The scene opened to a dark and stormy night, thunder rumbled in the background as lightning flashed. A young woman ran through the streets clearly in distress. She was in her late teens to early twenties in age, and very pregnant.
The young woman wore a long gray nightgown and had no shoes. The scene panned up and out to show an aerial view of the area showing she was making her way to the hospital which was just a few more blocks away from her position. The scene quickly closed back in on her.
She desperately ran soaked down to the bone from the storm. Suddenly lightning struck the very puddle she was running through sending her flying. She flipped and tumbled through the air gripping her belly, somehow still conscious and trying desperately to control her landing.
“AAAAHHHHHhhhh!” She screamed as she came down in a heap landing on her left shoulder. A loud crunch could be heard as her shoulder was crushed and her head slammed into the ground. She clearly had a concussion as the world spun and she got up on her knees while vomiting.
She gritted her teeth, grabbed her belly with her good arm, and slowly rose to her feet. On trembling legs, she began slowly moving forward again toward the hospital. The sweetest voice he had ever heard left her lips as she gently stroked her belly and spoke to her unborn child.
“It’s okay baby. Mommy is here, I won’t let anything harm you.” She said in Spanish.
She managed to go ten steps before reaching out to hold on to a wall. She took deep breaths as she cried and bled.
After a few seconds, it was clear that she could no longer continue, instead, she had made up her mind to deliver the baby there and then. She spread her trembling legs as blood oozed down her inner thigh. She propped her back against the wall and reached down with her right arm to catch the baby. She clenched her jaw and gritted her teeth as she began pushing.
“AAAAAHHHHhhhhhh! GGRRAAHHhh!” She screamed as she pushed and thunder rumbled in the background.
“Hah, hah, hah,” she panted. “Don’t worry… no matter what… happens… you will be okay…” She calmly spoke to her baby in the womb between pushes.
In the distance, an ambulance could be heard racing down the streets. She was unaware of its approach as she continued pushing. The baby’s head crested and she knew that she couldn’t rest till the baby was all the way out. With a mighty scream, she gave one last push and the baby gently fell into her waiting hand. She had given birth to a healthy baby boy, he had a full head of hair, blue-gray eyes, and cried like a siren on his way out.
Exhausted, she cradled the baby to her bosom and crumpled to the ground. Two seconds later the paramedics reached her side. They attempted to take the baby from her grasp but she would not allow it. The baby seemed healthy and aware enough that they reluctantly worked around him to secure her to a gurney and transport her the rest of the way to the emergency room.
The scene flashed and she was in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. She took a deep breath and looked the closest paramedic in the eye as she spoke. “Please,” She said “Take good care of my baby… Don’t let him grow up alone.”
Caught unprepared and in awe that she was even conscious, never mind able to speak, the man weakly nodded. He had been a paramedic for a long time and she was in the worst condition he had seen in a long time.
Her feet had third-degree burns from when she was struck by lightning. Her shoulder was crushed, she had a bad gash on her head and a concussion. She had ligature marks on her wrists as if she had been held captive, and gashes down her thighs and back as if she had crawled through something sharp. She was clearly young and Afro-Latina but her skin was blanched and taut from the severe blood loss and trauma.
The scene flashed again as she was rushed into the hospital. The doctors and staff swarmed her and the gurney. A team moved to the baby cutting the umbilical cord as she kissed him on the forehead and finally allowed them to take him from her. Another team began cutting away the remnants of her gown to triage her severe wounds. Another team raced off to prepare the operating room (OR) as it was clear she would need surgery to remove the placenta and to take care of all her other horrible injuries.
The scene flashed again. A doctor performed CPR in the OR while another doctor retrieved a crash cart and prepared the paddles. Back and forth they went, one hit her with the defibrillator and one performed CPR as it recharged. After several rotations, they hung their heads in shame and pain as there was nothing else to be done.
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The scene flashed again. The paramedic the woman had spoken to was sitting in a plane, he was an older man possibly in his mid to late forties. The woman sitting next to him was in the same age group and was holding a baby in her arms, the baby had to be no more than one year old.
The couple was clearly together as they spoke about being happy with their choice to retire early and move to Florida. The man leaned over to the baby and spoke softly, “I promise you’ll like the new place little one.”
