《Single Moms New World》


 The bottom drops out

    "They cut our grains back again Hannah." Mike said angrily as he removed his jacket, hanging it in the closet by the front door.


    "What?" she questioned him, looking up from Caleb playing with his toy cars on the living room table.


    "I said they cut our grains back again. Since they''ve been feeding us at work and all, they said we don''t need as much at home." He stated as if he was angry. As if he was acting. This had been going on for months now. He had been bringing home less and less grain and coming home later and later. They needed this food and he needed this job so she had to accept what they could get. They were more fortunate than the people dying of starvation every day in the city. This wasteland of a world was hard to survive in, if you can''t work the soil. For some reason, she always could but she could never market the skill.


    "Well fortunately I planted that big garden out back or we would have a lean winter like that first year. I worry for the baby." Hannah said rubbing her newly swollen tummy. She was only about three months along and she had just popped. Mike didn''t seem as interested in this baby as much as he did in creating it. He was excited at first but then he just couldn''t bother to hear about it. It was disheartening to see him disconnect. Sometimes she felt kissing him felt like kissing a paper doll. She couldn''t understand what was going on with him and he was not interested in sharing. She had concluded work must have been hard on him. Hannah was always giving in to his whims because she saw his happiness was her happiness.


    "Yeah about that, I''m a little behind on gas and I was gonna take some stuff to work to barter." he stated noncommittally. Sometimes when things got rough he would barter Hannah''s home grown vegetables and fruits for daily necessities. There were barely any fruits left since they were a luxury good. It was going to be a tough winter.


    "Yeah do what you need to do." She responded dejectedly as he walked upstairs to work out. Mike used to work out all the time when Hannah was younger. He had been her older neighbor and he would watch her walk home from school everyday. One day he finally offered her a ride, and it became a daily thing. After dropping her off from school one day, he grabbed the back of her neck and took her first kiss. He took all her firsts. She touched her lips as she cleaned up the living room mess that Caleb had created.


    While shuffling through the mess, she picked up her husbands assigned work phone to stick on the charger and a message popped up.


    "I miss you, love" it said. ''I miss you, love I miss you, love. love. love. love.'' The words reverberated in Hannahs head and through her heart as her guts dropped to her shoes. She could feel her heartbeat in her ears as all the blood rushed to her head. The phone dropped from her hands as her hands began started shaking.


    Hannah eyed the stairs until she heard the grunting of her husband pumping weights upstairs in his weight room. Picking up the phone, she ran to the bathroom while Caleb watched his cartoons crunching on a jar of Hannah''s homemade pickles. She had always trusted her husband. He had ten years of her trust but this was too suspicious. Their relationship wouldn''t recover if she was always suspecting him because she didn''t understand why this was sent. She had to know if she was being insane. ''It was probably a wrong number or maybe it wasn''t his work phone. The number wasn''t even saved under a name in the first place.'' she rationalized. Even so, her blood was racing and her hands were still shaking as she sat on the toilet and unlocked the phone. And the tears began to pour as she read through years full of her own humiliation.


    [How long until that woman has my new little precious?]


    [Seven more months. I don''t know if I can wait that long. Can I see you tonight?]


    [img dick pic]


    [Yum. Same time same place. See you soon love xoxo]


    [img gross fully nude woman]


    [I miss you, love]


    Hannah fell from the toilet and sat on the bathroom floor shaking. There were so many more messages. All of his friends were in on his affair. They were friends with them as a couple! On Fridays when he said he was working for extra grain, he was at the bar with her and his friends. All of the missing grains were being spent on her.


    After sitting there for about an hour she jumped as she heard a bang on the door. "Hey hun are you okay? I''m gonna head out to do those trades real quick do you need anything while I''m out?" he lied smoothly.


    "NO. I''m FINE" She managed to respond semi normally.


    "Ok bye!" he said as he merrily made his way out the door waving at his son who was staring fixedly at the television.


    As she began to settle back down from the fright of a confrontation, Hannah shakily reached for her phone and pulled it from her back pocket and began to look up the woman. Thats when she saw where all her fruits and vegetables were.'' At least the woman could cook'' she thought as she scrolled through images of cooked vegetables plundered from her garden. Closing off the self abuse she grunted as her abdomen spasmed, and dialed her mother. The phone rang once, twice three times before her mother''s welcoming voice greeted her from the other end of the dark tunnel Hannah was in.


    "Mom..." Hannah said shakily as she tried to gasp her next sentence. Her lower body began cramping again.. "Mom... I ... I Need... help. Can you c-come over." she gasped as she got up from the bathroom floor.


    "Yeah sure. Right now?".......Hannah what''s going on? You sound like you''re crying?...... Are you okay?..... Hannah?"


    Her phone dropped from her shaking hands as she felt her world start turning dark.


    Hannah was hyperventilating and she could feel her heart beating louder than her mother''s voice. She was trapped. She had spent the past ten years cooking and cleaning and raising their child. All of the friends she had ever had were screened by him as bad influences and she had just let that happen. ''My life is a lie. How does one survive as a divorced woman? He was just using me as a birth giver. He used me and everyone laughed about it. Oh my parents are going to be so heartbroken. This was the culmination of ten years of my love''s devotion. Oh what a fool I am.'' she thought.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    "Why did you do this to me?" Hannah whimpered aloud as she slipped into the darkness and her head smacked on the bathroom floor.


    Meanwhile Hannah''s mother was rushing to her keys screaming her head off at her husband as they were scrambling to their daughter.


    "Hannah. Hannah what''s going on are you okay? Hannah. HANNAH YOURE SCARING ME HANNAH! Oh my god ROGER! ROGER CALL THE POLICE!" screamed Hannah''s mother Beth as she bolted to the front door as she wrestled on two mismatch sneakers.


    "Calm Down! What''s going on Beth?"


    "It''s Hannah! something''s wrong with Hannah!" she said as she heard hannah on the other line say ''why did you do this to me''. Beth had no idea what was going on with her daughter but she was distressed. Mike had always been a charismatic man. Everyone loved him but sometimes he did have a temper. She handed the phone over to her husband after she heard the smack sound on the tile floor and concentrated on getting to her daughter as quickly as possilble while explaining why they were rushing over there. Her father was concerned as well but both her parents hoped that it was just an argument.


    "Should I call Mike to see what''s going on?" asked Hannah''s father.


