Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Mother (as in maternal parent) (04/24/08)
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TITLE: Hope Renewed | Previous Challenge Entry
By Ruth Neilson
04/29/08 -
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The silence was stifling.
The last thing that Valerie could remember was whimpering. She had been left in a room filled other with whimpering women—her own weary voice added to the cacophony. Her baby was gone. The guards had stolen it from her. A ‘medical procedure’ preformed late in her pregnancy had ripped her child away from her arms.
That had been days before the camp’s gates were forced open and the liberators announcing that the government had fallen. They were free.
Everyone had been shipped off to medical facilities and separated from each other.
Her baby was gone.
Valerie closed her eyes against the bright florescent lights. She didn’t want to be here—she just wanted to die.
“Do you think she knows?” A nurse whispered to another as they passed her room.
“I doubt it, other wise she’d be demanding to see...” They were down the hall and Valerie couldn’t hear the rest of the women’s conversation.
Valerie blinked once. Nothing in her world made sense anymore. The doctors spoke in riddles, needing her DNA for some sort of test, but no one would tell her why.
There was a tap on the door and Valerie looked up and nodded at her smiling doctor. “Good afternoon, Valerie. How are we feeling today?” He quizzed, moving closer, and picking up her chart.
“I’m alive when I wasn’t supposed to survive,” she muttered, gazing out the window. “They stole my baby from me…and I was supposed to die.”
There. She had voiced it. It didn’t help her spirit, though.
The doctor started to laugh.
Valerie blinked in confusion as her gaze shifted towards the doctor. He raised his hand and motioned for two nurses that had been hovering at the door to enter. With smiles, the women brought in two small bundles wrapped in blankets as the doctor began to explain.
“Your captors were cruel to do this to you, Valerie, convincing you that they killed your children when they were just planning on putting them into another family.”
Valerie could feel tears pricking at the back of her eyes. Children. I have two babies...
The doctor smiled reassuringly. Valerie quickly wiped the tears with her IV free hand before propping herself up into a sitting position.
“I want...” Valerie paused and bit her lip. “I mean, can I see them?”
The doctor nodded once. “They are your children after all.”
The first nurse lowered a little girl into Valerie’s arm. Valerie stared down at her little girl and then glanced over at the boy before swallowing. “Have they been named?” She quietly asked.
The nurse shook her head once and Valerie fought the tears for another long moment. “Oh God, thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for restoring my hope once again.”
Valerie looked up at the doctor and smiled for the first time since being rescued. “Then meet Nadia and Nehemiah.”
Something in her spirit shifted and Valerie gazed down at her sleeping children. Maybe there was hope for the future of Christians. Was it really possible that the struggle for freedom was finally over? Valerie smiled and nodded once. Maybe it wasn’t completely over—but the future wasn’t so dim either.
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I see this as being a story that could be expanded upon. The 750 word limit sometimes makes it hard to completely flesh out a story, and I would have liked to know more about this woman and the events leading up to this story.
Thank you for sharing. It was a pleasure to read.