So the couple married. It actually seemed nice. Christian had joined the military life to support them, and this came with housing and benefits. And Ashley got to have her own family, including another child, a daughter, and spend her days with her children. Their marriage wasn't perfect, but it seemed good enough. Things finally weren't so bad anymore, and it seemed like it could stay this way. The little family made their own way in the world, and even started up their own little farm.
Ashley loved living in the countryside. It was so quiet and beautiful. It was like all of her worries had disappeared and were replaced with contentment and natural beauty. It seemed impossible to be stressed out here, and her family brought her such joy. The couple really had fallen in love. Christian had become a man, and cared for them well. Zia, 7 months and Zell, almost 4 years old were thriving, and things were good. And then one day, everything changed again.
Christian was away on farm business and Ashley was taking a carriage ride to town with the children. The path there was along the side of a steep, sheer mountain. Today, suddenly, a huge chunk of rock broke loose from the top of the mountain, and fell straight on the back of the carriage with a huge crash. The carriage stopped very sharply, jerking Ashley back, and the shock made her completely forget where she was and what she was doing.
Blinking, and trying to gain her bearings again, Ashley climbed down from the drivers seat of the carriage and turned around, trying to make sense of what she saw. She saw a carriage. It had a huge boulder crushing in the covered back section. She wasn't sure why it was here or what she was doing here for that matter. Then all of a sudden all of it flooded back to her.
In horror, she covered her face with her hands, stuck in a silent scream. She had to see if the children were okay. But this looked so bad. She knew it was very unlikely that they were okay and she really did not want to see that. Time froze as her thoughts sped up tenfold. All of her previous preoccupations of thought, like going to the market and what she would buy there, or hoping that the children were well well-behaved on the trip, evaporated in an instant. Every thought at all vanished at that moment, and she found her self deeply rooted in the present moment, more than she had ever experienced in her life.
It was so real, so unbearably real. How was this happening? What could she do? If they were hurt or trapped she had to help them, but how could she when she loved them so much it would kill her if they weren't okay. They were her babies, her blood and flesh. She grew them inside of her and nursed them from her own body. She had spent the last 4 years of her life almost solely tending to their needs. And now she might lose them? It was unbearable, but she finally gained back the ability to ambulate, and she raced to the carriage.
Peering in what was left of the window, Ashley saw the children lying unconscious in the backseat, under a crushed-in ceiling. She had no idea if they were alive. She doubted it, despite her furious hope to the contrary. With the grace of the Gods, other travelers has come along the same road and had pulled over to help. Ashley was so paralyzed. But luckily, two wonderful women raced over and said they were nurses. They moved Ashley aside and pulled out the children. Ashley stepped back and let them work, deciding that all she could do was pray. She prayed desperately and fervently. She begged for the Gods to please let her babies live. She just kept repeating the words over and over in her head, please don't let my babies die.
After a few intolerable moments, one of the nurses jogged back over to Ashley with a grim look on her face. She told Ashley that they needed to get them to town quickly and see if the doctor could help. This gave Ashley hope she hadn't dared for, and she nodded. The children had been packed gently into the women's carriage, but there was no room for Ashley or the second nurse now. It was a very small carriage. but this woman promised that she would get them there as quick as she could and that they should meet her there after they unhitched the back of the broken carriage. As she sped off, Ashley watched her babies go. Unable to think, she continued to just stand there in the road. Luckily, the other woman was able to take care of the carriage and in a few minutes she helped Ashley into the passenger side of the little driver's perch that was left intact.
The woman drove Ashley toward the town while Ashley tried to maintain her sanity. Not only were her babies away from her, which almost never happened, she didn't even know if they were alive. And if they were dying she couldn't even be there to comfort them. They would die alone, scared. Abandoned by their mommy in the moment they would need her the most. Her life had changed forever, in an instant, without any warning. And there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. What was she supposed to tell Christian? Or her mother? Or anyone? She already spent her life feeling so alone and hated. She knew that everyone was going to blame her for this, and she was about to lose the few people who did remain in her life. Her whole life was disappearing in this infinitesimally long, unbearable moment. What would she do? She would be left with no children, no husband, and no family. What would she do? She started to tremble at the idea of completely losing everything. She didn't think that she could survive that. The pain would cut too deep. She had survived a lot, but she didn't think she could survive that. After about half an hour they finally made it to the medical building, and Ashley dashed inside.
They told her to wait. Waiting seemed like the only thing she could not do. How was someone supposed to deal with something like this? It seemed impossible to bear this kind of powerlessness and unknown in the face of such dire consequences. So she just kept praying to the Gods to please let her babies live. If she just kept chanting it, with her eyes closed, sitting down, there was nothing else she had to worry about. It was all she could do, and it was all that she did. Until the doctor came.