    "No. What if she''s just having an emotional night from the hormones and feels overwhelmed. We both know Mike isn''t that active in raising his son. Let''s not jump to any conclusions. We are almost there" said her mother. Mike and Hannah had a tumultuous relationship but he could keep her fed and Hannah liked him so it was a given that they would marry. If they were to divorce she wasn''t sure how Hannah would survive. Everything in the house including the house belonged to Mike. She had such unwavering trust in the man. Her mother wasn''t so sure. She could speculate all day but she wouldn''t know until she got there.


    Arriving at the house, Beth and Roger found Caleb passed out on the couch with a pickle hanging out of his mouth. Beth began to clean up her grandson as Roget began to look for his daughter.


    "HANNAH!" yelled Roger checking each room on the first floor.


    "Shhh!" yelled Beth from the couch as she peered down the hallway to see if he found her. Roger shot her an exasperated look. Beth returned his look with a helpless one as she pulled a blanket around Caleb.


    Roger pushed open the bathroom door and yelled, "BETH GO PUT CALEB IN THE CAR!" as he pulled out his phone to dial 911.


    "Why? What''s wrong?" asked Hannah''s mother as she saw the bathroom through Roger''s arm. Beth''s scream pierced the souls of the families on Culver Street that night.


    Hannah slowly opened her crusted eyes and edged herself up into a seating position. She jumped as she noticed the ground below her wasn''t tile, but grass. She dizzily held her head as she got her bearings. She looked around to see herself sprawled in a meadow in the middle of a forest. It was frightening. Was she kidnapped? Where was her son? She felt her womb and the baby moved a bit. The pains were gone. She felt her head and winced a bit. There was a lot of crusted blood but just a small cut on her forehead. The breeze around her shook the leaves making a pleasant rustling sound.


    Leaves and grass were things of the past because most of the world was dry. Her current surroundings did not make any sense. She felt pain, her body was the same so she wasn''t dead. Hannah couldn''t figure out where she was or what was going on. All she knew is that it was getting late and clouds were rolling in. Sitting at the base of a tree, Hannah tried to make a fire by rubbing sticks together and failed miserably. After giving up on that she laid a bed of tree leaves to sleep on and propped up some fallen tree branches to make a little A frame and passed out.


    Back at home the Police had surrounded Hannah''s house and forensics were taking samples from the bathroom. Little Caleb was sleeping soundly in the backseat of his grandparents SUV in his carseat as his grandma was blowing up his father''s phone to no avail. "Beth you can stop calling." said Roger grimly.


    "No. I need answers. Why?! How could he? WHERE IS MY BABY GIRL?" Beth shouted angrily at the house as the neighbors watched. One neighbor finally spoke out, "He''s at The Aces Bar with his girlfriend." An officer approached the neighbor and got details, immediately heading to the bar to take the suspect in for questioning. The police eventually finished conducting their interviews, and sealed off the crime scene. The grandparents took Caleb to their home away from this nightmare.


    Waking from her night''s rest, Hannah stretched in comfort pulling the soft blanket over her. Hannah looked around trying to orient herself and was started in confusion because her surroundings had changed yet again. The pile of leaves under her had become a pile of bedding and the branches she placed over her head had become a tarp. Her heart beat frantically. "HELLO?" she yelled wondering who had moved her and replaced her shelter while she slept. What was their motive? Why did they bring her here? Verifying that she was in the same meadow she felt her stomach begin to rumble. "HELLLLOOOO" she tried again with no response. "I''M GONNA TAKE THIS STUFF IF YOU DONT WANT IT" she yelled to the air. Shrugging she began to slowly roll up the tarp and bedding tying them together with some vines so she could carry them. She needed to find out where she was and find food and water. She was surrounded by green. Maybe she could find a plant to eat. She could always spot the edible plants and weeds. It was like instinct.


    "THANK YOU!" she yelled to the air as she began her search for water and civilization. After walking for a few miles she found a stream but no signs of civilized life anywhere. She spent a while washing the dried blood off of her body and felt much more comfortable. Brightly colored fish with google eyes circled her feet tickling them. Where was she? Frustrated Hannah began a slow climb up a tall tree. As the branches became brittle with her light steps she looked around her and sure she was no longer on Earth. Surrounding her was miles and miles of green lush vegetation. Something they hadn''t accomplished on Earth unless in a greenhouse in over ten years. Accepting the reality of the situation Hannah plotted a course as she climbed down from the tree. The plan was to search for civilization while collecting food. And if she had to stay near a food source so be it. Being in an environment with possible food and clean air brought tears to her eyes. If only Caleb could see this.


    Pain gripped her heart as she thought of the child she was separated from. It was a near constant ache in her stomach as she trudged through the brush. The last thing she heard before she slipped into the black was her father''s voice yelling her name. She was sure she heard him so her child at least had her parents to care for him. She married Mike because he showered her in love and sweetness, but once he had her trapped she became an afterthought. As she settled into her life as his housewife her connections to her friends were cut one by one in order to avoid fights over his anger and jealousy. Her world revolved around her son and her parents. Their child was just and amusement to him, or a shiny toy he could put on display around his friends. Since they had married and had their child she stayed as the red flags started dropping. She chose to believe his lies. For all she knew she could be bleeding out on the bathroom floor. This place felt so glamourous, but the hunger pains reminded her that this couldn''t be heaven. Why would there be pain in the afterlife? As she looked up at the reflection of the twin moons in the sky, she had to admit that this was either another planet, or another plane of existence and she had to survive. The life inside her stirred as she steadied her emotions and followed the river downstream in search any signs of civilization.

 Day 2

    Following the stream Hannah was constantly surveying the area for edible vegetation. In her desolate world being able to find edible crops in the sparse vegetation was her gift. Most of the seeds in Hannah''s garden at home had been foraged from the wilds. Crop seeds were regulated and only sold to industrial farmers, not villagers growing on the wasteland soil. Hannah didn''t like it when people took her choices away. Mike had done enough of that, she scoffed in her head. She could have become an industrial farmer if she had taken the scholarship. After he proposed, he rushed her down the aisle and she wound up pregnant within the month. And with that it was bye bye college. It was her choice in the end though. She had such thick rose colored glasses on that she thought she had landed the perfect home life. The sad truth she found was the man only gave out his love if it was beneficial to him. Once her brilliance lost its luster, buried under housework and sleepless nights he became complacent. It all came down to the fact that their marriage was just a transaction for him. The emotions he spoon fed her were just a fun way for him to pass his time until these children were born. It was such a hard pill to swallow. She patted her belly sadly thinking at least she was fortunate enough to raise one of her own children.


