#she is paid n then discarded after given birth

[mithliya]

https://www.tumblr.com/bliss-bliss-bliss-bliss/714135861418229760/ohhhh-i-am-going-to-talk-about-the-bronze-age-and

i had to scroll through so much annoying rambling to get to the point and in the end it wasn’t even describing surrogacy, like, at all. surrogates nowadays often do not have any genetic ties to the child and often do not get to see the child afterwards, ever. they do not get to babysit every now and then, they do not get given a place within the family. they do not get treated as some part of the family but an incubator that is discarded after giving birth. this person really tried to use a case of communal parenting and compared that to surrogacy…

[imaginedreamwrite]

Brave New World: Part 12

A/N: Trigger warnings for mentions of misogyny, sexism towards women, forceful confinement

It was the sharp cry that pierced the dark wing that had initially woken you up. It was a sharp and startling sound that broke you from your slumber, drawing you upright in your bed with a sudden jolt.

Immediately, you reached for the sides of your bed and curled your fingers in the sheets as a method to ground yourself. To hold yourself to the thin and old mattress, one with springs that were poking through your equally thin nightgown.

You have recently been thrown into a new yet seemingly endless, hellish environment. The move from a private room to the shared room was necessary to make space for another influx of omegas who had been brought to the facility.

Through the thin walls of the shared women’s ward you were thrown into, it was glaringly obvious that some pregnant omegas, used as surrogates and breeding machines, had given birth early.

There was an urgency to give birth before the due date, a necessity to try to save both mother and child from a fate that was unfair for both of them, however, the child would fare much better than she would.

“Shut up! Shut up!” One of the other omegas on this crowded floor raised her voice harshly, caring neither for the other woman in another room nor the consequences that would come to the poor mother.

You reacted quickly and threw the blankets off you, stumbling and falling to your hand and knees due to the process of them administering more drugs to your body. As your knees and hands had banged against the creaky wood, another sharp cry had been heard through the walls of this place.

Your weariness had made you crawl, initially, and as you traversed your way to the next rows of beds, that same woman screamed again, thrashing against the holds that kept her in place.

You could see her struggling, the latest douse of serum altering her brain chemistry and inducing temporary psychosis. Despite her aggression toward the mother and child in the birthing unit, you wished the other omega luck on getting past this debilitation. You knew full well that if she hadn’t recovered from this aftereffect, she would have been thrown into one of the many pleasure houses and used as a toy.

If she hadn’t recovered, she would be discarded as if she was nothing more than a heat receptacle for alphas.

“Please, you have to be quite. Please, if you don’t they’ll come down on all of us!”

There was a steady thud of her back against the bed as she violently rocked herself back and forth, creating her own despotism hold of her world as she saw it. She was so far in her head and in her madness created by this last bout of the serum, she hadn’t realized that rocking back and forth as violently as she had would create more hell for you all.

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” She screamed three more times before another omega had risen to her feet, stumbling just as you had, and started toward the bed.

With the one omega woman behind dealt with, you felt secure enough to rise to your feet after reaching for one of the rails of the metal bed. Your hands gripped the end of the footboard, and you slowly pushed yourself to stand, your legs and feet aching to the point where it felt like they were burning.

Still, despite the aching in your bones, you pushed yourself further. You took every step cautiously, fearing that at any point one of the guards would come for you, for all of you, to deliver swift punishment. It wasn’t just you that would suffer for being out of bed, rather harsh consequences would come to every omega.

Even those that were sleeping.

“Shut that thing up!” there were hurried whispers in the room that followed an outburst, the direct order coming from the oldest omega in the room and focused on the woman in a mental break. “Shut her up, or we’ll all get it!”

You paid no mind to the order and focused on getting out of the room you were in, to head to the birthing ward. While you had known the door would be locked and access was denied to you and anyone else in the room, you also knew that one of the panels on the left-hand side of the wall was fabricated and easy to remove.

With the thinness of the walls and this falsified covering, you could easily slip from one room to another, and once you’d gotten to the other room you could help the omega who just gave birth. Or at least you could attempt to help, you could attempt to console her and her child, make an effort to extend what little kindness you could while being trapped here.

“I said shut her up!” The oldest omega yelled again, her voice carrying as you removed the panel and began to slip into the crawl space, keeping yourself as small as possible in order to make your way from one room to the other.

