Damn If You Doom

Bethany, bleeding profusely from her lower region, dropped to the ground as contractions, two minutes apart, brought her to her knees causing her to extend the palm of her right hand involuntarily releasing the golden heart shaped locket engraved with the letters "B & H" that her late husband, Hector had gifted to her last Christmas. It was the last time Bethany had laid eyes on her husband before he fell ill. Slipping in and out of consciousness, Bethany kept hearing Hector's voice, "Our little girl needs you," he said. Reaching over for the bloody antique locket, it was as if it had given Bethany strength because try as she might, she slowly rose to her feet but as quickly as she stood up, she fell flat on her face.

Disgustingly, Bethany was suffering a miscarriage and the soldiers dispatched to enforce the city of Tivali's Marshall Law, watched her in agony as she bled like a hog at a slaughter house. Blood everywhere! Tivali had been under a state of emergency for the past three months. The Rouxdrid Virus made the Covid-19 virus look like a common cold. Rouxdrid had mercilessly wiped out 50 million people in the surrounding areas and the people of Tivali became frantic and restless. They had been on a continuous 24 hour lockdown, jobs became obsolete and just about everyone's food supply became depleted. You could hear screams of hunger for miles as children went to bed on empty stomachs. Tivali only housed a population of 3,000 residents so the governing body was able to slow the spread as it is a fairly small city and the residents were quite easy to contain, or so the Governor thought. After a while, the people became resilient to find refuge the less they had to lose. They had heard conspiracy theories about doomsday but it is finally here and it was their worst nightmare.

The Governor made an announcement stating that it is mandatory for all citizens to participate in the "Project Z" vaccine program in exchange for a measly portion of food that could not even feed the family poodle but enough to bridge starvation but barely. This was not Bethany's first time being introduced to Project Z, in fact, it was proposed to her in the early prenatal stages of her doctor's visits but she adamantly declined. Because of her refusal to accept the vaccine, she was refused medical attention when she first proposed the idea that she may be having a miscarriage and they even spitefully denied her servings of food for being an outlaw. Her refusal was unacceptable!

The governing bodies from what was left of the remaining cities were looking to join forces to propose a new world order with emphasis on authoritarianism in exchange for meager living. It was almost as if the citizens were a herd of cattle because sure enough per the Governor's orders, soldiers started rounding up the citizens based on class; all the while Bethany is planning an escape but how? Where? When? She did not have a clue! Moving her plan of escape to her subconscious mind while she ponder a temporary pain relief from the corpse of a four month old fetus exiting her body, Bethany screamed and dragged her weak body as soldiers pushed and shoved her to join the rest of the pack with urgency but she simply could not.

However, in the midst of Bethany's pain, it did not take Bethany long to notice a girl, no more than twelve years by herself. With a look of despair, it didn't take a second thought for Bethany to realize that the girl was lost, separated from her parents during the round-up. The soldiers were ordered to take the citizens to the next sovereign state over in search of a larger food and water supply but only under one condition-they take the vaccine. This was not even a consideration for Bethany as she was a practicing Registered Nurse before the Rouxdrid virus hovered it's dark cloud over the land and claimed millions of lives. In the early stages, the government was pushing the vaccine and as a result people started losing two to three of their sensory organs but the sensory vacancy varied from person to person and as if that was not horrid enough, people started growing extra ligaments and started developing deformities unknown to man and unlike Scientist had ever seen. It was then that Bethany started traveling to a neighboring town, brick by brick, laying the foundation to an underground bunker. It was as if Hector knew the day would come because just before he grew ill, he advised her to formulate an escape plan when he saw the amount of live the virus had claimed at the time.

People were evaporating into pillars of dust right in front of their very eyes, broadcasted on the daily news. He knew that he didn't have much time left so he encouraged Bethany to plan towards her escape with hopes of creating a better life for the baby. Religiously, everyday after work for the past three months of the lock down while the city was scarce with people, Bethany drove for miles to a neighboring state, loading up her bunker with health care supplies that she had taken from the medicine supply closet at work along with loads of canned goods that people had donated for the sick at the hospital. Now, all Bethany needed was to gain the strength and a proper plot plan to make a clean breakaway to bring her and the little girl to safety. But, just as the thought crossed her mind to find a detour, she had witnessed a group of men and women hogged tied and shot to death by soldiers mercilessly for trying to escape. She lacked speed and the adrenaline to out run an army of soldiers so she used what she possessed best and could control, that is her whit.

A recently abandoned bathroom was coming up on their trek to the next state as she followed the crowd with a gun pointed in her side; bleeding uncontrollably she used her femininity to play on the woman soldier that was guarding her, "Have a heart, aren't you a mother? At least allow me to clean my wound. Feel free to guard the door!" Bethany gazed at the little girl that she had taken under her wing and asked her, "Don't you have to go too? We've been on quite a long journey," Bethany said. The little girl nodded. In a city of 3,000 residents, our absence was hardly noticed. The soldier roughly led us to the bathroom and waited by the door. This was a bathroom that I had known all too well. See, what the soldier didn't know is that there was a small window that could lead Bethany in another direction, much different from the path that they were on. Bethany stood on the toilet and gave the little girl a boost, followed by slowly propelling and dragging herself through the window sill as if to not make a peep. As soon as her feet hit the parched pavement, the little girl, no more than 4'10 took off running like their lives depended on it-because it did. Bethany had scoped this area over two dozen times on her daily transit to her bunker so it was not foreign to her but far it was. They toiled and their feet blistered in the hot sun on their extraneous journey. They walked for what seemed like for weeks.

Approximately two days or so had gone by and the only hydration they had gotten were the beams of cold sweat that washed their faces on their gruesome journey in search of their bunker. Hunger swarmed them but they toiled, they made rest stops along the way and cried a bit-ok, a lot! The journey wasn't easy to say the least. Just when they felt like they couldn't go the distance, Bethany reached down for the heart shaped locket that Hector gave her that she kept close to her heart and it's a if it was a scene from Alibaba and the forty thieves, the mild marker that she used to locate her bunker was not so far in the distance.

The little girl and Bethany picked up speed. They ran as if the soldiers were still after them and dropped to the ground when they got to their hideaway. Bethany slowly let her down into the bunker and she entered backwards to ensure that no one was on their trail. She made her way for a mask to provide them with some of the air that had been knocked out of their lungs between the long walk, running and all else in between. They cried tears of joy which turned to sadness as they reminisced on their late and loved one that had been separated from them while simultaneously pondering the faith of their fellow Tivalians. The residents of Tivali are doomed but I'll be damned!