    While organizing her frantic emotions Hannah passed a partially picked over berry bush that resembled wild raspberries. Pausing for a moment, she took off her cardigan and turned it into a bag by tying the arms into a knot with the bottom of the shirt. These strange berries were a brilliant purple color, which seemed par for the course considering all the vibrant colors in her surroundings. It was almost like someone had changed a setting in her eyes like they do on the television, but this was the world she was living in. Sometimes the brilliance of the colors would give her a slight headache and she would look at the crystal clear water of the stream until it subsided a minute later. Her eyes eventually adjusted to the scenery but it had taken most of the day. It was at this time when she decided she needed to keep a few feet away from the stream unless she was attentive. There she saw a giant crab the size of her torso climbing out of the water on the other side accidentally chop down a tree it was hanging on. Hannah concluded that these creatures must have no intelligence because it had scurried away from the falling tree like it hadn''t realized what it had done.


    As the sun started to set Hannah was frustrated because there were zero signs of civilized life, just animal tracks and pink dragonfly looking bugs that mostly jumped through the grass. She caught a couple and stashed them in her bag, folded seperately. Although she would have to adapt to the food of this new world, she was pregnant and all foods here came with a certain level of risk. What if these berrries cause miscarriage? She just didn''t know. But she didn''t want to starve either because that also causes miscarriage. Hannah refused to lose this baby. She wanted someone, anyone to help her out of this situation. But she was alone. There was no trash, no chopped trees, and all the clearings she had found throughout her walk were empty. Her feet began to swell and blisters were forming.


    With her ear toward the sound of the rushing water she ventured a little farther away from the possible giant crab attack and scaled a tree to find a new clearing for the night. Looking out around the swaying green leaves she located a spot a little ways from the stream with a weird looking black and teal tree in the middle of it. She had to go over there just to check that thing out. ''Maybe its a world tree or something'', she fantasized as she climbed back down the tree, picked her makeshift bag up and headed in that direction. She was beat. Although she took periodic breaks during her trek to find people she was still getting over a personal and physical trauma. She never saw a doctor over the bleeding that happened that night. Fortunately when her mind was going there she felt a little flutter inside.


    As the sun began to set Hannah approached the clearing while gathering branches long enough to hold the tarp above her. After creating a bed of brilliant red and green leaves she felt like she was about to sleep on a bed of Christmas cards. As the thought crossed her mind her womb began to cramp and she immediately laid down, not even attempting a fire. The nights weren''t so cold as they were at home anyways. Just had to keep an ear out for giant crabs or whatever was eating those berries. The prints looked foxlike so she quickly hung the berry bag from the branch that was holding up the tarp as she wrapped herself in the blanket. Sitting on her leaf blanket bed she held one of the berries between her two fingers. She hadn''t eaten in almost three days. She hadn''t eaten dinner before her world collapsed. She held the brilliant purple berry in her hand as the juice slipped down her fingers. Her taste buds grazed over the purple liquid on her fingertip and it tasted like the best thing she had in her entire life. Not knowing the outcome of eating the berrry, she waited another hour before allowing herself to eat half of one. The juices exploded in her mouth and her anxieties began to fade a little. One hour later and the sun had fully set. She popped the last of the berry in her mouth and laid down listening to the sound of the insects and the water. The twin moons lit up the night making the everything in the clearing visable. The teal and black tree swayed in the wind in an odd fashion. It looked like it was dancing. Holding onto a sharp branch for fending off wildlife, Hannahs eyes finally slid shut.


    ***


    The officers that had responded to the scene just wanted to find the missing woman. There had been a substantial amount of blood on the floor and it looked like someone had hit their head on a floor tile that was cracked and bled enough blood to die. There was some flesh in that as well. They had contacted the local hospital and her parents were contacting her old friends to see if she went to them for help. She wasn''t recorded in the system and all of her personal items were still in the house along with her child. She was just gone. The grandparents had tipped the cops with some fresh vegetables from their daughters garden so they would have incentive to bring their daughter home. Bribes were always welcomed by the local police. Without them cases would never be solved. There''s only so much a man is willing to do for a bag of rice.


    "Caleb did something happen between Mommy and Daddy yesterday?" Beth began to inquire. They had sat him down at the breakfast table the following morning and tried to get some information out of him. Beth had been up most of the night crying while Roger was still out looking through hospitals and local veterinarians.


    "Daddy don''t give mommy food and took mommys. I dont like it when he do that stuff." Caleb grumped.


    "Daddy sells your food?" Beth was surprised. Hannah wasn''t the type to let her mother in on her problems unless she was buried in them.


    "Yeah i eat rice and mom eats green stuff. She makes me eat green stuff too sometimes. Some of it is good but the color is still gross. I dont like green. I like yellow. Yellow is my favorite color." Caleb began to go off topic.


    "Did Mommy go into the bathroom before Daddy left?" she asked the child directly.


    "Yup." Caleb answered while kicking his feet under the table. He crunched down on his toast.


    "Did Mommy leave the bathroom after Daddy left?" Beth asked seriously. She bit her lips praying the answer was yes. ''Dear God let my child be alive'' she thought.


    "Nope." he answered distractedly. "Is she STILL pooping? Her butt is gonna go numb."


    Beth patted his head as she stumbled into her own bathroom. Turning on the sink she began to cry. Her chest was hollow. Her daughter, the shining jewel of her life was missing. The room she was last seen in was covered in blood. The last person who saw her was her cheating husband who didn''t want to wait for the pregnancy to end. Beth regained her composure and washed her face. Opening the door she saw Caleb standing outside.


    "What''s wrong buddy?" she asked the little boy.


    "I just wanted to make sure you came out." he said innocently as he walked back to the table. Beth''s heart clenched. Picking up her cellphone she dialed her husband.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    "Anything?" was the first word out of her mouth the moment he picked up the phone.


    "Ive checked all the hospitals and even stopped by the vet clinic. Nothing so far. The police have Mike in custody. He says he just knocked on the door and left. He refuses to say anything else. There''s no sign of home invasion so it had to have been him. The cops have had him up all night trying to find out where he might have taken her but he won''t say anything. His mother is in there with her lawyer dragging our daughter''s name through the mud making up all sorts of nonsense about her character so her boy don''t look so awful. Beth, I think our daughter isn''t coming back." Roger said as his voice was cracking.


    "You don''t know that Roger" Beth snapped at her husband. "Don''t you dare take away my hope."


    "Did Caleb wake up yet?" he inquired hoping that the boy had some sort of explanation for his daughters disappearance and call for help.


    Beth paused for a moment knowing what Caleb said made it even harder to hope. "Mikes been selling Hannah''s crops, and he hasn''t been giving her grain since who knows when." she started out with this piece of information.