A shiver ran up your spine when your feet hit the other panel, the cold metal piercing your skin through the soles of your feet. The sensation was temporary, it had evaporated the moment you kicked the panel loose and managed to pull yourself through, coming into the other room.

You struggled to stand, a shake to your knees and thighs had almost made you tumble back to the floor, your hand already outstretched before you caught yourself.

The newborn was hastily wrapped in a thin blanket, squirming and still squawking with a great set of lungs that would have aided a career in entertainment further down their life. You had heard the omegas in the other room struggling to stop the maddened omega from raising too much of a complaint while this poor woman had just given birth.

Your approach was slow and calculated. You didn’t dare try to cause another sound to alert the betas and controlled alphas who ran this facility. You were already on their radar, already someone they wanted to study and watch, an omega who they had wanted to get rid of.

“Please,” she pleaded with you, simpering soft voice almost a wail, “they’ll take my baby. If they hear…”

The chirp of an alarm somewhere else in the facility prickled your skin, your stomach bubbling with unease and caution.

“Shh,” she rocked her child, her eyes wide and her lips parted with every attempt at quieting her child, “please…please-!”

“You’re a breeder,” you already knew she was and yet, it felt as if this reality was just hitting you, “they’re supposed to be coming for you but-”

“— I gave birth early, without medication. Without-”

Your heart nearly leapt from your chest as another bang had resounded somewhere in the building, a ghostly echo of something nefarious happening somewhere else. You stepped closer to her, hands shaking and your eyes growing wide in size, unable to truly think or react to what was going on around you.

Women, omegas, restrained to beds with what had once been softened cuffs but had now become rough, were lining the room from one end to the next. They were laying on nothing more than tufts of stuffing bound in thin canvas, a state that even cattle wouldn’t be permitted to lay on.

“They’ll take my baby, help me.” The omega was whimpering, and it wasn’t until now that you’d realized she was weakened by giving birth.

It hadn’t been until that moment that you’d even been aware that she was bleeding. The tang of copper hits your nose, mixing disgustingly with the smell of mildew and stale dust.

“You’re dying.” You crept closer and sank to your knees beside her bed, your hands curling against the cheap canvas bed. “You don’t have time.”

“Take my baby,” she turned to look at you, eyes losing their light and her breathing becoming shallow, “don’t let them have her. Don’t let her fall to the fate.”

“I can’t, don’t give her to me. I can’t take her. I can’t keep her, I can’t-” you stumbled over your words, fumbling as you tried to speak and make your case for not taking the child, for not taking the baby to be punished.

“Find someone, please promise me-” the babe was pushed into your arms, instincts leading you to cradle the child, and with a purpose thrust upon you, you rose to your feet and balanced tenderly.

“Thank you, Y/N. You,” the omega heaved, desperately fighting for breath, “you’re my family…my sister-”

Hours bled into days, and days had shifted into the next week.

While your heat had come and gone, while you had been marked and mated, you had never let go of the expectation that you would become pregnant. It was what you had been altered to do, to become a vessel for pups to boost the population that was faltering.

Whether it was this reality or the one you had escaped from, the result was the same. Your body and your DNA, your every genome, was geared toward fertility and pregnancy.

Even now, you could feel it.

Even now, only a week after you had been marked and mated, you knew your body was flush with life. You had narily placed your hand upon your belly, still unaffected by your growing child, and knew you were expecting.

If it hadn’t been the nesting you had done when you expressed your anxiety about being a mother, to the empathy of your mates, then this would have been every indication that it had happened.

Your stomach turned once, just once, and your sense of smell had increased with the changes in your body, and you knew. It was obvious, it was painstakingly clear that you were now doing what they had always intended you to do, only now it was by your choice.

Now, you have the decision to keep the child while in a safe and loving environment.

It’s the soft rapping on the door that audibly announces their presence on the other side of the door, but it’s hardly the first indicator that they were going to find you. With your new heightened senses, already increased from the serum before you were pregnant, you already knew.

It was their scent that carried, it was the sounds they made as they walked around and throughout the cabin. It was the soft mumbling of Bucky as he reiterated his annoyance and temporarily forgetting where he put things, and Steve whispering to himself as he sketched or painted.

You could hear it all; you could smell every shifting difference in the cabin.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Steve was the first to speak, the first to come and sit beside you.

