CONTENT WARNINGS: extreme body horror, gore, pregnancy
Dr. Kulp wouldn’t have admitted it, but she was a little bit annoyed to be interrupted. She always got the calls that nobody wanted to deal with. Dr. Kulp was greeted at the front desk by a reedy, nervous intern she’d been training named Joey. He said nothing, but grabbed her by the sleeve and began to pull her down a side hallway. Dr. Kulp jerked her arm away.
“What are you, five? What’s going on?”
“K-keep your voice down. I don’t- I don’t know, I just- they said to take her somewhere, cause the maternity wards are full and they’d send someone, but nobody’s come yet, and I didn’t know who else there was in, and I don’t- I don’t know what to do.”
As he finished speaking, the pair arrived at a lonely exam room at the end of a hallway. It typically went quite unused, evidenced by the dusty chairs and the chipped paint. The silence hung heavier there, the doctor had thought, before it was broken by a muffled wail. She jumped, as did Joey.
The two peered through the window to the exam room. On the table lay a heavily pregnant young woman, dressed in old, baggy clothing. She was pallid, covered in sweat, staring straight into the fluorescent ceiling light with red eyes. Her nails dug into the padding of the exam bed, and through her heavy breathing she let out another moan, seemingly despite herself. Dr. Kulp politely knocked on the door. The patient didn’t seem to notice.
The doctor let herself in and was immediately struck by the smell. It smelled so strongly of old metal that it was almost nauseating. Not quite like blood, she thought, but she put that aside. Close enough. She approached the bed, still unacknowledged by the woman.
“Hey,” she began, gentle. “I’m Dr. Kulp. I’m here to help you.”
The woman darted her eyes towards her, still unblinking.
“Doctor. Something’s wrong.”
Her voice was hoarse and desperate. She shakily grasped at the doctor’s sleeve. Dr. Kulp began to pull back, but the patient let out another whimper.
“Please. I’ll show you.”
Uncomfortable with the woman’s unbreaking eye contact, Dr. Kulp glanced back at Joey, who was standing in the doorway, seemingly quite unsure of what to do. The woman pulled the doctor’s hand to her stomach. She felt a kick.
“Uh, y-yes. That’s normal.”
The woman kept staring into her eyes. She slowly pulled the doctor’s hand along her body to a spot just between her right armpit and her breast. Dr. Kulp could feel her ribcage.
“Feel.”
The doctor blanched. She had felt another kick. The woman’s breathing hitched, and she dug her fingernails into her wrist harder.
“They’re moving, Doctor.”
The doctor didn’t turn around.
“Joey, I need you to go get as much medical staff as you can, please. Now.”
He ran out of the room.
“Miss, can you take your clothing off?”
“I can’t move.”
“I… may I cut them off?”
“I don’t care.”
She found some safety scissors in a desk nearby, and tore through the oversized sweater.
The woman’s stomach was pale and stretched taut, and the doctor could see movement underneath it like hands against the wall of a tent. She tore open the covering of her chest, right as the woman lurched to the side in pain and shrieked. On the right side, where her hand had been, Dr. Kulp watched as whatever she had felt kicking began to bend one of the woman’s ribs outward. Her skin bowed and began to tear as she wept. The snapping of the bone echoed.
As it stopped, the woman grabbed the doctor’s hand again. Dr. Kulp began, “I’m-”
“Just hold it. Please.”
She did. The two stayed like that for a minute.
“What’s your name?” asked the doctor.
“Marie.”
“Marie, what happened?”
“It happened a few days ago. I woke up from the pain and they were growing in there. Three of them. I don’t have anywhere to stay, and nobody believes me. Nobody believes me. I think I’m going to die, doctor. I’m scared.”
Dr. Klup choked back tears. She didn’t want Marie to realise how frightened she was.
“M-Marie, we’re going to fix this.”
“You can’t!” she croaked. “You can’t. It’s not… they’re going to hatch soon, doctor. They’re hatching. I just want someone to stay with me. Oh, God, please…”
She trailed off into wordless whimpering as the cracking began again. Dr. Kulp watched and the kicking thing began working its way across Marie’s chest and up her esophagus. Marie grabbed her hand tighter.
“God, please.”
“I… I’m here, Marie.”
Marie’s eyes began to lose their focus. Her breathing became raspy as the thing began to obstruct her windpipe, her throat bulging like a snake after swallowing a mouse. She instinctively lifted her arm to grab her throat as she choked.
The doctor heard a tearing, and she glanced down at Marie’s stomach. It had been pierced by something sharp, it seemed, and it had begun ripping down her torso like a boxcutter. Blood began to run down her sides and onto the exam bed. Dr. Klup began to weep.
There was a sickening crack, as Marie’s face too began to bend outwards. Blood gushed from every orifice of her face, and her grip began to go slack.
“I’m so sorry, Marie, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” the doctor whispered.
Marie’s skull broke open at the same time as her stomach, blood spilling and teeth scattering across the floor. Dr. Klup collapsed to the ground, still clutching her now limp hand.
After a while, the doctor stood. She looked into the two new cavities in Marie’s body. Inside were two cherubic, giggling babies. The one in her stomach had bird-like talons, and the one in her face had feathers coating its arms like wings. They beamed up at her.
Dr. Klup was in shock, naturally, but she remembered something. Marie had said there were three of them. Where was the third? A bead of sweat ran down her back.
The door opened behind her, but she didn’t turn around. She could faintly hear the screaming, but it was drowned out by a new sound: a heartbeat. Marie’s heart had begun to beat.
