Ultimate Sacrifice

🎄 6 🎄

You wake up agitated, and sweaty. In the dream, there was a bloodbath. You saw hills and valleys filled with bones and tattered clothes drenched in a pool of blood. 
Then you heard the shrill cry of your only baby. He sounded in so much torture.
"Noah!!!" your shriek breaks out of your dream and echoes through your small room, startling your husband awake.

Your breathing is heavy as you try to orient yourself to reality. Trembling as your husband tries to get a coherent explanation from you, your eyes dart around the room.

Never have you experienced a dream so heart-wrangling. It all felt so real—the taste of dust and gore, the sound of death, the metallic smell of blood.

"My baby," you whisper. As you tear off your blanket from your body and wear your muffled rubber slippers, a harsh knock on the door stops you cold. You gasp and check the clock. 1:23 am.

Corban orders you to stay in the room but you don't obey him. Silently, you follow him at a distance and watch as he confirms the identity of the 'visitors' and opens the door for them.

"We are here by order of the Imperial Chief Hikkon of the Province of Bethlehem. You have been ordered to produce your son, seeing he is below age two in the database."

The shaking starts again. You feel the cold claws of dread wrap over your heart.  

"But why? What is going on? It's the dead of night, for Heaven's sake," you hear Corban say.

"Mister, if you try to resist us, we will be forced to detain you while we fetch your child."

"Well, I cannot let you into my house without a warrant."

The person you suppose must be the chief guard shoves your husband out of the way, enters, search drones in tow, and begins scanning and ransacking your entire house.

They drag out your Noah who is still in between sleep and alertness.

"Mommy?" he babbles in confusion when he sees you.

The android holding him clamps a metal hand over his mouth. Your boy begins to whimper and cry. 

Suddenly, you realize what is happening. The dream. A warning that came too late.

You are vaguely aware of Corban who is infuriated and trying to tell them to stop. They restrain him.
You are vaguely aware of a scream until your raw throat begs for relief.

By morning, when the news reaches you that all the babies that were taken were sent as lab rats to the most vicious experimental centre in Bethlehem, you slink into depression and bitterness.
When you later hear that the abducted children were all placed in an electrocution chamber and were fried to death, you want to pull off your skin.

Your baby is dead. Dead. While the other mothers wail and curse and the entire citizenry contemplates a revolt against a wicked government that kills innocent children for absolutely no reason, you just sit like a rock, gazing at emptiness.
So much for the coming of Christos.