The Wayward Pond

Samantha's tenderly swollen belly softened under the moon light. Crickets chirped ignorantly nearby as she released a feral growl. Out slid her newborn daughter onto the damp grass beneath Samantha's knees. A sigh escaped her chest as tears streaked down her face. She peered into her child's eyes for the first time.

Yet all she could see was the reflection of the man that had attacked her nine long months ago. Here lay the proof of his crime that he will never be held accountable for. Samantha had reported the crime to her local police department, but they had discouraged her from pressing any charges. After all, they said, it was her who had chosen to dress so provocatively that this man could not resist. She was asking for it by simply existing n this world alongside these monsters disguised as men. Women after all have no personal rights and are nothing than a mere sex object and Samantha was ripe for the plucking that night.

Subsequently the police reported her pregnancy to the state to ensure she carried to term. A common miscarriage could have landed her in prison, and an abortion would have faired her far worse. A stillbirth, however, would allow Samantha to live again without the constant reminder of how it was conceived. Oh what a life to live as a woman in a forced birth society, she thought to herself.

Samantha frowned in dismay; against all the attempts to cause a late term fetal demise, there wiggled her daughter who was born seemingly perfect. Perfect and very much alive. She fought the maternal urge to bring her baby to her breast and nurse her. Instead, having picked it up to inspect it, she placed the child back onto the cool swampy grass that edged the pond. The wayward pond she had traveled several days to specifically for the birth of her child. Tears now flowing off her cheeks in small rivers.

"I am so sorry." Samantha sobbed as she slowly scootched her daughter into the pond. The infant shrieking at the icy water lapping at her face and uncovered body. Slowly deeper into the water Samantha slid her until she could no longer hear her baby crying out for it's short lived life.

Breaking down completely, Samantha crumpled into the water with her daughter. Her cries replacing her daughters that she had so desperately drowned out. Lost in a sea of emotion Samantha ignored the initial tugs at her damp shirt. It was the clamber of a small child climbing upon her the snapped her back to the present moment and out of her thoughts of despair. The lifeless body of her daughter still clutched in her hands in the water, she turned her head to see what was atop her back.

The cold, dead eyes of her daughter peered back from behind Samantha's shoulder. With a stifled scream she pushed herself upwards to stand and attempt to run, but found herself too weak to hold her own weight. Stumbling a few steeps deeper into the pond, Samantha slipped in the muddy bottom. She crashed face first into the pond. The water enveloping her face and sealing her death with the same current that stole her newborn daughters life.

Samantha's expired body was discovered a few days later by a pair of local boys on a fishing trip. The body of her daughter left, unnoticed in the mud of the shallows. The soul of the child now a Myling left in search of it's eternal resting place; forever wandering the woods around that wayward pond.