You had negated to look at him immediately. Instead, you curled tighter on the outdoor chaise, tucking the blanket you took up and under your feet. You pressed yourself against the back of the lounger before you tucked your chin into your chest, and then you spoke.

“I’ve been thinking. A lot.” You spoke to them, addressing Steve verbally, and Bucky physically.

“Are you okay?” Steve was on your right, Bucky was on your left, both had been figuratively shielding you from a nonexistent threat. “Omega-“

“I’m pregnant.” Stagnant silence, unwavering quietude and the bubbling intensifying gleam of hopefulness and want had clashed in the middle, as if two beasts had represented the two sides of an emotional state of mind, with teeth and claws.

“Y/N,” Bucky crept in, a smile bursting on his face with eyes wide and vibrantly pulsing, “omega…this is everything we’ve ever wanted, this…”

Their happiness was unbounded. Their dreams of becoming fathers and having an omega was finally and wholly a completed reality. Puzzle pieces that hadn’t been set had finally clicked into place, with everything they’d wished and longed for becoming theirs.

There was a short time between you three wherein Bucky and Steve had let their raw emotions out to air, their happiness and loving statements settling upon you like the warmth of the sun and the soft breeze of summer.

It was further removing the corrupted chill you felt had been running through your veins, extinguishing the final clutch the organization, that wanted to make you a possession, had on you.

With Steve and Bucky, you were freed. Your baby was safe, your baby would grow up happy and healthy in a world that cherished it.

And you.

“I want this, I’ve decided. I want this baby, but…” you bit down on your bottom lip, teeth digging into your flesh while your eyes had become instructed by fat tears. “You may want to get that.”

The phone rang clear through your ears, a sharp yet melodic chime breaking the conversation, and you waited with bated breath as Steve walked to his phone and picked up the call, eyes locked on you.

“Cap,” Sam’s voice hit your ears, and you knew, “we need you back here.”

[sister-to-the-queen]

Under - Chapter Two: Submersion

His name was Caleb. He was seventeen years old. He was a tool maker, like his father before him. Caleb's father had lived a very long life. He had died at the age of thirty-eight, after his wife had given birth to a healthy daughter when Caleb was five years old, after two unwanted boys. Caleb's father had been culled immediately after the birth. Caleb's mother had followed half a year later, after the girl had been weaned and no longer required her.

The girl's name was Elspeth. She was almost thirteen and had come into adulthood a year before. She and Caleb had been mated at this time. As yet, they had produced no children, which was unlucky. It was not understood why Elspeth had not yet conceived. The law of the People dictated that efforts must be made every night, to hasten them collectively on the Path to total Perfection and, if the child was of the wrong sex, to provide materials. Elspeth's barrenness was doubly unfortunate because she herself was so beautiful already, far more than Caleb. She was very small, the legs short and stunted, her spine bent naturally to one side. Her eyes were tiny and so close the corners almost touched above her nearly flat nose. She had almost no teeth. Many men had already told Caleb that they wished their mate looked like her.

They lived together in one of the twenty-five rooms of the World. As in every other room, the Outer Wall bent inward, shielding half the floor from the sky for the greater part of the day. The blackened, jagged edges of the Wall were like sharp teeth keeping that sky at bay. This was a source of great comfort and security for the People.

Caleb and Elspeth's room was richly furnished. It had a low table, a sitting mat and a sleeping mat, and a bucket for waste. This was normal, because all the People lived in luxury. Their room was special, however, because they also possessed two drinking cups that Caleb's father had made after his wrong children had been descended. Caleb had promised his neighbors that they, too, would receive cups from him when the proper material presented itself.

Caleb was no longer young. Elspeth was leaving her youth behind. As they were of the People, this meant nothing. All about them was sublime, and the People knew this. Elspeth knew it. Caleb knew it.

But.

The evening of the day after the old woman's descension, Caleb sat cross-legged on the sitting mat in his room. He was using his father's pricking tool to make a hole in one of the old woman's arm bones. His father had once told him, when he was very small, that he had heard from his father's father - who must have been ancient beyond conception - that the pricking tool had once, long ago, had a flat, dull head, almost impossible to make holes with. Now, it was worn down to less than a finger's length, and so sharp that even touching it drew blood. The black handle, too, was nearly gone, from the endless grip of so many hands.

