My Mama Walked With The Unborn Me

Chapter 2: The Walk Begins

She could not behold the sight any longer. She spun around, swifter than she had liked and sat down with her back grazing the wall. Dread crept through her flesh wildly. Her fingers clawed at the hem of her neckline and pulled it to her mouth, muffling whatever might threaten to spill out.
And then, there came a boom!
.......

The gunshot fell louder than she could bear, mocking the silence Laurelwen had fallen into.

Anna was rocked to the core, every muscle clenched in the effort to muffle the screams and kill the shivers.

She shivered as if not she, but the very land beneath her quaked in the mourning. Tears flooded the bloodshot eyes as memories flashed back before them. As if whatever bond tied their souls, as now cleaving apart, knew it that one end of its light has now extinguished and threw all that life in it, however short, to the other end.

Never had she felt a sorrow this great.
So long did she cry, that she did not notice when the mafia vanished and only winds and sands were existent.
And when her body went numb and too withered to grieve in that cramped silence, she hefted whatever of her body and soul was left and ascended with those weak fumbling feet of a fawn.

Her heart protested.

She should be there and she shouldn't be.

Of all that she ever wished, none were to see him this marred, this dead. Silent and frozen as a rock with only those golden hairs rustling with the sand.
She clung to his lifeless shoulders as she cried streams over him. Her tears mingling with his blood that welled from his splintered chest.

When was she pulled into slumber, she did not know. At nearing dusk, when her heavy eyes unfurled and perceived the sun, crowned orange on the horizon, a sunset so ethereal, it felt like a mockery to her misery.

She too would have been dead if not for her memory which was still afresh, raw with grief.

The memory of Eddie and his last words.

"Stay Strong. You'll be safe, both of you."

Both of You!

Her hand drifted to her side, slowly tracing to cup the heavy bump. Their daughter was an active one for an unborn in the womb, but all this while, she didn't even flutter a movement. As if... even she was silently grieving.
But her tranquility didn't indicate her lifelessness. Only Calm. A known and perhaps... Required one.

Anna still felt her inside her, alive, and she remembered. Remembered and realized that this child hasn't lived a life yet. Which she deserved to. As her foremost right and for the sacrifice her father gave for. And for that, Anna must live. And for that... she must ESCAPE.

With hope and remembrance, she rose with her cramped body. She first made her way to that pit, glanced at the things Eddie had cocooned her with.
Except for a few large things, all else were precisely chosen for survival. It was obvious that Anna cannot lift much, and Eddie had known she didn't need supplies to stay alive, only to support her till escape and safety.
But even from that pile, Anna picked few.

Laurelwen was a small and prosperous town. Not much big, so it had a single supermarket. A desert certainly wasn't for farmers. Hence, much of their needs were imported from outside.
But as her feet landed on the tiles of the building and what she beheld, made her cease and stare at what it was now. The winds shifted into turbulence as if proclaiming, what could a place so plundered offer her.

Things were everywhere, everywhere except where they should be. From whatever that was left, either they were beyond handy or too broken to be.

All that her hand grasped, at last, was a tarp, torn at places but enough for shadow and rest. She grabbed a sling bag from some corner and shoved what would sustain her through the way. Food, all high fibre and of the sort to make her feel full with the least required quantity. A white scarf was taken to keep the sandy gusts off her senses.

By the time she had finally let herself lean against the wall for rest, the waxing gibbous moon was high overhead. And its flawed beautiful spot took Anna from her night gazing to the slumber which brought no rest to her mourning heart.

The mafia wasn't merciful to the things they crossed by. They took everything that yielded them in some way and destroyed what intact of a thing that didn't. Let alone any means to travel by.
Anna was unfortunate in this part, left with no choice but to Walk.

Not a great distance. Just a mere one and three-quarters a day of a walk.
If only that was the standard applicable for an eight months pregnant woman. There was no guarantee of how much it would take her.