A Creature's Cry

• Catherine Gibson, Grade 9
• Poetry
• 2011

The light flickered, shadows dancing across the ceiling; back and forth, in an eternal waltz. Her eyes watched them as she focused her remaining energy on the task at hand. Her body lay rigid across the sterile sheets that smelled faintly of lavender, her hand’s tightening on the metal rails, reflecting her taut expression.
She tensed, waiting and ready. She felt it, the little creature that was fighting inside her, she felt it quiver and shake. Her hand automatically reached over to soothe him as it fought for its freedom; a right it had earned.
She shook again, her face contorting, a scream escaping her clenched jaw. She responded to the pain, like she was meeting with a familiar friend, and she struggled to stay awake. The creature was sapping her energy in its struggle.
And she wanted it gone. She wanted to be just her, like it once was, when everything was good; when she was safe, when pain didn’t figure itself in her life. But everything had changed since then.
Again the creature snapped at her body and she felt herself falling. She fell into a pain she had never known, too sore to resist it.
She lay there panting, trembling in fear. What was the creature going to do to her? She felt it move again, pushing and pulling. She couldn’t stop it; she had no control over what the creature did anymore. She had done her job, she had fed it, she had been the one to create it.
And now it was to destroy her, rip her apart.
She stifled another scream, writhing in agony as the next wave rippled through her. She let go a shaky breath, one she had thought she would never make. This would kill her, she knew that. She had accepted it now. If the pain didn’t kill her, her fear would.
She started to sweat then. It poured from her brow like falls of sorrow and grief, drenching her. The heat radiated from the open window and she shut her eyes and screamed, letting her torment vibrate the still air, shaking the settling dust.

She felt a rush and it was only quick thinking that made her lean over the edge of the bed before she started to gag.
The wave rippled through her torso again, only this time it came with vengeance; magnifying her pain by the thousands, staying longer.
The creature ripped at her again, but this time it wasn’t just pain in her body, her mind started to ache too. Everything around her changed, the picture’s distorted. And she knew it was almost over.
The hope she felt lifted her spirits, until she soared above her weakening body, her mind disconnecting from her reality.
Her body jerked and like she was attempting a sit-up, and her face suddenly relaxed. The pain was over, she was free.
As the sun disappeared and the stars shone high above, an infant’s first cry filled the empty room.