While Caleb worked, Elspeth lay on her stomack on the edge of the sleeping mat, drawing shapes on the metal floor with the tips of her fingers, and occasionally letting out squeaks and gasps of delight. Caleb paid this no mind. She always behaved like that in the evening. Eventually, however, she could no longer contain her excitement, and exclaimed, "Caleb, it's so strong!"

Caleb looked up, frowning. He and Elspeth rarely spoke. When they did, it was usually when he asked her to bring in fungus from the Garden or water from the rain tank. She would always quietly obey. When she herself began a conversation, it was without point. Caleb said, "What is it?"

"The ground, Caleb!" she answered. She put her palms flat on the metal and began jerking her arms forward and back, forward and back. She began mumbling to herself. "So strong, so strong, so strong, so solid, so hard, so thick, protects, protects, protects us, pretty, pretty, pretty..." She had apparently forgotten he was there.

Caleb resumed his work. By the time he'd managed to perforate one end of the bone, it was almost completely dark. This did not matter. Caleb was so familiar with the motions that he required no light. He turned the bone around. Elspeth spoke again.

"Get in me, Caleb," she whined. He looked up again. In the very faint light, he could see her on her back on the sleeping mat, skirt pulled up and legs spread wide. Caleb laid down his tool and the bone, got up, and went to her. As he lowered himself between her legs, he felt a slight reluctance. Before, he had felt nothing at all.

On the sixth day after the old woman's descension, there was a Convocation at the Temple. On this day, Priest was to point out the breeder couple, whose child-to-be would complete the sacred number once again. The People were happy. The Dread Six Days of incompleteness would soon be over.

An hour of silence passed. Priest rose from his seat. His legs shook under him. He let himself fall forward off his dais and began to crawl. From the beginning of the Convocation, the People had been standing up, their legs bare to the knees. Each time his groping hands encountered a pair of feet, Priest would feel up the legs and dig in his fingers. His nails were rough and brittle. The first member of the People to bleed under his grasp would be one half of the pair to provide the missing part.

Twenty members of the People were tried and discarded. Then Priest's nails encountered Elspeth's skin and scratched it open. Her legs had many sores that tore easily when touched. Elspeth groaned and shivered. Priest twisted his neck till his face was turned straight up. His mouth opened in a rictus, revealing his pale gums. "Chosen!" he barked.

The Convocation was finished.

That night, Elspeth made Caleb lie on the metal floor instead of the sleeping mat. She kept putting him inside her. This was without purpose. Caleb could not sate her after the first time. Elspeth knew this, but did not seem to care. Each time, she would fall forward on Caleb, press her face to the floor and rub her hands on the metal. Each time, she made the same sounds as she did when he could sate her.

This continued for many days. After this, Caleb ordered her to stop and made her lie on the sleeping mat. She obeyed. From then on, she did not move and made no sound during duty time. She was as limp as though she had been dead.

Elspeth was carrying. She and Caleb were forbidden to move from the room. Each day, in rotation, a different neighboring pair would come twice to bring them water and fungus and take their waste away. The fungus for Elspeth was enriched with blood from the woman of the pair. This was to hasten the growth of the child. The man of the pair was forbidden from serving her. Only Caleb could receive water and fungus from him. Neither member of the pair was allowed to speak

Elspeth too did not speak. She smiled all the time. As the days passed, she became very fat. Unlike Caleb, she never walked around their room. He had to put her on and take her off the bucket. It was said that she would not be able to walk anymore after the birth. This often happened to women of the People. She would need to crawl until she could walk again.

After many days of seclusion, Caleb found that he had difficulty in thinking. His work did not require it, but he had done it sometimes. He felt distressed by the change. Sometimes, in near dark, he would look towards the door and wish he could walk through it.

Elspeth saw him looking sometimes. Those were the only times she did not smile.

The child was born. It was a girl. It was very small. It cried often, especially when made to drink the watery, bluish milk that ran from Elspeth's breasts. This was normal for a child of the People. Caleb's neighbors congratulated him.

Elspeth caught her excess milk in the waste bucket. Every evening, Caleb went to pour the bucket's contents onto the Great Pipe. To do so was a habit of the People. Once every six days, when the top segment of the Great Pipe almost ran over with excrement and urine all made bluish by the milk of several nursing women, a ritual similar to a Descension Ceremony would take place. This was because, to the People, there was no difference between living waste and dead waste. Both were filth to be shed and cast away on the Path to Perfection.

