Every person has a breaking point. Where they confess to all under torture, even to murder, if only to make the pain finally stop.
Nele had reached this point. At least she thought.
Her munchkin was threatening to tear apart her insides. She screamed, begged for a hand to squeeze or even crush, but of course there wasn’t one in this garbage pit that barely had any light and stunk of blood, sweat and pungent trash.
She’d even reached the point of wishing for her kidnapper to return.
What was that saying? Everyone dies alone in the end. Which, in her case, was actually a lie.
She was dying together with her baby that wanted to get out of her but couldn’t. For a reason that she’d probably never know, not unless they had an information desk in the afterlife.
‘Fuuuuhh!’ Nele screamed. She felt like she wouldn’t be able to see after this, even if a stream of light did come down out of nowhere all of a sudden. She had pushed so hard while forgetting to close her eyes that all her veins were guaranteed to have burst. She’d seen images of women after delivery who looked like they’d had chlorine sprayed in their eyes.
‘Fuuuuhuhuuh!’
She was choking on her own battle cry. It had stopped giving her any relief and was now just a scream, hacking its way up her dry throat.
Seized by another contraction, she clawed at the filth under her. Didn’t feel the splinter digging in under her fingernails yet did feel a cold, smooth surface.
A mirror?
At the peak of her pain the contraction ebbed again, and for a moment Nele was able to touch the piece with both hands.
It really was. It felt like it, and even reflected what little light pooled here below in this pit.
The shard of a mirror.
Pointy, sharp, and portable, nearly like that razor blade between her sofa cushions earlier.
Inside her head, she imagined herself dragging the shard across the skin of her wrists.
And that was the first happy thought she’d had in long time.