"Huff.. huff.. somebody.. anyone... help!" a bloodied woman pitifully cried for help in the dark forest.
While picking up herbs to nourish her pregnant body, a hooded figure charged at her with a sword.
Crash! She fell to the ground. Her motherly instincts allowed her body to prevent the assailant's sword from piercing her womb, to ensure her unborn child's survival.
Swiftly, she mustered her strength and gathered as many pebbles as she could in her hand and threw it towards the assailant before running with all her might towards the depth of the forest.
Her heart, although shaken, but her mind was as clear as day, focusing all her efforts on surviving for her child.
"Wench!" the assailant shouted in irritation as he chased after her.
However, the woman knew the ins and outs of the woods and eventually managed to hide in a crevice of the dense forest.
She tied her scarf to her stab wound to slow the blood loss. She prayed that her assailant would give up looking for her and that she and her child would survive.
Soon it was night. She was contemplating whether to keep hiding or gamble trying to go out of the forest and ask for help.
The night was cold and her stab wound kept bleeding.
The blood will attract hungry beasts and even if she is not able to encounter one, if she couldn't be treated, she would die of blood loss.
To be discovered by the assailant or the beasts, or to keep losing blood, either way, she and her child will die!
She chose to cling to the hope that they will survive.
"My child, keep fighting! Mother will protect you, so do not give up on me," She said in her heart while caressing her small baby bump. She had no time to cry. She gathered her courage and started to move.
She carefully went out of the crevice, looked at the sky, and mentally located the exit of the forest.
Taking note of the area where she encountered the assailant, she threaded her way out.
Stealthily threading in the dark forest, ensuring that she will not create something that will attract the beast or her assailant, she eventually saw the exit of the forest.
Just as she was about to heave a sigh of relief, a hard object suddenly hit her head. The shock made her fall and her vision started to fade as she felt the pain.
She only heard a scornful voice shouting-
"Ptoey!! That's my revenge for the damned pebbles you threw at me!" It was the assailant.
"Do you think you have a chance to survive? Hahaha! Soon, the beasts will come by smelling your dirty blood! I'll leave you be as I wasted a lot of time waiting for you to go out of that crevice," the assailant said in disdain.
"You..." the woman was shocked. She thought she had hope for survival but who would have thought that he was just toying with her from the start.
"Hahaha, your dirty blood couldn't be hidden from a tracking knight's nose! If not for my mistress specifically instructing me to give you a slow and painful death, I would not have wasted so much time!"
"Peasant! Who are you to stand in the way of my mistress?! Just lie down there while your death awaits!" The assailant declared without a hint of mercy as he took a small pipe and blew from it.
It was a beast caller.
An item used by the tracker knights to manipulate beasts and stall enemies who were trying to chase them. In human ears, no sound can be heard when one blows from it. But the beast can hear the sound loud and clear.
Soon, a howl was heard. Pairs of red glowing eyes appeared in the dark canvass made by the forest at the night.
The knight let out a chuckle and mysteriously vanished in the area leaving the bloodied woman for the beasts to eat.
The woman in despair gathered her strength to crawl out of the forest.
"Huff.. huff.. somebody.. anyone.. help!" she tried to struggle.
"Anyone, please help, for my child, my poor child..." as the facts started to shrink in, her voice now contained despair, agony, and distress.
"Oh heavens!
Will you show your light no longer on me,
But on my poor child who did not even experience the warmth, you bring in the day,
Nor the glow you bring in the night!"
With her fading vision, she did her best to look up at the night sky.
"Oh, earth!
May you show your wonders no more for me,
But for my pitiful child who didn't even get to see your beauty!"
She laid her face on the ground, her tears watering the earth underneath.
And with her last breath, she whispered, aggrieved-
"Oh Bringer of Life!
Why put the little soul in my undeserving womb,
If you will just send him straight to death without taking a single breath of life?"
