressed in, heavy as the stone walls.
"Bring me to her cell," the man ordered.
The guard immediately opened the prison gates and started moving towards the cell where the woman was imprisoned. The man followed behind calmly.
The passageway stretched ahead, lined with cells on both sides. Only three lamps burned, each in front of a cell, indicating that someone was imprisoned there. The rest of the cells were empty, their bars rusted, in the darkness.
The guard stopped at the first lamp. Took out the metal keys from his pockets and slid one into the lock, and swung the door open.
He stepped back, leaving the threshold clear.
The man ducked beneath the low frame and stepped inside. Dim light spilled across the slab, brushing the lifeless body of the woman and the tiny infant clenched in her arms.
He stared at the face of the woman, then shifted his eyes toward the child. The child was silent, deep asleep, still in her dead mother's arms.
"So… childbirth was all it took to finish you," he said, voice flat but edged with contempt. "I'd have enjoyed watching you rot here… but you took the easy way out."
He glanced at the child one last time. "I'm not in the mood to kill someone who's just been born," he said, then added with a faint curl of his lip, "Not worth the effort."
His gaze flicked to the guards. "Drop him at the nearest village orphanage. Let him rot there."
"As you wish, sir."
Without another word, he turned and walked out.
The guards stepped aside, spears lowering in silent deference. His shadow stretched long across the corridor until it disappeared into the stairwell above, leaving the cell in stillness once more.
Only the faint breathing of the child remained… and the slow, inevitable cooling of the woman's body.