    "Goddamnit. That boy makes twice what I do just to watch a tv all day and he can''t give his wife food? Where is all his food going? Why can''t he trade it so daughter can eat grains like a normal person?" Roger yelled.


    "Well... the girlfriends profile is basically dinners she''s cooked with fruits and vegetables so there''s that. Also, she''s living a really plush life for being unemployed." she explained. Her daughter was really wronged in this marriage. If only we had moved to a different town or if there had been something we could have done. Maybe if they had forced her to go to college she wouldn''t have been put through this trauma. But if they had forced her to do anything, she would have just rebelled and done what she wanted. She was like her mother Beth in that way.


    "Well looks like when I grab Caleb''s stuff in a moment, I''ll go ahead and harvest the yard. They''re all gonna die if she doesn''t come back soon and he will just sell them to pay for his lawyer. If he did something to our girl, which he must have, he needs to figure out what''s next himself."


    "What if Hannah comes back and this is all a big misunderstanding?" Beth reasoned.


    "Taking food from our pregnant daughters mouth is like giving her a slow death. Do you know anyone other than our daughters who can survive without a grain allotment? He can get these crops back when he finds my daughter!" he responded resolutely.


    "Ok. And you''re right about the crops. If you don''t pick them they''ll probably start dying off by tomorrow. Whatever that girl does to those plants stops after she''s left it for a few days. Remember the lemon tree? What an expensive disaster." Beth smiled at the memory and then felt a pang in her chest at the loss of her daughter. She has been feeling frantic all night but she has to watch Caleb. Today she was gonna spend the day contacting all her daughters friends to see if she was in hiding somewhere. There''s always hope if you look for it. Pulling up an old yearbook album online she began to search out the numbers of all of Hannah''s friends through their linked profiles.


    "Woh Hey Mrs. B! Long time no see!" said a smiling face from the other line.


    "Hey Chris, It''s Hannah''s mom. Have you seen her anywhere?" She asked the first friend she recognized from the yearbook.


    The smile turned into a frown as he was taken aback by the seriousness of how and what was just said. "I haven''t seen her since she married Mike, except for the reunion a few months ago. She said her husband didn''t like her to have men as friends. Is she okay?"


    "I hope so. If you see her anywhere call me right away."


    "Of course Mrs. B." Chris responded resolutely. His heart was jumping out of his chest. Hannah was in trouble. After 8 years of friendship you would think that ditching a friend would be difficult but that''s what she had done. Admittedly he did have a one sided crush on her for 2 of those 8 years but he never acted on those feelings back then, and since she had met Mike it seemed pointless to voice them. When she told him men and women couldn''t be friends his world had shattered but he picked up his feet and moved on. He was about to graduate college and had a line to a nice industrial job. If she wouldn''t get her dream job, he would. The whole thing seemed tasteless now that she was missing. Chris leaned back and lit a joint as he pulled out his phone and scanned the news. There wasn''t any information about her listed yet but he was feeling restless. He began calling the rest of his friends.


    Beth got the same kind of response from the rest of her daughter''s friends. She hadn''t seen them since the wedding, and they were all given an excuse that stemmed from her husband. Her daughter was totally alienated. After making the last call, she dialed the agent in charge of the investigation and explained what she had learned.


    "Look Maam, there''s no easy way to say this but we need to be prepared to look at this as a homicide. The husband isn''t giving us any information either and although he''s the main suspect he wont be detained until we have enough to charge him absolutely.." the police officer told her bluntly.


    "We still need to find her!" she yelled, her voice shaking. Hannah''s whole life flashed before her eyes. The diaper changes, the jumper she never wanted to get out of, her giggle, their inside jokes, and family songs, all of it was supposed to be gone now. She was just supposed to accept it like that. She stared blankly at her grandson, watching cartoons innocently on the couch. No way. She wouldn''t accept it until she saw her daughter with her own eyes.


    "Yes maam I understand that, and we are doing our best to locate your daughter." the officer placated her.


    "Please. Please do better. And how am I supposed to hand off my grandson to a man who''s suspected of hurting my daughter?!"


    "Legally he''s the father and until he''s proven guilty it will be hard to remove custody from the parent. I''d suggest hiring a lawyer."


    "I can''t believe this is happening."


    "I''m so sorry ma''am"


    "Okay I guess I''m calling a lawyer now. Thank you for your suggestion."


    "Talk to you soon ma''am." he concluded as he hung up the call. This case was messy. He ran his fingers through his greying hair and went back into the interrogation room.


    "So what! I cheated. And I planned on leaving. But I wouldn''t murder someone! This is insane. When can I see my son? I want to go home and get some rest. And I haven''t eaten all day today. Can I go home now?" Mike complained. He didn''t actually care about seeing his son, but his girlfriend was packing up her apartment and getting ready to move into his house. His wife going missing sucked, but he didn''t do anything and he didn''t want her around anymore anyway. His girlfriend couldn''t have children so she was super excited to take care of the kid. He wasn''t a fan of kids. They were too much work and always needed something when you were busy. He was finally done having children and now he didn''t even have to keep the second one! Now they just had to find her and whoever did this to her and life would be good.


    "We have you for another 5 hours. Now tell us what you did with the body." Officer Carter continued.


    "I told you....." Mike trailed on giving his explanation again. The officer was getting agitated. If his boss wasn''t pressing him to find more evidence he would be done. They continued like this for the following 6 hours until night fell and they had to release him.


    Mike had to rip down the Caution tape to get into his house. He was happy until he saw the bathroom floor. He got the mop bucket out and began to clean up before his girlfriend saw this. ''Hannah was always making huge messes'' he thought as he mopped up the blood with bleach. After he cleaned up he took a shower and started stashing all Hannah''s things before Jennifer came over. After four years of waiting, he was finally gonna have her in his own bed. The circumstances were a bit off, but the outcome was what he wanted. God must have listened to him!


    Knocking on the front door, Jennifer pushed in yelling, "Babe?" as she looked around the cluttered house.


    "Hey!" he said smiling as he embraced her.


    "Where''s our son?" She asked, looking at him with puppy dog eyes.


    "Shhhh." he said as he kissed her and carried her to the bedroom. She giggled in delight. The pair spent the rest of the night in the bedroom happy that their problem had solved itself, ignoring the issue of the missing pregnant wife. For all they cared she could just stay missing. One child was enough. They were done waiting. And they showed each other how much that night.

 Stab a crab

    The second time Hannah woke up in this new world she was greeted by new scenery. Jumping awake she saw that she was in a tent, and she was laying on a matt, and holding a spear. Someone gave her a weapon. Even her blanket seemed to feel softer. And above her, where her cardigan was hanging, was a backpack. This was the second time her surroundings changed while she slept.


