The girl opened her eyes as a not-so-silent scream left her mouth. She was assaulted by the sounds of traffic and felt something metallic hit her feet over her strap sandals. She gasped for air as if she’d forgotten how to breathe.
She looked at her hands and at her nicked foot. A set of pliers lied next to her sandal as beads of blood abandoned her body through the small cut. She looked at her hands and wrist and found her smartwatch wrapped around it. She then looked straight ahead and saw a familiar New York scene. The skyscrapers of southern Manhattan stood before her.
Catherine Wallenstein grabbed the thick grate and pressed her face against the cold metal. She shivered as she wasn’t wearing adequate clothing for the harsh winter.
“No. No. Was that all a dream?” She wondered out loud. Confused, she grabbed her hair and saw it was without the highlights and about shoulder length. She looked down at her clothes and saw she was wearing the same clothes as the day she jumped.
Was it all a dream? Did she jump? Did she cut the fence? Catherine picked the pliers and looked at the sturdy metal grate. It didn’t seem like she would cut through that with that flimsy tool. Did she hallucinate the accident, about William, about the demon, everything?
Catherine laughed her frayed nerves out. She whimpered and cried, and laughed as she felt she was going insane. Alice, Shinji, the Wolves, the Shaman, the Fairy, magic, was it even possible?
“No,” was her answer. She was definitely insane. Magic didn’t exist! But she remembered the pain of dying and the existential dread of seeing the reaper. The memories were so vivid. Everything.
Dazed, Catherine let go of the grate, feeling her skin tug where it had already started to freeze and stick to the metal. She backed away from the precipice she once dreamed she’d jumped until she hit the wall behind her.
The metal door squeaked as a security guard entered the rooftop. He looked around and jumped back, surprised as he saw the freezing girl.
“What are you doing here, miss?” The man said, “WAIT, IT’S YOU!”
Still hyperventilating and freezing, Catherine looked at him. “I’m not jumping. I promise you.”
“What’s your name, lady?” The guard asked as he removed his coat to cover her.
“Ca-Catherine Wallenstein,” she shivered and melted into the warm clothes, “Thanks.”
“Why did you come back here? I almost lost my job last time, please don’t do anything that stupid again. Sorry, forgive me. Come, you suffered a lot.”
He started to pull her along as they moved inside. Catherine replayed his words in her mind, forcing him to maintain a minimum focus. “Wait!? Did you say ‘again’? What happened last time I was here?”
The guard brushed a few snowflakes from her head, “Don’t you remember? You poor thing. You jumped from the roof and fell on a guy. Killed him. He was a Wall Street banker, I think.”
Catherine’s eyes went wide and she opened her mouth in surprise. “Did I really jump? Was it real?”
“It surely was, Miss,” the guard nodded as his shame became evident. “I still have nightmares with that.”
“I’m sorry. Wait, what day is today?”
The security guard said it was the same day as the fight against the demon at the park. Desperate to call someone, Catherine took her phone. She was dismayed as she noticed there was no signal and saw the message on the screen.
> Invalid SIM card.
“Damn it!” She almost threw the phone on the ground. “No! I must make a call. Please, can I borrow your phone?”
She remembered the pain of being shot in the stomach back at the camp lodge as she replayed the memories from earlier that day. The lodge. The cultists. Her mother… The soldiers attacking... Then she remembered the sight of her mother with a bullet wound through her head... If she was here, then maybe… Whose body was this? And would William be on her old body, or did she get teleported here, and if so where’s William? She didn’t hear anyone in her head. She feared the worst had happened and William had bargained his soul in exchange for hers. Catherine desperately wanted to call someone, ask if the girl that hosted her was there.
Sensing her distress, the security guard offered, “Do you wish to call 911, Miss? Your phone should be good for emergency calls.”
She was ready to accept eternal damnation why would William do such a stupid thing? It was all her fault. Tears rolled down her face. “No, my friend. She might be wounded. I have to call her.”
“I can’t carry my phone with me when I’m on patrol. Please, come to the security room with me.”
“Wait, is Dr. Hill in her office?”
“Today is Wednesday, she might be. I’ll take you there.
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Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Catherine pressed the doorbell button as if it would leak maple syrup if she kept it ringing long enough. “Please, answer it! Please!”
“Hold on! What’s the emergency?” Esther’s voice came from the other side. The deadbolts came undone and the familiar face of the ob-gyn appeared on the other side.
The girl threw herself at the physician, hugging the woman and letting the floodgates flow. She cried her brains out. Figuratively.
“Catherine?” Dr. Hill was surprised. “Weren’t you in Vegas?” She looked at the guard, “Is everything okay, John?”
“I don’t know, Dr. Hill, I don’t know,” John the security guard said. “I found Miss Wallenstein on the roof, distressed and with the same pliers she’d used a year ago to cut the fence. Look, I don’t want to cause any trouble. Could you take her off of me?”
Esther smiled, “I surely can, John. I’ll look after Catherine, thank you.”
John nodded, “It’s my pleasure, ma’am. The lass has suffered enough and she’s a hardy one. I wish her the best.”
Catherine controlled herself enough to turn around and smile at the guard, “Thank you, John. And please, accept my earnest apologies. I’m sorry for giving you such a hard time. I promise I’ll treasure my life.” The second one, she added mentally.
John grinned as if he’d won the Powerball. “That’s awesome to hear, Miss Wallenstein. I’m actually in your fan club,” he admitted a bit embarrassed. “Could I get your autograph?”
“Later, John,” Esther said making it clear he was pushing it. “Catherine is shaking, she can’t sign anything now.”