Elspeth slept on him every night, the child lying right next to them. Her dress was always open at the front, and one of her dugs hung down next to Caleb's side, that the child only had to purse its mouth in order to drink. Sometimes Elspeth leaked a little.

One night, for a reason he could not understand, Caleb wanted to scream.

Not long after came a black day for the People. Horror and dread had struck in a way that only the eldest had experienced before.

A bird had appeared on the other side of the Net.

The People all knew of birds. In their youth, they had all heard stories of nightmare from their parents about the winged monsters that sometimes came from beyond the Walls of the World. They came like demons from the vast cosmos of evil that spread infinitely in all directions on the other side of those Walls, and even a glimpse of them was a harbinger of disaster. Of course, there were many, many more horrors surrounding them, revealed by the unnameable sounds that every member of the People had been taught from infancy not to hear, but birds were by far the worst, because they could be seen.

This particular one had been black, not much larger than a grown man's hand, yellow-beaked, and it had made a horrible sound from where it had perched itself on a strand of the Net. When the People saw it, the women among them screamed and screamed. Their eyes rolled back in their heads and some of them fell into convulsions. The men beat their tools or their fists together and howled to chase the monster off. It was around two minutes before it flew away, and by then the People were half dead with fear. For one dread instant, it had even seemed as though it meant to cross through the Net.

After the clamor had died, the People heard the familiar screech of Priest, summoning them for a sermon. Their hearts grew heavy with peace, and they filed into the Temple.

The bird remained on Caleb's mind. He had screamed and clashed his tools with the rest of the men. But when he saw the bird take off and fly away, he wondered where it would go. It was solid, because it could land on the solid Net. So on what could it land beyond the Walls of the World, if not something solid too? Would the bird, once out of sight, really melt into a ghost, as some stories claimed, or would it take on an even more hideous shape and work its evil in tangible form, as other stories said? What was Caleb to believe?

Caleb was disturbed by these thoughts. They were thoughts that no member of the People had ever had before. Caleb knew this. The World was the World, and there was nothing else. What lay beyond the Walls existed and did not exist. It was not to be thought of.

Still, in the night, while Elspeth and the child drooled in their sleep, Caleb would sometimes turn his eyes towards the Teeth of the Wall over his head, and wonder.

The thought of the bird and what it might mean would not stop going through his head. It became stronger and stronger. He could not wait anymore. He would have to act.

He pushed Elspeth off him. She gurgled and smacked and kept snoring. He got up from the sleeping mat and went to overturn the waste bucket. He placed it under the Teeth of the Wall. He stood on the bucket. If he raised himself on his toes, he would be able to peer over the edge.

He did not get the chance to do so. Elspeth was awake now, and slammed her full weight against his legs. He fell awkwardly on his arm and screamed. Elspeth had fallen into the waste he'd poured out of the bucket and was rolling around in a fit. She'd shoved or kicked away the baby in her haste to get to Caleb, and it was lying on its belly and shrieking.

Neighbors had come running. One woman picked up the child and turned it over and over. She did not seem to know what to do. Several others were standing around Elspeth. They appeared afraid to touch her.

One man had pulled Caleb to his feet and started poking at Caleb's arm. It was oddly twisted. Caleb screamed again and hit the man's hand.

Elspeth was able to use words again. She howled out what he had done, and then fainted.

The neighbors stood frozen. The man who held him stared at him open-mouthed. Then they fell on Caleb and dragged him away.

Caleb was on his back in the center of the Temple. Four men were holding him down. He did not struggle.

Priest was sitting next to him. His head was swaying from side to side. He slowly raised his arms and shrieked, "Heretic!"

The People shuddered.

Priest continued in a lower tone. "You are one of the People. You live in the World that is the Glory. You live in Paradise. The Walls of Paradise are the Ward given to us by the Sacred Pair." He twitched. "Outside the Walls lies Hell. The demon birds are creatures of Hell that come to plague us. When one came, you did not scream loud enough. I heard you. We heard you. Your woman heard you. Behold!" he shouted and gestured to two women of the People. They came forward, dragging Elspeth between them. She was barely conscious.

"Your woman is stricken," said Priest. "Nothing can be done. If she does not heal by herself, she will die. She was yet to breed more. The fault is yours. Do you see her?"

