69. Glowing Bird.

In that time before enmity was discovered and writing was invented, the spoken word was the way of the world, we were the wise women. They would come to us with a choice, faces of puzzlement and fear, and we would ease it. They would ask, "Which?" We would find the way of the great spirit, the one who is love, heal their worried soul and they would be happy once more. Every kind lived together in harmony, until the fear of the paranoid ones came, and "Which?" became "Witch!"

Everything began to turn upside down, humans began to loathe vampires for always looking so young and having no fear of death due to their immortality, and as soon as they discovered their weaknesses, they started to get rid of them. The vampires however discovered that human blood was actually the sweetest so they began to feed on humans without remorse. The werewolves amidst the troubles also started to rebel against the vampires for making them slaves and dogs for their kind. The three beings all came together to cast us out for supposedly ranking ourselves above all other kinds and pretending to see what none of them could see and so, they started to call us witches.

I tried to run faster, away from the raging wolves and vampires. Away from the humans. I was the only one left out of my kind and I would not give up,  not until I have given birth to the child in me safely, no, definitely not until I bring her out of me and send her to where no harm shall touch her, at least, until the spirits need her back, until she's actually old enough to use all she would be given.

The night was very cold. It was the type of coldness that reached into my bones, as if my heart were a door left wide open to the icy wind, slamming only to open again. The only thing to do is keep moving, keep heading toward a safe place and the steady warmth of the earth. Each step became a prayer for home as I walk, seeing the light from the doorway in my flickering daydreams, letting it become more real than the stormy night. The fireflies danced in the night as if choreographed by every joyous memory and dream.

"Just a little bit more. Just a little." I kept saying to myself as it was becoming even harder for me to move and then almost suddenly, a splash made me halt, my water broke, making me lie down on the ground full of debris instantly.

"This is it. This is the time, one push and you are done." I whispered to myself as I kept blowing air in and out with my mouth as it seemed like my nose wasn't doing its job properly.

With each contraction came a pain that dominated my entire being. In those moments, for those seconds that stretched into infinity, there was nothing else. When the pain passed, it was only for a minute or so and I breathed with closed eyes, unwilling to re-engage with life outside of my own body. I had to find myself from the deepest recess of my own mind and drag myself forward, to use my voice and open my eyes. I repeated to myself that it was time, time to push. With a guttural grunt, I did so and I stopped, one was enough. I felt the baby, the hot stretching of flesh and held my breath. Without any further effort, the baby slid onto the floor, crying and screaming.

Taking my own dirty clothes off, I wrapped her so much so that I was sure she felt very warm before I then rested my back against a tree, petting her till she felt safe  and drinking the moment in, this moment with my little girl in my arms. She was so beautiful, her green eyes were more brilliant than I could have dreamed they would be, her hands more delicate. She felt so light, looked so perfect and smellt so divine. Her newborn baby sounds was as sweet as a summer strawberry and filled me with a sunshine I never knew existed in the world.

Even though I wished I could spend more time with her and maybe even breastfeed her, I knew the people I was running from were not too far away from me any more and they would find me anytime soon as I was still weak to even move a long distance so I took to the mission.

"Little Winifred." I started almost choking on my breath, I started to sob when a beautiful light appeared in front of me, showing me the beauty she would become and little specs of what kind of person she would be. I smiled at how she tried to fit into the society, at how she was dancing alone when she thought no one was watching, at how she cried when she felt overwhelmed and at how she blushed differently when she found the one.

"Let that beauty shine into the world, yet always be okay with closing the door when you need solitude; even the daisies rests at night, their petals folded inward. So let it show, be bold, chase your dreams with everything you have, because that is your beauty too. Your thoughts, your creative spark, the way you dance when no-one is watching - it is beautiful... you are beautiful. All I ask is that when the storms come you always remember to open up those delicate petals again and feel the gentle rays of the sun. Soon, you'll have to come back here and when you do, I hope it's easy for you to do what you're destined to do, despite all that would be thrown at you. I love you, my dearest Winifred." I concluded.

Soon after,  I heard rustling of leaves, which signified that I now had company. "Take her to the future, far far away from the time we are in now, put her in the most comfortable home one could ever get, and never leave her alone." I instructed the white dove flying above me, the baby was immediately turned into a gemstone and the dove disappeared into thin air.

And immediately after that, my old friend came into light, "oh, dearest friend. We meet again." She said, in a sickly sweet voice as she bared her fangs and showcased her red eyes.

The fact that we used to call ourselves bestfriends seemed like something that never happened.

"This is a full blown war you all are starting. Soon you'll all kill yourselves in a bit to rule over the other till you actually finish eachother off completely." I said the same thing I said before I fled.

"Oh please, if you claim to see the future as you say, how come you couldn't even see your own deaths? If you all are so powerful like you claim to be, why aren't you just turning me into a stone at the snap of your fingers? Why are you just here shivering instead, huh?" She mocked, cackling loudly.

"If you don't believe anything we say, why do your kind think they have to kill my child just because we said she's the one who would be the most powerful being and put an end to all evil which includes you? Why are you so scared of what isn't true?" I questioned, wiggling my eyebrows.

Her countenance changed like I've hit the right spot with my questions, which only made her more angry, she looked at my half naked body and only then did she realise that I had no baby in me anymore. "Where's the child?" She asked.

"Somewhere you'll never reach."

"Oh good. It'll be nice to join her, she needs her mother." She said conclusively as she rushed towards me at an inhumane speed.

*******

Winifred's eyes suddenly flustered open. She  coughed out and held her neck then looked around wondering where she was. It seemed to be some sort of camp because she was in a tent.

What kind of dream is that? It seems to vivid, so real? Almost like she was really in it? Like she was being told a story she should know about herself, what was even more frightening was the fact that there really was a glowing bird in the tent with her, the same one that had been in her dream just now, the same one that she had seen when she collapsed in the world she was in before. It doesn't say anything out than fly around and chip. She closed my eyes and shook her head as if trying to confirm if she was hallucinating or running mad and by the time she opened her eyes to see if it was still there, it was gone, just like that.

This was at the same time that an elderly woman walked into the tenth, looking at her with so much concern and worry, "finally, you're awake. I almost thought that you won't be able to survive it." She said as she placed what seemed to be a herbal concoction next to her, it stank.

"Oh, don't be like that, dear. I've been giving you this to keep the baby safe in your state?" The woman said and Winifred stared at her in confusion,  "baby?" She asked.

"Yes, baby, see?" She said looking down at Winifred's stomach and when Winifred herself decided to look at what she was directing her attention to, she gasped.

She had a big stomach.