    Hannah wasn''t a heavy sleeper so it scared her that someone had done all this while she was sleeping, yet she hadn''t seen signs of another person anywhere, and she was losing hope. Also, with her cramps, she didn''t feel like continuing to hike though the wilderness was the best idea. For all she knew she could stumble into a nest of crabs or something. Maybe there were giants and ogres. She was doubtful but fearful. Maybe it was a ghost? Maybe they were fearful of how she would react to them? Or afraid of her? They gave her a weapon so they couldn''t be afraid of her. She resolved to leave some food outside her tent tonight for the ghost/monster thing that''s been following and helping her.


    "Hello?" she tentatively called into the wilderness in search of her benefactor, but there was no response. "Hello? Is anyone there?" she tried a few more times to no avail. "Thank you again!" she said as she did a little kotow. Bowing and stuff seemed like universal body language. She felt a little silly doing it, but you never know.


    Listening to her stomach growl, Hannah reached up and grabbed the bag that was hanging from the ceiling of tent. Inside were 4 jars of berries. Jars. She had jars now. A smile spread across her face as she began munching on berries. The one she ate last night didn''t leave her with any side effects and if the ghost or whatever jarred them up, they must be good stuff! Finishing the jar of berries, she didn''t feel full, but she felt satisfied. Eyeing the spear she thought about the crab she passed the day before and decided it was worth the risk. She hadn''t seen any of the other wildlife and it would make a good dinner tonight. Before catching the terrifying bit of protein, she wanted to go check out that tree.


    In the middle of the clearing there was a large tree with turquoise bark and black branches. The branches seemed to dance but not along with the wind. As Hannah approached the tree seemed to sway in her direction, like a head turning. Hannah smiled at the dancing tree. "Hello!" she said to it. It danced. Hannah got closer and touched the glossy bark, and cut her hand. Wincing she grabbed her hand back, ripped off a piece of her shirt sleeve and covered it but the cut stopped bleeding quickly. ''Look but don''t touch I guess'' she thought. The tree stopped dancing and seemed to be in a dormant state now. It was still beautiful. Hannah shrugged and went back to her tent to grab the spear. After psyching herself up and pretending that doing this wasn''t making her skin crawl, she set out upriver back toward the crab she saw.


    Whether it was the crab she had seen or not she wasn''t sure but she soon stumbled upon a crab stupidly laying on its back kicking its legs in the air. The situation was pretty comical. Taking a deep breath Hannah crept toward the dumb protein slowly as it flailed on the shore. Seeing that it was gaining some rocking momentum, she jumped up and stabbed it with her spear. Although she pierced its shell it didn''t die, but it definitely couldn''t flip over anymore. Removing the spear at this point would possibly cause a loss of limb. She moved backward as she watched the crab pull the spear from its gut, while lying on its back and bleed out.


    When the crab stopped moving she waited another 30 minutes before approaching it. After poking it with a branch, she realized she had no way to move this thing, and the weight of it was a problem for a pregnant woman to carry. But women have done battle while pregnant so she was determined to get this protein back to her camp. Hannah collected as many branches as she could and tied them together with vines she ripped off the trees so she could drag the meat behind her slowly.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    It took her an hour to get the dead crab back to her camp only to realize she had another problem. She had never made a fire. She wasn''t even sure if she could do it. But she had to try. Two hours later she ate a jar of berries. Then she spent the next 3 hours trying to spark rocks, and even made a bowdrill. Soon she went to bed frustrated and crying. ''Maybe the ghost will eat it and I''ll wake up to a cabin and a bed'', she fantasized as she gave up and crashed on her matt.


    ***


    Roger and Beth went to a lawyer the next morning to petition for custody but didn''t get the answers they were expecting. Since he was the custodial father and they were the non custodial grandparents the most they could do is get a week a month. They couldn''t prove that he was a danger and he hadn''t been convicted of any crimes. If the father wanted the child back there was nothing the parents could do. Circumstantial evidence and a pending case doesn''t give them the right to remove custody. They were going to have to hand their grandchild over to the man who was responsible for their daughters misery and the woman who had orchestrated the entire debacle. Hannah''s parents felt so lost and abandoned but they couldn''t leave their assigned city without forfeiting their grain allotment and without the support of the industrial farm their whole family would starve before they reestablished themselves. Even after selling Hannah''s plants it was just enough to cover their lawyer. In fact the lawyer told them they could be looking at a lawsuit from their son in law if he noticed they had harvested those plants. He was baffled and skeptical that someone could make edible vegetables on wasteland soil but he responded to the information he was given and gave honest answers.


    Even though removing custody would be difficult it was still a battle they could fight. Using all the circumstantial evidence they could testify that he was a danger to the child and remove custody before he was sentenced but even so, they would still have to hand over Caleb to his father because there was no history of abuse. Hannah''s parents were gutted and the phone call they were dreading came in a few hours later.


    "Hey can you bring Caleb home? Everything''s cleaned up and he should be home with me."


    "Everything''s cleaned up?? You broke into the crime scene? You weren''t supposed to go home yet! They haven''t finished processing the scene yet!" yelled Roger. He was following his daughter''s case very carefully. He may not be a fighter but he was a good man who loved his family and this man is somehow responsible for ruining that.


    "Is he coming?" said Jennifer from the background, excitedly. She had a relationship with Caleb and he thought she was okay but she was always just Daddy''s friend. Now she could be his new mommy. She was giddy with delight. She finally could be a mom. She began to unbutton Mike''s pants.


    "So can you bring Caleb home?" he said distractedly as Jennifer licked his neck.


    "Caleb is napping and Beth just cooked his favorite dinner with him before he fell asleep. He spent the afternoon running around the yard while Beth has been calling friends and hospitals all day. What did you do today?" demanded Roger.


    "So can you bring Caleb home or not?" Mike responded trying to get a straight answer from the annoying old man. He couldn''t wait to shed these lousy in laws.


    "Not tonight. No." Roger said resolutely.


    "Ok I''ll come get him tomorrow. Good night Mr. R." Mike rushed out as he hung up the call quickly. Jennifer popped his thing out of her mouth and asked "Is he coming?"


    "I''m about to but he''s not."


    Jennifer frowned and got up. MIke dejectedly grabbed her arm and pulled her back toward him. "I''m getting him tomorrow. He played too much today. Little guy is tuckered out and his grandma cooked him a big meal. Let him have his last meal with them, and then we will get him. After tomorrow he can meet your parents. How about that?"