"Yes," said Caleb.

"Behold!" Priest said again, and gestured to another woman. It was the one who had picked up the child. She was still carrying it by the back of its swaddling clothes, dangling it by her side. Its limbs moved weakly. It made no sound.

"Your child is injured," said Priest. "Nothing can be done. It will die soon and provide for the People. This is good and not good. It was to have lived to keep the sacred number intact. The fault is yours. Do you see it?"

"Yes," Caleb said again.

"Much breeding will have to be done to undo your deed. You have endangered the People. Two may die. Two less than fifty weakens us. Hell may attack. You have done evil. You will be punished. Why have you done what you have done?"

Caleb hesitated.

"Speak."

"Speak," the People repeated.

Caleb swallowed. "I wanted to see."

Silence fell. Priest opened his mouth. He did not speak. After a time, saliva began dribbling from his lips. Some of it fell on Caleb.

Priest gurgled in his throat. White foam appeared at his lips. A spasm snapped his head back. "Cage," he sputtered, and fell on his side.

Half the People fainted.

There lay a passage in the Fungus Garden around the Great Pipe at the center of the World. It was hardly longer than the height of a man, but the idea of anything going downward was a source of dread for the People. Because of this, the daily gathering of food was always tinged with fear. The women did not like to go beyond the round edges of the Garden. They only plucked off what they could reach from the safety of the metal. No-one was ever hungry. The fungus grew rapidly enough.

The passage was halfway between the Pipe and the edge of the Garden. At the end of the passage was a room, the same size as each of the rooms of the People. This room contained the Hatch and the Cage. Two men carried Caleb to the Cage. They were both very pale. They opened it and threw him inside. They left.

Caleb looked at the Cage. It was made on all sides of bars of metal as thick as his wrist. The bars were about a hand's length apart. The Cage was large enough that Caleb could almost stand up inside. There was a very thick cable attached to the top of the Cage.

He was frightened. He wanted to scream. He could not scream. He retched and vomited copiously through the bars on the bottom, onto the floor of the room. There was hair growing on his vomit.

He heard Priest scream, "Now, send him! Send him!"

The door to the passage was closed. It was very dark. A clicking sound began over Caleb's head. The Cage rose up a little and began to move. The Hatch opened. The Cage passed through. Caleb was sent into Hell.

It was too much. It was too much. Caleb wanted to put out his eyes.

Everywhere, before him, to the left, to the right, there were shapes and colors and shapes and colors that Caleb could never have imagined. He knew brown and gray, and there were many upright brown-and-gray things, one after the other, rising up from a ground dizzyingly far below. On top of the things were what looked like gigantic, irregular tufts of fungus. The wind made them rustle. Every now and then, a bird monster would rise up from the fungus. Among the upright things, Caleb could sometimes see other demons moving. Those demons had four legs and were full of hair. Caleb was only able to see this because the upright things did not come all the way to the Great Pipe or even to the shadow of the Walls of the World. Instead, they formed a large circle around them. Within that circle, the ground with the unnameable color was dotted with tiny circular things in many different colors still. As far as Caleb could see, the same view went on.

It was too much. It was too big. Caleb wanted to die.

A bird demon flew screeching right over the Cage. Caleb screamed. His head snapped up. And then it happened.

The vastness, in that moment, of the enormous sky, not separated from him by the black netting, stirred up something in Caleb. He wanted it. He wanted that open sky.

He looked at the lower view again. This time, it did not seem so horrible. He understood it no better than he had done before, but now there was a strange kind of beauty about it, a beauty he'd never seen and never imagined, but he wanted it. He wanted it so badly that he began to cry.

He sat down. The bars were not comfortable but he did not care. He wanted to sit there and look forever.

He could not look forever.

A clicking noise came from the chain above Caleb's head. He looked up. The chain was beginning to lengthen. It was slowly lowering the Cage to the ground.

For one moment, Caleb felt wild with a feeling he did not recognize. It occurred to him that the Cage might open and let him out. If it did, he would never go back. The feeling was very pleasant. Then he looked down.

The ground of the unnameable color was not quite uniform. There was a black square directly under the Cage. The sunlight was very bright. Caleb could see that the square was crossed in two directions by bars similar to those of the Cage. They were lower than the level of the ground.

