Birth and Rebirth

An abandoned warehouse – Morning . . .

‘Dripping. There it is again.’ Jessica slowly shook off the fog of unconsciousness that clouded her mind. It took her several minutes to focus her vision. She took in her surroundings. She was in what appeared to be an office. It was dilapidated, and the smell of stale air told her that this place had not been used regularly for quite some time. ‘So much for yelling for help.’ Somewhere in the building, there was a leaky faucet dripping. ‘That’s gonna drive me nuts.’

She lay on a cot in a windowless room. In the corner of the room was a small toilet and sink. There had once been a mirror on the wall above the sink, but it was recently removed, as she could see from the clean rectangle of wallpaper surrounded by filthy peeling plaster. They’d left nothing to chance. They must have realized she could’ve used a broken shard of that mirror to hurt them. Whoever ‘they’ were.

The only other piece of furniture was a dry rotted old desk. She decided to search it for any possible clue as to her whereabouts. She sat up too quickly, causing a wave of nausea to erupt from her stomach. She had just enough time to duck her head over the side of the cot before heaving. The vomit burned her esophagus on the way up because her stomach was empty of anything but acid. She wished she had some food and water to help dispel the acerbic emptiness of her gut.

As if on cue, the lock turned in the door to her makeshift cell. A man in a hooded purple robe entered. He carried a tray with a burger, fries, and a drink. He sat it he dhe desk when he noticed the vomit on the floor by her cot. He wordlessly left the room, locking her in. A little while later, a shorter, stockier man entered with a mop. He was dressed just as the previous man, and also did not speak to her as he cleaned, nor did he even look at her. She tried to engage him in conversation, but to no avail. He roughly wiped her face with a wet washcloth then left her alone.

Jessica knew she was in big trouble. She thought she remembered being grabbed by large, horrible octopus creatures, but that had to be a dream. She’d passed out in transit to . . . well wherever she was. She’d likely just hit her head and imagined the monsters. This was clearly a ritual kidnapping.

That thought made her blood run cold. A ritual kidnapping in New York City. That held all kinds of dark possibilities. Tears spilled over her eyes. She missed Jake, and she was terrified. “If I get out of this, Harvey’s a dead man,” she quipped to the empty room. She then giggled at the irony of getting into so much trouble again despite ‘staying out of harm’s way’. She then broke down into a full-blown fit of laughter. After several minutes of this, her laughter dissolved into strangled sobbing.

She wondered when she would ever see her husband again, or if she and their babies would even live through this. It would be different if it were just her, but she had no idea what they intended to do to her children. She ght ght of their attire and began to imagine all sorts of demonic rituals requiring a fetal sacrifice. In despondency, she cried miserably. “Oh Jake, Honey, I’m so scared. Please find us.”