“His mom would be proud of how well-behaved he is,” the wife added.
The scene once again flashed. A three-year-old boy was quietly and intently staring at a set of caskets as someone from child services held his hand. The boy’s eyes were now more gray than blue but Hector recognized him as the baby from earlier.
The scene flashed one last time. A ten-year-old boy with dark gray eyes was standing amidst a bloody scene. Hector's breath caught in his throat as he recognized himself and remembered this particular incident. He had been in this orphanage for some time and generally kept to himself, except for this one day.
Three of the older boys in the orphanage had been picking on one of the smaller boys. Normally Hector wouldn’t get involved in these types of things so long as he was left alone. Except, this time, the younger boy had been tired of being picked on and struck back at his attackers. This sent the older boys into a rage and they unloaded on the younger one beating him into a bloody pulp.
Hector felt they were going overboard and jumped in pushing the older boys, who were all in their mid-teens, away from the younger one. They took offense to being pushed and attacked Hector as well.
Some terrible and long-hidden anger welled up inside of him at being unjustly attacked and purely on instinct he reacted. One of them swung for his face, he calmly stepped back evading the hit catching the boy’s arm by the wrist as it passed by. With frightening speed, he palm-struck the elbow with his other hand and broke the boy’s arm.
He quickly sidestepped a tackle by one of the other assailants turning as he did grabbing the other’s arm and twisting using the momentum against him and dragging him to the floor. He continued the motion once on the floor bending the arm behind the prone boy and dislocating the shoulder.
The last assailant tried to kick him while he was still distracted but Hector quickly rolled over the assailant on the ground evading the kick. He came out of the roll in a quick side hop evading a second kick and reversed his momentum as he landed hopping back in the other direction delivering his own kick. He struck the inside of the knee breaking it cleanly as the last assailant fell to the ground.
He was sentenced to juvenile detention and counseling after this incident. What scared him then, and even now to some degree, was that he didn’t know exactly where the anger and such quick and aggressive attacks came from. He liked mimicking martial arts movies but had no formal training and was a child at the time of the incident, but had never felt such aggression before. It would take him many years to regain his original composed mannerisms.
Five years after that incident the fall happened and the world changed.
A well of emotions assailed him as he realized what was happening. He had been watching his life, he was the boy born on that day. That was his mother…
He had no memory of those earlier years, of his mother, or the family who’d taken him in after. The only thing he had ever known about himself was that he was born in Puerto Rico. There was nothing else in his records identifying his mother, father, or any other family.
For a long time, he had hatred in his heart for these invisible people. He’d convinced himself they were terrible people for leaving him behind without so much as a name to find them by.
But now, now he knew the truth. His mother was a strong woman, and his personal hero to boot. Whatever happened before that day, it didn’t matter, how she got pregnant was unimportant, and who his father was meant nothing. This woman had faced hell and through grit alone stubbornly held on till the bitter end. All, to ensure her dear child was born safe and healthy.
Tears came unbidden, the scene went blank as he sat there crying like a newborn babe. He felt unloved and unimportant for so long, but now he knew that he had been the most important thing in the world to his mother. That she had loved him so much that the devil himself was unable to stop her from delivering him safely to this world.
***
He wasn’t sure how long he sat there running through a gamut of emotions. He felt happiness at seeing his mother. But then a terrible sadness at the pain she endured that day, and for losing her once more. For a time, guilt and shame racked his body for feeling hatred and anger toward her in the past.
Through it all he knew only one thing, he would never forget her. Although he didn’t know her name he didn’t need to. He knew her love for him and her face. He etched every inch of her beautiful face into his memory that day and begged her forgiveness for ever thinking ill of her.
His eyes had been closed as he ran through those scenes and committed her to memory. When he opened them the throne was once again in the center of the temple and the rainforest surrounded him.
In front of him hovered a new construct. A sphere of tricolored lightning was encased in eight rings of blue text. The rings turned and churned around the ball of lightning as if it were an atom. Hector reached out without a thought, when he touched the text it expanded quickly followed by the tricolored lightning. He felt a weird sinking feeling as the lightning covered him and he fell away into unconsciousness.