A Child’s Nightmare

Hundreds of scorpions moved out from behind the up cropping of rock, blocking my path to escape. I started to scream, to cry, to even.. beg for Aiden to return, but my call went unheard. Unanswered. Slowly, one by one, the glowing lights from above started to dim, loud noises causing a disconnect, so that I was left in the shadows of darkness, with no sound at all but my own voice and the constant clicking around me. With each passing moment I awaited the pain of stings, but it did not come. The birthing pains were soon constant, and my son was delivered, without the amulet, one of us, perhaps even both of us were doomed to death. I believed that. In the darkened coil of the cavern I could feel the life draining from me, whether from loss of blood, or the evil magic that surrounded me. I had little doubt that I was dying, and that with my death, life would indeed be given to my son. He would live, only, I knew he would not. Not left in the bowels of a cavern where his cries would go unheard. He would die a slow and agonizing death at either the stings of that which surrounded us, or starvation. So I had made the decision to.. end it for both of us.

I awoke weakened, but alive, very much to my dismay. But one life had been traded for another. My son had died in my steed. When I opened my eyes, the dim light from above had rekindled itself with ahns of silence and the clicking sound had completely disappeared. I struggled with his.. body and finally made it out into the light of day. Aiden had left me few supplies, but I was at least able to build a small pyre for my son.

I stumbled though the desert for what seemed an eternity. It was in actuality probably no more than a day, but a day had been long enough to leave me sunburned without the protection of hood and cloak. I don't know how he found me, nor did I actually care to be found, but we cannot always choose our futures. He bound me in binding fiber and led me through the desert towards the outskirts of the salt mines, where I was kept. I talked too much; often spouting would be prophecies of what was to come. The men became wary of me, one even going so far as to fit me with a special collar that had small injectable needles that fed a numbing agent into my neck, so I was rendered speechless. Then they lowered me into a dried up well, where I stayed for.. almost six moons. Once a hand they would remove me. They didn't want me dead, for I was to be sold.

This is what my daughter sees, dreams each night, a torment relived over and over. A nightmare that I have tried to put behind me for the last two years. How do I know? Because last night, I dreamt it with her.

Not too long ago I wrote that I was going to allow my guilt to catch up with me. Little did I realize then, it would come in the in the innocent wrappings of my daughter.

Males have always been born.. different in my family and have never lived past the age of one, and though I thought the pregnancy of my son would break that curse, I now understand that it would have not. I know that I was guided into the desert for a reason, and it was not to find a talisman that would save us both. He was never meant to be saved, because I was never meant to have a son.

Something Charm and I now both understand. The nightmare’s are over, I hope, for both of us.