Mica screamed, doubled over, and held her abdomen. The bruising and pain of her old injuries had long faded. The new pain—sharp and cutting—was not born out of escape or accident. Instead, it was the agony of new life forcing itself into the world.
Her birthing screams mimicked our collective memories of our own births. All chaos and confusion, as we learned to use our new bodies with the threat of extinction burning at our heels. Still, our births, despite the fire and fear, seemed gentler in comparison.
A small crowd gathered around Mica’s makeshift bed. The girls, who were supposed to be present to support Mica, rubbed the swells of their bellies anxiously, as they averted their eyes. Even Tarsi seemed to sigh with relief as she glanced down at her still flat stomach.
Nobody knew how to help. Another failure of our almost aborted existence.
“Julie, you’re sure you didn’t have any training on obstetrics?” I checked, for the third time.
“No. Reproduction health must have been considered a specialty,” she rasped. “One of the later training modules.”
She rested one hand on her own emerging swell. Tremors traveled down her arm until her belly shook. Her fear of her own impending birth overtook the calm and detached disposition her medical training emphasized.
Out of the dozen bodies circled around Mica, not one kneeled to help her, hold her hand, or give her solace.
Bystander apathy. The words from my training filtered in. With such a large crowd, it became easy to defer responsibility. It made sense, too. If no one stepped in to help, nobody had to bear the responsibility of failure. After twenty long hours, we all feared failure.
Mica broke the silence with another scream—more drawn-out and chill-inducing than the last.
“Get Kelvin,” I snapped, before dropping to the dirt floor. I took Mica’s hand. “We need to slow your breathing. You’re nearly hyperventilating.”
I led her through a series of breathing exercises, modeling how to replace her short, panic-ridden gasps with slower, deeper breaths. While I was worthless for the below-the-waist stuff, my training emphasized relaxation and calming techniques.
Excellent treatment for panic attacks and post-traumatic stress disorder. Funny how I had thought the fire and chaos of our awakening led to trauma. I never imagined birth itself could be the source of the trauma.
Kelvin entered the small tent. He glanced at the circle of women—traumatized themselves by their first introduction to what their own birthing experiences would parallel. “Everyone needs to leave,” he ordered. “Except Porter and Tarsi.”
The women filed out—one by one. Each seemed to stop and give Mica a long, poignant gaze. Please, survive, their expressions seemed to plead.
The surviving colony members—only fifty-three now—had made assumptions, myself included. Taking control from Hickson and Colony seemed the most difficult challenge. I assumed that expanding our numbers would happen effortlessly.
The drive to procreate is one of nature’s most powerful forces. Look at how nature bribes people with the promise of physical pleasure. Even Maslow recognized this, all those eons ago, when he created his hierarchy of needs. He ranked the need for intimacy just above the need for safety. Physiological needs—food and water—always place first, of course.
My mistake was in focusing on the procreating aspect, rather than the actual birthing process. The bodies of teens are built to enjoy the pleasures of intimacy, but not necessarily to weather the struggles of birth. Mica, in particular, was petite; her bump rose high from her narrow hips.