    Jennifer smiled and got back on her knees, finishing the job.

 Putting up walls

    Hannah woke up to the sound of rain pattering against her tent. The roof was no longer exposed to the moons above but covered with a rain cover that was not there yesterday It seems that she had that visitor again. As comforting as having someone provide for her, the fact that it was happening while she was asleep made her skin crawl. Her face cracked as she swallowed the sour feeling down, pushing out the shivers of feeling violated. This is when she looked down and noticed that she was covered in a rain gear. Which means that she was physically handled while she was asleep. She had just slept while someone had handled her. She checked her body all over to notice that she was definitely now dressed in military looking waterproof gear that she had not been wearing when she went to sleep. Or had she? Maybe she was losing her mind. Where was she? What was going on? Reality was a really hard straw to grasp. She curled up into a ball and hugged her knees as she got herself together. This was her new reality, whatever she was currently facing. She wasn''t hurt and she was breathing. Maybe whoever helped her was scared of her. How was she sleeping so soundly? She took a few deep breaths as she calmed herself down only to smell the crab that she caught yesterday. It smelled delicious. She carefully crept over to the tent zipper and dropped it down a few inches to peer outside of her tent. She fell back on my ass after she saw what was outside, which was the fire that she had tried to start yesterday, running full blaze under the crab that she had caught, only the fire was now enclosed and roaring. As much as she appreciate the help, not knowing how and where all this was happening was really disturbing her.


    She reached down and touched her child. They had been through so much in the last few days. Abandoned by her shit show of a husband. Separated from her family. And now she was crawling through a forest in search of civilization on a continent that couldn''t exist on her own planet. If vegetation like this could still grow on earth there wouldn''t be so many people starving and suffocating from unclean air. Industrialization provided us with our basic needs, but since machines were cheaper than human labor, the machines built to give us life, killed our air and our soil.


    Nights on Earth were full of car horns and radios and neighbors fighting with their kids or spouses. The past few nights in these woods were just the sounds of the dragonflies buzzing and the crickets strumming. Yes, strumming. It was like a quiet electronic chorus at night. She had hunted one of the little shits down during her trek through the forest just to make sure that was where the noise came from. And it played for her. It seems each creature strums different tunes. ''It''s quite lovely. I should try to eat one after I get a fire later.'' she thought as she added them to the bag of dragonflies.


    Putting on her big girl panties, she opened up her tent to the beautiful sight of the giant roasted crab. Rolling a dead log over toward the fire she finally sat down and ate her first full meal since she had arrived at this place with tears in her eyes covered by the rain pattered over her waterproof hood. Looking around she had to admit that she was finally giving up hope on finding anyone but this mysterious person who''s fixing her up in her sleep. Finishing half the crab, she looked at the other half wondering if it would spoil by lunch, and decided to leave it on the fire and see if she could finish it later. Then she started worrying about security of the camp. What if another giant crab or whatever might be living in these woods comes looking for food? Something could claw through her tent so easily. She held her bump and decided to lay back down in her tent while she tried to figure out what to do next. While she felt comforted by the anonymous help, she didn''t feel safe. Not from the animals, or whatever being was helping me while she was unconscious. ''Maybe I shouldn''t sleep for a while'', she thought...''well... after this nap.'' and she drifted off to sleep.


    She woke up a few hours later and the rain had stopped. She climbed out of her tent, shaking out her limbs and straightened her spine hearing the pleasant crackle of a good stretch. She decided today that she would just establish a camp here. She had been walking for days and hadn''t seen even a hint of intelligent life. This was obviously not her home planet and she needed to rest. Her blisters had blisters and she knew traveling was wasting more calories than she was taking in. It had only been 3 days and weight was definitely coming off. Hannah had never been a skinny girl but she had never been fat either. Growing a child she knew that she couldn''t continue like this. She would have to find a way to survive out here and wait to be rescued. Her belly seemed to be blossoming in the past few days and she felt the need to shore up her defenses so she could protect herself and the child. The tent was a welcome respite to the outdoors but there was no safety or security.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    Hannah rested on her damp log and decided to go ahead and eat what she could and use the rest as bait for small animals. She had seen some vines that looked promising for small game traps. As she was tearing through a crab leg, she noticed a glimmer next to the fire. Reaching down her face lit up and she smiled and yelled "THANK YOU" into the air as she kissed the flint that was laying there. She stuffed the flint into her bra, knowing that if she lost that thing she would hate life. Looking at her campsite, she seemed content with the location, but not with the fortification. She knew how to make a log cabin but she didn''t have an axe. The only thing she had was the spear she used to gut the crab. And being pregnant she didn''t want to carry anything too heavy. Although she knew how to balance a ladder on her arm, a tree was much more intense and she was afraid of losing her child. It had only been three days since her transition and she had bled before she shifted worlds. Her head had been bleeding too but she didn''t even have a cut anymore. Some realities just have to be accepted. Her child was okay. But she still didn''t want to take any chances.


    Hannah decided to build a house with the downed trees that were small enough for her to carry. It took hours just to find and carry them into the clearing, and many hours longer to get them arranged into four walls for a shelter. She spent her day humming or singing old songs to herself and her child in order to hopefully scare away any native predators. It seemed to be working, or there just weren''t any near where she was, but when she had left her camp, some of her crabmeat had been obviously dragged off and eaten, according to the drag marks and the fur and bite marks on the abandoned missing meat.. Either way she had gathered what she could.


    The walls she constructed were logs she deemed safe enough for her to carry and thick sticks she laced together with vines to make the walls tall enough to hold the tent. While she was out collecting she had spotted a few fruit or vegetable plants that she moved back to her camp. She couldn''t really identify them by look so she would have to figure out how to test them for poison. Either way she dropped those plants into holes she dug out of the field by the weird tree with one of the sticks she had been foraging. ''Maybe they could be friends'' she though and giggled aloud. It was then she sighed because she realized it was the first voice she heard all day, her own. Being alone was maddening. She grabbed one of each of natures produce she found that day to look at back in her tent later.


    She collapsed her tent and moved it inside the walls she had built. She moved the rain tarp to be tied to the top of the walls she built and started a fire at the entrance. After finally getting walls and a fire she ate a little crabmeat and decided the rest would be tomorrows chum for hunting. Today had been exhausting but she wanted to stay positive. She had food, water and shelter. Most people on Earth didn''t even have that. Tomorrow she would hunt, she thought as she tongued the bits of old crab out of her teeth. She sat up and grabbed the last berry out of the last jar to get the flavor out of her mouth. There''s got to be more vegetation.


