Eve Alone

Part Three

"What?"

Eve's voice came out no more than a whisper as she stood over the baby. At first it had looked like a fish was lying right beside the body but now that she was right on top of it, there was no mistaking:

The baby had a tail.

Eve's breath quickened and her thoughts swirled in her head, the world around the baby shifting off balance. She looked around the deserted beach, dumbfounded, wishing anybody was there to witness it with her, to confirm that she wasn't going insane. She swallowed and then shook herself from her momentary stupor.

"It's still a baby," she told herself and the empty beach, as she fell to her knees beside it and stretched out both hands to pick the baby up.

She ignored the shaking and the brief second where her hands hesitated and drew back with the nerves: instead forcing them out, one to cradle the baby's head and top of the shoulders, the other under the bottom...

Or where the bottom would have been.

For a split second, her mind registered the fact that the baby's tail wasn't slippery like she had expected, as she turned it over into her arms, lying it out in front of her. Her eyes darted over the body. 

The baby's entire upper body looked a pale blue in the light of the autumn night, and the bottom half was covered in blue and green scales that slightly glimmered with her movements, ending in the tailfin. Its arms hung limply out at its sides and there was a catch in her throat at the absence of any rise and fall of the chest. A salty perfume filled her nose and reminded her of seaweed but was also somehow kind of sweet. Its eyes were mercifully closed in its pale face and Eve started to shake harder when she became conscious of the chill emitting from its skin.

There was no way to tell if it was a boy or a girl, but when she scrutinised its features and Freddie's smiling face and wide eyes flashed through her mind.

She was sure it was a little boy.

Tears welled up in her eyes again, but she shook them away. She had already wasted too much time.

There was never a part of her that questioned her next few actions, saw them as weird or second-guessed whether it would work.

She had to try.

With the greatest care, Eve moved the baby to listen at his chest for a heartbeat and, finding none, she adjusted her position so it rested on her left arm. Using her right hand she searched for the correct point and pushed at his chest bone with two frantic fingers. She hoped she had the right spot, but she wasn't a hundred percent sure. In desperation, she leaned back his head and brought his face up to her own, trying to breathe into his mouth, her mouth covering his own tiny one and his little nose. Her dry lips began to sting a little from the saltiness of his skin.

Eve had no idea how long she tried: maybe an hour, maybe mere minutes, but her emotions started to get the better of her as she tried to chafe the baby's arms and chest in between breaths and compressions.

"Wake up! Please, wake up!" she sobbed as her brain began to acknowledge that her efforts were fruitless, but her hands and mouth refused to give up.

Again and again she tried, swapping hands and back again, his lifeless little form hanging like a wilted flower in her arms. She was becoming hysterical and shaking him; she took some unsteady breaths in an attempt to calm herself. 

"WAKE UP!" she screamed at him.

She stopped, let her head fall to her chest and squinted her eyes closed, trying to calm herself down again.

It was no good, there was nothing she could...

Her phone!

Eve's head snapped up and she gasped with the realisation.

She slapped the outside of her pockets, but it was nowhere to be found. Before she knew it, she was up on her feet, still holding the baby, hunting all around her on the sand, searching till she spotted the reflection of the screen a bit away from her. She took the few steps, bringing the baby up to lie upright against her chest and shoulder as she moved, just as she had held her own baby not so long ago, and she stooped to pick up the phone with her free hand.

As she was about to connect the call to Emergency, a deafening cry come from behind her.

The sound was alarming- a loud voice crying out in rage and anguish that echoed from within itself before ringing out across the water. For a few moments, it filled her ears and drowned out all noise of the waves, then any sound from the world around her. 

Eve's eyes fluttered closed as a strange sensation moved from her head until her entire body vibrated with it, as if her body was involuntarily empathising with whoever had cried out, and she could do nothing but feel everything that howl of pain represented. The sensation subsided, but Eve was aware of the slight tingling impression it left in its wake.

Her eyes opened, and as the world came back into focus, she turned around in shock to face the water.