It's Time

*Kamila*

We finally arrive at Mark's castle, and as the ET1s carry me out of the death van, not on a stretcher like sensible people, but trying to carry my bloated body, I take a moment to look at the beauty of the place.

I am suffering from horrible pain, but the moment I look at the facade of the large building that looks more like a large estate than a castle, a feeling of peace and tranquility suddenly settles around me.

It's lovely. The Jacobethan style of architecture, with its Renaissance touches and symmetrical wings in white stone, looks impressive with large red Kamilas and other flowers blooming along the facade. The garden is a vibrant green, and the sky behind the structure is a bright blue. It's the picture of quaint country life on a grand scale, and I can imagine my children growing up here, running around the gardens, hiding in the willows, or feeding ducks in a big pond that I imagine is out back, although I can't. see him.

Just as these pleasant thoughts bring a smile to my face, a horrendous pain courses through me and I am screaming like crazy, punching, trying to hit anyone or anything nearby to make them understand how badly I need this pain to stop!

My fist hits Tristan in the eye, and then the other hits Reece in the side of the head. They both hesitate a little, and then I almost fall to the ground. "Why the hell didn't they put me on a damn stretcher?!" I yell at them.

“I'm sorry, honey,” Reece says. "We should have done it." We are idiots.

“We're almost there,” Mark insists, but it doesn't seem like we're getting any closer to the house to me.

"You better not try to carry me up any stairs when we enter, or I swear by the Moon Goddess above, I will kill each and every one of you!" I'll rip out their hearts with my own nails and shove them down their throats until they suffocate or bleed to death!

I see them exchanging glances, although Tristan has one eye closed either because his eye is swollen or because it just hurts, and I know they're worried. They're worried that he's actually going to kill them or they're worried that he's lost my last marble.

Maybe they should worry about both.

Carrying me up the stairs to the porch is a tribulation, since there are so many of them, and I am so clumsy. By the time they lift me up, I'm screaming in pain again, ready for this to end one way or another. If these babies don't hurry up and get out of me, I'm going to go down there and get them out myself!

A couple of servants are holding the doors open for us as the men take me inside, and I'm relieved that it's a double door and mortified that I can't fit through a single door. We walk into a beautiful hallway with marble on the floor and head left, and I'm crying because I might not fit through the bedroom door.

But the room they take me to is not a bedroom. It is a kind of library or office. The shelves aren't very big, but the place is cozy, with a large fireplace flanked by one-legged ET´s with grumpy faces. It's not on, thank the Goddess because I'm burning up.

I'm glad to see you have a bed ready for me here. They put me in it, and I take a moment to try to control my emotions, but at first I continue to cry and then scream when the contractions hit me again. I hate all this.

"If you don't give me a damn epidural right now, I swear to the Goddess I will kill you all!" I scream.

—Okay, okay. Let me check you, and we'll see what we can do,” Dr. Travesty says as other people enter the room who apparently have something to do with the birth. I look around and see four small beds on wheels on the other side of the room, near what I as...ume is Mark's desk. People are ready for my babies, and I want to cry again.

The healers take care of dressing me in a gown open in the back, like hospital gowns, and I don't even care if there are forty-seven people in this room, I'm suffering so much that I would stay here naked and have these babies. Then they make me spread my legs with just a sheet over them and they stick their fingers down my throat.

It hurts like a bit...!

“Yes, we still have time,” he says. Then he turns to the people around him and starts giving orders about things I don't understand, but when he tells me to turn around and hang the foot of the bed so he can look at my back, I almost go crazy again. .

“It's for the epidural,” Mark says in a calm voice as he steps forward to face me, taking my hands in his. —Let her put it on.

It makes me arch my back, and then I feel the prick of a needle and she says, "Okay, the epidural is on." It will take a little time to take effect. Now, we'll start your IV and give you other medicine to make you comfortable. Here is the button to press when it hurts, but don't press it for–

Before he can finish his sentence, I've already pressed the button about ten times.

Dr. Travesty takes it from my hand. —Miss Kamila! Are you trying to hurt yourself?

"I'm already dying!" I tell him as another contraction hits me, and it's no easier than the previous ones.

She shakes her head, and I want to punch her in the face, but I don't. She has to have both eyes to get these babies out, unlike Tristan who is still winking at me.

They continue around me as I finally begin to calm down into a state of minor pain and discomfort, and as the pain medication begins to take effect, I begin to feel much better about all of this. This is so easy, maybe I'll have four more babies.

It was about half an hour before Dr. Travesty checked me again. That's when she says, "Very good, Kamila." It's time.

"Time for what?" I ask, feeling a little dizzy.

She has a goofy smile on her face. “Of course, it's time to push,” she says.

I look around me. The ET1s are smiling at me too, and Tristan's eye looks better.

But something is wrong. Something is not right. I can't push yet. I can't have these babies. "But... Eli isn't here yet," I tell the doctor.

"I'm afraid these babies don't care," she says. —It's time to push.

-Don't worry. “She's almost here,” Reece says, squeezing my hand.

As Tristan lifts one leg and Mark lifts the other, I prepare to push, and begin to cry.

—Eli? Where are you?