The Cage kept going down. Caleb felt afraid. Then he saw something, and then he tried to climb up the sides of the Cage.

There were eyes down there, watching him.

They were yellow balls. They had no irises. They had no pupils.

Lower and lower. The Cage was no more than its own height away from ground level now. A thing like an arm with no hand reached out from between the eyes. It reached for Caleb.

Caleb screamed and clung to the top of the Cage. The arm could not reach him. Caleb could not see the rest of the creature.

The Cage was the exact same size as the hole above the bars. It began to sink into the ground.

Caleb tried to squeeze through the top of the Cage. He could not.

The arm reached again. It failed again. It drew back again.

The Cage was completely in the hole now. It stopped and rested on the bars.

Caleb felt as thought his throat would tear. He could not stop screaming.

Once more the arm reached out, slowly. Slowly. It curved, it curled, and it reached for Caleb's face.

The Cage flew up. After a few seconds, it was back to its original level. The Hatch opened. The Cage went back into the World. The Hatch closed.

The men came and dragged Caleb out. They brought him before Priest. Priest asked him, "You see?"

"Yes," said Caleb.

Caleb went back to his room. He ate and drank. He tried to sleep. Elspeth was still alive. The child was not. Elspeth slept. Caleb could not sleep.

He could still taste it on his tongue.

Years had gone by. They had produced three children, all boys. The second and third children had been culled right after birth. Caleb made two cups and gave them to his neighbor. He received a new shirt in return. A year after birth, the surviving child had received a name. Caleb had not bothered to remember it. He never listened when Elspeth spoke to the child. It did not matter.

Caleb was twenty-five years old now. He was almost an old man. His teeth were gone. His hair was falling out and gray. His limbs still served him well, though, and his senses had not yet dulled. He could still work.

Elspeth had become monstrous. White rolls of fat blubbered out between her shirt and skirt. Most women her age were fat, but there was still some solidity in their bodies. Elspeth's all but pooled around her where she lay, day and night, on the sleeping mat, water and fungus always within reach. Caleb had to enlist a neighbor's aid to carry her to and from the waste bucket now. When they performed their duty, it was difficult for Caleb to know how to enter her. There was almost no room.

All this time, Caleb thought of only two things. One was the blue sky without the netting, even though he had never even looked up at the Teeth since that day. The other was that thing.

Elspeth was almost at the end of her pregnancy. It was impossible to see.

Her mind had been steadily going for the last few months. She could hardly speak now. She made strange noises. Many had already come to worship her. Priest, it was said, had spoken of making her the mother of the next Priest.

When the child was not lying on top of her, digging itself into protruding skin, it sat and watched its father work. It had already learned all there was to know about tool-making, but it was not allowed to work while Caleb was alive.

The new child would perhaps be a girl this time. Caleb sometimes hoped it would be.

Since the Cage, he had felt a longing build inside him. He did not know for what it was. He thought it might be for the sky. The longing grew stronger at night and weaker in the daytime. Still, there was a kind of constant growth.

One night, Caleb lay awake. Next to him, Elspeth made noises and twitched in her sleep. Suddenly, she jerked and rolled on top of him. Her weight nearly crushed him. A neckroll pressed against his nose and mouth. He could not breathe. He was going to die. He knew it.

He panicked. Something snapped in his brain. He shoved her off, got to his feet, and kicked and kicked and kicked her in the face. She wailed and hacked and spat blood. The child screamed. Caleb could hear neighbors stirring. He turned, grasped the pricking tool, and leapt for the Teeth of the Wall. He stabbed at the netting. When they came and pulled him down, he had managed to cut one thread.

Caleb lay upon the steel platform. His eyes, the lids strained to tearing, stared upward at the stark sky beyond the black metal netting. No part of him was missing. He was whole. He was alive.

The People, all forty-eight of them, now that Elspeth had fallen into final idiocy, stood in a Circle around the Great Pipe, waiting in silence. There was a collective gasp and shudder when the first of the horizontal doors slid open, dropping Caleb six feet down onto the next portal. The first door closed again, and the next one opened. So it went on, door after door opening and closing again, and every time the sound came, thud, thud, thud, as Caleb, screaming and screaming on behind his bloodied leather gag, fell deeper and deeper away. Every time, through the metal, he could hear the voices of the People rise higher in chant, on and on and on.

Finally, there was a splash, and then nothing.