    There were a bunch four possible vegetable plants in her ''garden'' now. And a bunch of possible weeds. She just threw everything fruit bearing she found in there. One of the bushes she grabbed would more than likely die, but the vines she got would probably live. It had been an exhausting day. It probably would have been easier if she had just stayed in bed. But she had to survive this mess. Nobody was saving her. If her benefactor really wanted to help, he would send her back home. But would that really be help? Her world is dying. She was surviving but she was lucky. Eventually the poor from the cities would come to the villages and desperation breeds violence. Her parents and her son were still in that world though. And she was all alone in this paradise. Now to survive she just had to catch one of these orange scurrying creatures to see if it will eat these fruits. The idea of force feeding a cute orange bunny a poisonous vegetable horrified her. She fell asleep thinking about those poor bunnies. It just can''t be helped.

 Jen and Mike

    Roger had never felt as helpless as when he had left the lawyers house that afternoon. All his life he''d been conflict avoidant but his anger fizzled on his skin. His daughter was missing, presumed dead and the man who was responsible for it just took his grandson away and there was nothing he could do about it. His wife was collapsed in her bed, sobbing. She was like a deflated balloon, slowly seeping remnants of air. Beth had always been such a vibrant woman. The life of the party, the social butterfly. They had been together since they were freshman in high school. She was the only woman who ever really came to his eyes and she was falling apart. Roger gripped his hands through his hair in frustration as tears came to his eyes. If he hadn''t retired from the factory he could use his pull to bribe the officers to be more active in this case, but he had no power anymore. Retirement was a blessing and a curse. If he hadn''t been in such an important position his wife would have starved, like his other former coworkers. It was common for the elderly to euthanize themselves once they couldn''t contribute to society. Roger and Beth refused to be those people and both of them were fortunate to qualify for jobs with retirement grain packages. Getting those positions had been a long and rough journey that stole from their quality family time with their daughter but it kept them alive in their old age and their daughter had been grateful for the experiences and welfare they could provide for her. The years of struggle to get into those positions was worth the sacrifice. But none of that matters if a monster is just going to take their only daughter and grandson away from them. What was the point of everything without them?


    Mike had knocked on the door with a grim smile on his face. His father in law had always been a pushover. Talking to his wife''s family was like ripping off a band-aid. Just had to get it done. His son was inside and it was time to collect his progeny. His mother would never tolerate his other grandparents raising his son. It just wasn''t done.


    "Hey Roger, Is Caleb here? It''s time for him to come home."


    Silently fuming, Roger nodded and shut the door, leaving Mike outside. Mike winced at the snub but then shrugged it off. His son would be coming home with him today no matter how this old man felt.


    "No, Roger." Beth cried clutching her grandson close to her. He had his little jacket on, along with his backpack. They both knew that they had no power over this situation. Beth''s body was shaking as she feebly clutched onto his little green jacket. She didn''t want to break down in front of the child but after losing her daughter, she was clutching this sleeve like it was her only lifeline.


    "I''m sorry Beth, there''s nothing we can do. The cops are on his side, and he has all the power here."


    "Then what do we do? Just accept that she''s gone and let them take Caleb away? What if we never see him again either? What do we... we.. do Roger? I just don''t know how to save my babies. My babies....", she trailed off as she wiped her face.


    "I''m sorry, Beth." Roger said as he held her, sobbing. He wiped the tears from her face as he said, "I wish I could do more for you, love but I can''t fight this. We can only wait for the police to give us answers. I sold the last of the cucumbers to the mayors assistant so we can pay off Officer Carter to really dig into this case and give us some answers. She couldn''t have just vanished. We will find her. It''s only been 4 days. Have hope Beth." he coaxed her as he removed her hand from Caleb''s sleeve and guided him toward the man his daughter married.


    Handing Caleb back to the man was like delivering a sacrifice to a volcano.


    "Thanks Rog, See you!" Mike smilingly replied as he led Caleb to the SUV. Roger watched as he loaded Caleb into his car seat and belted him in and his face flared in anger when he saw who was in the front seat. His daughter had been missing for 4 days and he already had his mistress in her place. He had their family fooled for years. Roger played the hand he was dealt but right now it was a losing one. He still watched as his grandson was belted in and his innocent little face smiled and waved at him from the car window. Roger waved back. He was afraid that this would be the last time he saw his grandson as well. And there was absolutely nothing he could do. He had called all his former coworkers earlier and most of them had already took the needle. The ones who were left were being pushed into early retirement. Things weren''t getting better in the world. Maybe having his children taken away is better than them starving in ten years. The government had killed the world. Things weren''t going to get any better. But being cynical wasn''t going to bring his daughter back. He would go talk to the officer later and get him to really do something about the case before someone else paid them off.


    Deciding on a course of action, Roger kissed Beth''s head and headed to the car. He needed to find his daughter. Doing nothing wasn''t helping anyone, and his wife wasn''t going to recover if he just sat in her misery with her. Roger kept moving forward. That''s all he could do.


    Mike and Jennifer were smiling and holding hands in the front seat. Looking over her shoulder, Jennifer smiles at Caleb and says, "Hi Caleb Do you remember me?" Mike would often bring Jen around Caleb so they could bond or whatever. She would eventually be the kids mother so of course she had to do the mom thing. Mike wasn''t interested in doing the mom thing. He was more of the standoffish dad. His job paid for the kids grains so he was doing his duty, he surmised. And now he even lined up a new mom for his kid without even really meaning to.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Mike had many lovers, but Jennifer had been the one he pursued the longest. She was 14 and he was 19 when he started chasing her. It just took a few sweet words and some empty promises before he found himself buried inside her. She was his one of his favorite girls. He called her up on most days just to have sex with her, and then take her back home but she didn''t even realize that was what was happening. She was na?ve enough to consider each visit a date. Each lie that she bought filled him with glee. He spent a year spilling his seed inside her before he realized she was another dusty. Dusties are people who''s bodies are born infertile, apparently an evolution to the new environment. More and more dusties were being born every day. And this was fine, because she wasn''t the only field he was plowing. He already figured he could keep her around to suit his physical needs when he was bored. Anyone could punch out some babies for him.


    Jennifer was 15 when her lover told her she was a dusty. Dusties couldn''t have children and men didn''t want women who couldn''t give them children. Mike had been her life for a whole year. She gave up her friends and fought with most of her family over her involvement with him but she went ahead and burned those bridges because she loved him so much. If she couldn''t have children, was she still even a woman? This was the question all women of the modern era had to answer for themselves because our species was dying off. The world didn''t want us anymore. It was like we had washed the Earth in pesticides that killed humans. As these thoughts were spiraling in her head that''s when Mike gave her hope.


