This Is Our Way

This Is Our Way

My only escape is to drift off and remember the child utopia of my youth on the surface. Protected by structured walls made of strong rock, metal scraps from the previous life, and clay formed by our Elders. Everything in the Oasis is green, lush, and vibrant. Our bellies full and our every want or need met. There was laughter and joy and love in each little soul that walked the compound. Stories from the Great Elders and Academics passed down generation to generation give us roots to the cause of survival and progression now. Things used to be much different. A virus swept the earth in 2020, and when our people saw the light at the end of the tunnel, a bigger wave of catastrophe cascaded through the whole world. Viral variants multiplied, rushed vaccines had dire consequences, and worldwide power outages destroyed many populations. Civil unrest and war ran rampant before nature took over and started to heal itself from decades of destruction. The wild flourished like it had in ancient times. The beasts of the forests and jungles finally got the upper hand, and we were at their mercy, forced to go deep underground for protection. Our only saving grace was a genetic mutation found in an extremely rare number of us that gifted immunity to the superior viruses. Still, we were left severely outnumbered. The child sanctuary was nothing like the Elder’s times. Simple, basic, but everything you need to be strong and healthy and nurtured. The land was vast but the walls were colossal. Sunlight entered the valley during peak hours in the afternoons when it was at its highest point. Fresh water, hills, and vegetation flowed beautifully, and these memories are what keep my mind intact while I am physically confined in the dimly lit cavern the Expectants live in.

Life as a Menstruator is generally cold, brutal, and dark. Once you have your first bleed in the Oasis, you are quickly taken down below. Our kind is so under populated, there is an astronomical need for resurgence. We are bred after every bleed has finished and when you have a successful term, the infants get taken up to the Oasis where the Elders who have had successful fertile years live out their days. Completely disconnected from the only natural thing they desire, their life giver. This is our way. After delivery, you are drained of your milk to help sustain the colony. After a year of providing sustenance, the process starts again unless of course you dry up beforehand. Then, it’s back to breeding. Our work is essential for our species to survive. One day, we will take back the land we once roamed freely. It took thousands of years to build our civilization last time and only a hundred to bring us to where we stand today. We have a long journey ahead of us but my body is apart of a bigger plan than my mind longs for. Our species survival depends on my body. My emotions and thoughts are only inhibiting the goal I was born to achieve.

The kick of life in my belly pulls me out of my contemplation, and I rub the large bump instinctually. My body is a miracle. My body is all I have. While I am an Expectant, my days are much gentler compared to the Mensturators. The Extractor Elders tend to my physical wellness, as they have the imparted knowledge on how to bring life into the world, and I no longer am required to endure the breeding exercises. I can sit comfortably with the company of the other Expectants. Carefully designed skylights with reflective glass provide a small sparkles of light scattered through the ceiling. I never go hungry here. I am never without fluids. However, I long for the sunlight to kiss my cheeks or to feel the wind blow crisply through my hair. I pray to feel the rain dance on my skin once again. My only chance at that kind of life is to provide healthy young for my remaining fertile years. Then and only then will I be granted the ability to care for the young. To live happily in the Oasis once again.

The Extractor Elders wear heart shaped lockets made of hard metal. After all deliveries, they remove and heat the lockets until they are bright red, and place the heart onto the right thigh of the Life Giver to represent and track how many deliveries she has had. The heart represents life and success. The heart represents goals achieved, and the more hearts you have, the closer you are to returning to the Oasis. Life has a way of disappointing you though. Everything is not exact. Sometimes the body fails you, and if it continually fails you, the consequences are eternal. “Three strikes and you’re out” is an old saying from the older days. It is used in practice to this day as a measurement of worth for the fertile. If life dissolves inside the womb, the wound of the heart gets an additional “X” carved across it with a black ink tapped into the skin. Those who disappoint the colony by failing three times perish so their bodies can sustain the rest of us. Three crossed hearts is a life not worth living and an utter disappointment to our civilization. A waste of resources, time, air, and space. We don’t have the momentum to waste that kind of energy as it doesn’t help our mission. Your genetics are considered inferior to those who have success in their deliveries, so your physical self is seen as being more valuable as nourishment. If you surpass your 25th year of birth without a single conception, you again are converted to nourishment. The objective is to succeed until your 35th year of birth. After your 35th year, the risk of suboptimal offspring is too high, so you retired to above ground to live out your remaining days in peace and serenity. The thought of success is all too glorious. I am determined and very close to a successful fertility log. I am nearly 34 years old and I am due with this infant any day now. My remaining days as a Mensturator will be spent milking and then it is sweet freedom. Enduring the breeding activities for these many years takes its toll. My mind gets lost and I seem to loose my sense of self, almost leaving my body entirely. Positioned, shackled, and vacant until all of the scheduled implanters have finished their shift. Day after day, week after week, until you are on rest for your bleed, just to start it all over again. A career of pain and endurance to prove yourself significant to the progression of our livelihood. I circle the two crosses on my thigh with my finger with anxiety but feel the strength and power of the little one I’m currently carrying. This one will live. This one will thrive. They must. I have lost sisters in this life, many I have grieved. I miss them and mourn, but I have also paid respects with their offering to our society. It is an honour to help support the colony with your external vessel, so I am not afraid of death. I would just much rather the Oasis. Although no one is sure of what comes after you leave here. Maybe it is even more serene than what is above. What is known. I feel hopeful either way.

My waters break and the little one’s day has arrived. They will come to be within hours now and I can’t help but feel a little sad that my 6th companion will be leaving the safety of my body. The reassurance of their limbs stretching under my skin, visible from the outside. Hiccups sporadic at all hours of the day jolting my insides with their happy little flutter. Brand new life incubated with my very being. We are magical creatures. We are already better off than the years of my Life Giver, so I can only imagine their quality of life will be more improved than the one I’ve lived. Maybe it will be a male, unable to give life and allowed to be educated, implant, and grow old as Elders to hunt and gather beyond the walls. If it is destined to be a female, she will be strong, powerful, and magical just like the Mensturators before her. Regardless they will have years of happiness and nourishment surrounded by brothers and sisters to play and run and laugh.

My body becomes it’s own entity and I have no control over myself. The pain in my stomach radiates through my entire body, but I am familiar with this pain. Each birth is quicker than the last, so I know I am almost done. The locket around the neck of the extractor calls to me. I watch it sway as he moves to find a better position to help me deliver. I crave that burn. The final sear to inflict on my pale skin before I am considered a success. I push when I am told and I breath rhythmically in between. I will get that heart. I can do this. I grip down and push as hard as I can and feel the new life slide out into the world. Covered in blood and flesh, I am done. I have done it. A wave of euphoria courses through all of me and I can finally rest. In a haze, I come to the realization that I haven’t been burnt. It should have happened by now, shouldn’t it? It is then I realize, the room is silent and the Elders are surrounding the infant on a table adjacent the room from me. I sit up panicked. “What is wrong? Is it alive?” escape my mouth. My hand reflexively slaps it shut. I lay back down and pray to the moon and the stars for the cry of life and breath to no avail. I summon the courage to glance over, and a pale blue-purple limb is nearly hanging off the table. One of the Elders looks to the Extractor and shakes his head. I lay down and look up at the sprinkled luminosity embedded within the clay plaster ceiling above. I hear the Extractor move closer towards me and I take a deep breath. One last look at the enchanting, unattainable heart locket before darkness envelopes my entity for eternity.