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FIFTY

GIRL

Weeks have passed again, and since I beat him at chess he stopped coming, but last night he finally came back. It was one of my fertile days and he said if I catch, we will be a family. Right now, I feel like I’m being punished for losing our baby, and him not being here much is making me believe even more that it was my fault.

He should trust me and take me up to the surface to live with him. I keep telling him that I’ll never leave. He’s been abandoned before and I know how much the prospect of it happening again scares him. I guess it’s for me to try harder, to make him see that I care for him so much I will never leave him.

I lie on the bed with my legs up, against the curve of this big tin can I’m living in. I remember hearing my mum and her friend talking once, saying that they did that to make sure they conceived. Of course, I never joined in that conversation. I was fourteen when that happened. Embarrassing. I’m more grown up now and I see why a person would go through this when the desire burns so deeply within.

I place my hand on my tummy. ‘If you’re in there, I want you to know how much Mummy already loves you.’ I pull up my blue dress and stroke my curved belly just above the line of my underpants and smile. I have a good feeling about this one.

A moment of panic runs through me. Last time I was pregnant, my biggest worry was childbirth. I try to reassure myself: I’m healthy, I’m young – I can do it, and I can do it on my own.

I’m starting to feel a little light-headed and I realise that the ventilation system isn’t gently whirring away. It’s time to get up. I can’t stay here all day with my legs in the air. Besides, I’m hungry.

Walking through to the kitchenette, I pull out some cheese from the mini fridge and begin making a sandwich. A clunking sound comes from behind the metal door. He must be back. Maybe he can look at the ventilation. It must be broken. It’s happened before, but he normally fixes it quickly. It’s not like I’m going to keel over and die instantly. Besides, I have the oxygen tank as an emergency backup if that happens.

‘Albie,’ I call out. He doesn’t answer. ‘Albie.’

‘It’s not Albie,’ the man replies.

Visions of my post-miscarriage fever dream stab me like a bolt of lightning. There was another man. I know I tried to mention it to him and he dismissed it but I know for sure now. My mind has never felt clearer. I thought he was trying to drown me, but after, I realised he was trying to force me to swallow medication. Maybe he was a doctor. ‘Who are you?’

‘That is the question. Why did you talk to the children? You shouldn’t have talked to the children. Now they know about you, and because they know, I can’t let you live.’

It’s as if the air had been sucked out of my lungs. I want Albie. Where is he? ‘Albie?’ I yell. I wave at the cameras hoping that he can see the distress in my face. He will come. He loves me. We’ve waited for centuries to be together again and now I’m going to be taken from him. It’s like fate has decided we can never be properly together. I imagine him going through everything again in another life. He will have to take me again, unless of course we’re fortunate to meet and fall in love the easy way, like my mum and dad did. I will remember our children that never made it. I clutch my belly protectively.

The loud clunk makes my throat nervously contract. There’s nothing stuck in my windpipe, but I feel like I’m choking. My heart bangs, sending erratic beats pumping through my veins. It’s so loud, I can’t hear the creaking sound of the door as it’s nudged.

‘Albie,’ I call again, but I know he’s not coming, and there can only be one reason for that. He’d come if he saw me like this, in distress and potentially carrying his baby. He can’t come because this beast of a man has killed him.

I run into the bedroom compartment and hide under my blanket, shaking. Albie was always scared of him, he told me. The man roars in anger from the other side of the door.

I grip the cupcake scarf. What if no one ever knows I was here?

I think of Mum, Dad and Meowdon. I grab a pen and crawl under the bed where I saw the other names written on the wall.

Joanie.

Elissa.

Underneath her name, I write mine: Felicity (Lissy). I add my shortened name in brackets because that’s what my cousin Marie always calls me. I miss her so much, too, and I want her to know that none of this was her fault. I know she introduced him to me, but things worked out like this because of fate, not because of what she did.

The man bursts through the bedroom door and I scramble off the floor and cower on the bed.

Before I know it, he’s upon me.

Another set of footsteps thunder into the capsule and I pray that whoever bears the heavy step has come to save me.