----------
Sleep-deprived, Eli finally shut down her laptop as she heard the boarding announcement for her flight.
She rushed straight to the airport after she received a call from her chief that he will not be able to go to Cebu island to conduct the quarterly inspection on one of the construction projects her company had.
As she was the next senior ranking member available for deployment, she had no choice but to take the emergency assignment on top of accomplishing her reports as a supervisor.
Living as a salary woman is hard.
In this world where flourishing careers and growing wealth took priority for most people, it became an unpopular opinion for women to have simple joys in life as their goal.
Simple joys such as taking a nice vacation to relax, being in love, having a happy marriage, giving birth to cute babies, or even just settling down in a nice cozy home, enjoying afternoon naps with your adorable pet became a complete luxury.
Society was just cruel.
Its cruelty doesn't discriminate between the rich and poor, gender, nationality, and age. Everyone was a victim in one way or another. The pressure to become competitive, up to the standards, financially free, and good-looking was apparent.
From your own family, peers, colleagues, social media, and everywhere you look, the message is subconsciously transmitted into your mind.
So much that one will feel a sense of worthlessness, that the years they have lived are empty, without any sense of achievement. Some couldn't take the disappointment and choose to end their very lives with their own hands.
Of course, everyone, including Eli always had a choice to believe in this current standard or stay within one's definition of success and worth.
To conform is to suck it up and achieve that goal just like everyone.
To defy it is to also suck it up and prove them wrong.
Either way, you will have to suck it up!!
As Eli sat in the window seat and waited for the plane to take off, her inner self continued this lamentation.
"In truth, even having idle time and contemplating these things are a luxury to me," she sighed in her heart and made a mental note to thank her chief in some way for the paid three-hour meditation time.
Soon, the pre-flight procedures were done and the plane took off.
Eli enjoyed the blue sky and the fluffy clouds in her window seat. It was so seldom that she would have the time to travel and enjoy these kinds of things.
Ever since that day, she forgot to take time and enjoy these things. Her life became a cycle of just waking up, eating, working, commuting home, sleeping, waking up, and working again.
While marveling at the great view of the window seat her mind again started to wander. "It must be nice to take a break from work and travel.."
pαndα,noνɐ1,сoМ "When will I get a boyfriend?"
"Am I good-looking enough to captivate a good single man?"
"What if the man I will fall in love with turns out to be a complete jerk?" she asked with uncertainty.
"Will I experience getting married?"
"Will I experience 'that'?"
"It must be nice to have a child to raise..to have a family," she longingly thought.
Eli remembered her junior, Moriah saying "My greatest dream is to become a happy housewife and build a happy family!"
"She was very remarkable, I admire her simplicity," Eli thought with a smile, as she slowly felt sleepy.
However, before she could finally get some sleep, she felt the plane violently shake.
"Brrrrr!" jolting her awake, she instinctively looked at the window to see that the clear skies were gone, only dark greyish fog can be seen. Droplets of water bizarrely rolled rapidly on the window glass.
She heard the announcement that the plane suddenly encountered a storm. Thus, the cabin was experiencing turbulence.
She calmed her heart and prayed that everything would be alright even as she heard every passenger panic. She tried her best to resist the urge to go hysterical.
The plane struggled to navigate through the violent storm but to no avail.
Soon, the plane started to lose control and everyone felt the plane plunge rapidly down to their deaths.
Everyone shouted in despair, all the things they have, whether money, love, career nor grand plans, no longer mean anything.
Everyone in the cabin realized that there were only a few seconds left in their only life.
Some spent it by shouting at the top of their lungs, some hugged their loved ones, and others called upon the god they worship.
For Eli, as despair and acceptance comes into her being, she only has these thoughts on her mind -
"To the Creator who brought me life... Forgive me for I have wasted all your efforts,"
"Forgive me, for I haven't lived this life fully,"
"Forgive me, for I never get to fulfill the reason why you gave this life to me in the first place...."
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