“Later, Dr. Hill. Catherine, stay safe and warm. Can I have my coat back?”
Catherine blushed. “Yes, thank you for lending it to me.”
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Wrapped in a blanket and nested on Esther’s waiting room couch, Catherine sipped a warm cup of tea. The tea’s warmth spread over her throat and down her empty stomach. She felt sick and lurched forward as she puked the tea and a lot of bile on the carpet.’’
Esther reached out to support her, “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. I had a sudden bout of nausea. Esther, I still need to use your phone.”
The ob-gyn had refused to lend Catherine her phone until she explained what was going on.
“I’ll give you something for this sickness,” Esther said with a raised eyebrow.
“What?” The girl asked.
The doctor closed her eyes for a moment and then took a deep breath. “Catherine, are you sexually active? Do you have a boyfriend in Vegas?”
Catherine’s mouth gaped in surprise and shock. “NO! Absolutely not. I only…” she huffed. “No, Esther. I hadn’t had sex with anyone since I was raped. Why the interest?”
“I could swear this sudden nausea you had was because you were pregnant,” the ob-gyn said. “But that isn’t possible, is it? Oh, right! I’m sorry, you had a hysterectomy.”
Her jaw dropped again as she stared at the physician in shock. The blood drained from her face and extremities. The gears in her head cranked slowly as she added the evidence. She went back to New York all the way from the lodge. She was wearing the same clothes, with the phone that was destroyed in the crash, with an invalid SIM card, with the wrong date. The date she jumped.
What else did turn back, Catherine wondered. Could she be…
“Hypothetically, let’s say I could be pregnant just as I was a year ago,” she spoke slowly. “How could you tell?”
“That’s impossible, Catherine. You had your womb and cervix removed. No, wait. You said you didn’t have intercourse. But if you did, sperm could have fallen in your abdominal cavity because your ovaries are still functioning. I can do an ultrasound exam if you want. The machine is right next door. Come, it’s on the house.”
Catherine felt all the emotions in the world at once. Including the same ones that made her jump. But her worry about William’s fate made her push forward. “Please.”
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“I can’t believe it,” Esther said, gawking at the ultrasound screen. “Wait, I have your previous ultrasound saved. Let me pull the images. Goodness, it’s the same!”
The fuzzy image didn’t lie. Not only Catherine had her reproductive organs in a perfect state, but they were also currently busy gestating a baby. Lying on the gurney with the cold lube on her lower abdomen, she knew what it meant.
She was sent back to the same state as the day she jumped. Completely. Down to the child of her rapist. But she had grown. The monster was dead, killed by William. This baby was entirely hers. And she made her choice, this time she would carry him to term, give birth, and raise him as the next generation of the Wallenstein family. She would be a better Catherine, a new Catherine. Catherine mark two. No, that sounded like a middle name. Catherine version 2.0. [1] A brand new and stronger Catherine.
At that moment, something snapped in her mind. Accepting the baby growing inside her turned a switch in her and she became a mother. Catherine placed both hands over her stomach.
“I’m having this baby, Esther. And I already know what name he’ll have.”
Dr. Hill mellowed and cooed. “That’s awesome, Catherine. You’ve grown so much. But it’s too early to tell the baby’s gender, although it looks like a boy. It’s a miracle your womb grew back and you’re pregnant even though you told me you didn’t have intercourse…” The woman narrowed her eyes. “I must ask, do you know who’s the father?”
She nodded but also sensed what Esther hadn’t said. “Look, I was working in Vegas but I wasn’t whoring myself out. Okay? I know who’s the father but he’s dead. Spectacularly dead. My baby won’t need a father. But I need to make that phone call, Esther? May I?”
“Yes. But let me move the goalpost a bit. Let me take a few blood samples to test for STDs. We can also use it to check the baby’s gender. There’s a way to tell, if you have male DNA in your bloodstream, it’s from the baby and it confirms it’s a boy.”
She was sure it was a boy anyway but allowed the doctor to take the blood samples. It was the fastest path to a working phone.
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Catherine stared at the borrowed phone and was dismayed. Esther’s device worked perfectly but there was a little problem.
“I don’t know anyone’s phone number. Everything is on speed dial. Gosh, what a problem.”
She searched for the business number of Rothman & Sullivan, then asked the operator at the law firm for Oliver’s number. Finally, when she dialed it, the contact information came up on the screen. Catherine felt so dumb she didn’t think of searching. Of course, Esther would have Oliver’s phone number. After the second tone, Oliver picked it up.
“Esther! How are you!” The lawyer said. Catherine didn’t answer. “What’s the matter? Say something, please,” he begged over the silent line.
She felt her eyes sting. It was the pregnancy, she justified. “Oliver! Oh, Oliver!”
“Catherine? Why are you with Esther?” Oliver asked, worried. “Did something happen? Didn’t you go north with Alice and Shinji? What about… that fiend?”
She bawled, “Oliver, mom is dead. The soldiers, they… they shot her! They killed everyone. I don’t know. I’m in Manhattan, at Esther’s office.”
Oliver must’ve been shocked because he didn’t reply.
The physician placed a gentle hand on Catherine’s shoulder. “Let me talk to him.”
Catherine pulled the blanket closer as she rocked herself on the couch, entering a mild panic attack. Esther explained Catherine's appearance and the result of her ultrasound. All she knew was that Oliver agreed to pick her up.
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[1] A/N: BOOM! Title Drop! Thank you for reading this far. The story, however is not over yet. This is not the ending you're looking for! Or teh [sic] ending, period! MDW going to sleep. More tomorrow.