The Next World

It smells like rancid meat. She scrunches up her nose again and puts her palm against her face, pressing her cold fingers against her flushed cheeks. She's got a temperature and she's shivering.

Claire doesn't want to know why it smells like rancid meat. Nor does she spend much time trying to see through the eerie darkness to see if she's really alone; some things, Claire figures, are best left unknown.

She doesn't think about the fact that he could come back for her at any moment. Doesn't think that the rusted door will be pulled open, spilling sunlight over her and allowing her some breaths of fresh air and she doesn't wonder where he is. She doesn't care. All she cares about is the baby. She can still feel it kicking sometimes, which is reassuring, but there's no telling when she'll go into labor or what will happen after that.

Of course, she doesn't allow herself to think about the after. The first night she spent curled up in a ball, crying, and wondering what would become of she and the baby. Now she just tried to breathe. She found breathing to be easier when your thoughts weren't of impending death.

Claire found herself often thinking of Charlie. She had no idea what happened to him, only that she'd been thrown in this underground hell hole and he had not. The last thing she remembers is his scared face as Ethan closed the door on her; he had been holding Charlie around the neck so he couldn't escape and he was desperately trying to break free, but just as the door snapped shut she heard his voice.

"It'll be okay, Claire."

She laughed about that sometimes. Because things obviously weren't going to be okay. It had been four days and she was still all alone in a place she didn't want to be with a baby waiting to come into the world.

A world Claire wasn't terribly fond of at the moment.

At night…well, she thought it was night; she couldn't see outside so she was never quite sure what time it was, but she counted down the hours and made her own assumptions. When she curled up in the corner on top of some hard straw type substance, she'd think about Charlie. Sometimes she'd feel better, concentrating on him.

Mostly she just worried about where he was and what had happened to him.

When she thought about Ethan killing her, she didn't really care. What worried her most was the fact that Charlie had not come back looking for her. He'd promised he would, as Ethan dragged them off into the jungle. Even though Claire didn't know Charlie that well, she knew he kept his promises…and she trusted him.

So what was keeping him from her?

And what did Ethan want with her and the baby?

As sleep overtook her, Claire saw Charlie's face in her mind; he was smiling at her.

She knew she'd see him again, and that comforted her just slightly. Maybe they would not meet again in this life, but they would in the next.