    "I could just have kids with someone else, and you could raise them." he casually suggested. And with that Jessica had hope for kids one day. But every time she saw this child and said "Hi" he would respond "Where''s Mommy". And that''s what happened next.


    "Hi"


    "Where''s Mommy"


    But this time, they froze. Jennifer looked over at Roger, grimacing.


    "Daddy sent her on a vacation so she could relax and eat lots of grains. Don''t worry about her. This is Jennifer. Remember Jennifer?" he mused.


    "Yeah. MAD LADY. I member"


    Jennifer fumed in the front seat gripping Mike''s hand harder. Mike chuckled, "Mad lady." and Jennifer calmed down a bit smiling back at him. At least she had him to herself now. And she could raise a child, something she wouldn''t be able to do otherwise. She had waited four years for him to be finished fathering these children and developing a stable household for her. He complained about the wife his mother chose constantly as he was thrusting inside of her. It was tiresome to hear about it but she knew it would pay off someday. The way his wife left the picture was disturbing, but it seemed fated in a way. There were many times that Jennifer had debated kidnapping the woman and leaving her in the slums to starve but she knew Mike would lose face if that happened. Even if he did kill her, which she didn''t think he would, the only thing she really had a problem with was the fact that he left all the blood just so he could meet up with her on time. He swore that he wasn''t involved but there was always a lingering doubt in her heart.


    As Mike drove home with his girlfriend and son he felt contented but irritated at the same time. This is what he wanted but Jennifer''s temper around his son annoyed him. It was hard to control the both of them together. He figured he could leave them at home for some bonding time and he could stop by Tiffany or Heather''s house to let off some steam. As he squeezed Jennifer''s hand he let go of it and grabbed his work cell to texted Heather with the big tits.


    [15 min. DTF?]


    "Hey I''m gonna head to the office to touch base with my boss about all of this Hannah stuff. I don''t want my job to be affected by all this." he explained to Jennifer as he looked down at the [nude picture] Heather sent back to his message. His dick twitched and he adjusted his erection as he side eyed Jennifer to make sure she didn''t notice. Smiling at the thrill of not getting caught, he pulled up in front of his house leaned over and kissed Jennifer, quickly fondling her breasts, pulling away as she giggled.


    "Take Caleb in and get him settled. I''ll be back in an hour or two depending on the boss." he lied, easily as he discreetly looked back down at the picture of the meal he was about to eat. Heather was a new addition to his list of women. Heathers personality reminded him of Hannah when they first met; very na?ve, very young, with low enough self esteem to let him do whatever he wanted. She also had a two year old she was abandoned with so he was guaranteed a good fuck if he brought over a bit of food. He had been trying to get her pregnant for a few months to no avail. Tonight he was gonna try harder. A creepy smile stretched across his face as he rushed towards his rendezvous.


    Jennifer led her new son by the hand into the house, unlocked it and removed both of their jackets. After placing him in front of the television she went into the kitchen to make some dinner for her new family. She smiled as she thought of the three of them surrounding the dinner table. She spent the next two hours cooking and making the dining room look fancier. Then she spent another hour sitting at the dining room table with Caleb. Mike would not answer his phone and the food had grown cold Making a sacrifice like having your food grow cold in this world was tantamount to sacrificing your life. But she wanted that first family meal. She felt tears well up in her eyes as sadness and frustration welled up inside of her. She had waited four years for this night and he couldn''t even be there. The disappointment choked her as Caleb whined, "I''m hungry." one more time. Jennifer threw the bowl of teriyaki vegetables at him and ran up to her room. She could hear the sound of the irritating child''s loud whining from the dining room for the next hour.  Soon she finally decided to go clean up her mess before Mike came home. They didn''t even get a chance to meet with her parents like he had promised.


    She found Caleb passed out on the couch, hands arms and mouth covered in teriyaki sauce, so at least the boy ate. Jennifer wiped down the kid and changed him before tossing him in bed. After cleaning the couch and putting all the food away, Jennifer sat up staring at the front door, waiting for Mike like she had done since she was 14 years old.

 Cabin Life

    Hannah was startled awake again by the lime green light filtering in through her new world tent, her tent-home. Her body was so sore. Four days of hard labor would do that to you. Hannah just wanted to rest today but she knew she couldn''t sleep the day away. Just another hour or so. Hannah woke up again a couple hours later and stretched, unzipping herself from the sleeping bag, falling off of her new elevated cot that had been moved under her while she slept. Her clothes seemed warmer as well. Her skin shivered as she thought of someone stripping her in her sleep but she knew she needed to accept that this was her new reality. She had no one to protect her while she slept and she was being taken care of. Unless they had ulterior motives for her, it would be okay. And then she unzipped her tent and found herself inside a log cabin.


    It was the same size as the structure she had built last night, except the door was moved next to the fireplace. Hannah had a nervous bubble of laugh come up her throat. This wasn''t possible. All of this wasn''t possible. Transmigrating worlds, a log cabin being built around her, any of it wasn''t possible. And yet, it happened. She opened the front door and verified what she had thought. This was where she had slept last night. The turquoise tree stood in the clearing overlooking the blooming plants she shoved in the mud yesterday. Ignoring everything, Hannah moved toward the possible food sources she planted yesterday.


    The vibrant purple possible tomato had grown a few inches. One of the tomatoes that had fallen off the vine''s seeds must have spilled out and they had already began that sprouting in the dirt around the other plants. Hannah moved these buds to their own holes with her stick turned wood shovel. "Thank you" she said to the air quietly as she moved the buds to their new homes. The berry bush that she knew was safe had blossomed a whole new crop of fruit. She ran back to her new log home to retrieve the jars to find them full of sauces and dehydrated fruits. Looking at where she had left her possible edibles in the corner she realized they had been processed while she slept as well. This meant these were edible in some way or another, she just had to experiment. Only one of the plants was left behind, and it looked like a green bean. Unfortunately it was probably inedible. She found this plant in her garden to not have grown much either. She pulled the plant up and threw it from her garden. She spent the next few hours creating fencing around her plants. Having a steady source of food was important. Ignoring that she was in a survival situation was ridiculous at this point. With no one around for miles she wasn''t getting rescued anytime soon. She had no idea where she was, where to go or why her stahl''s ears seem to be coming back. She was born with them but had them corrected. The points have been steadily lengthening. She guessed it''s just one more weird thing about this place.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    After securing her new crops, she began looking through the jars, and grabbed the small one with green goo inside and dipped her finger in. Tentatively placing a dab on her tongue, with her eyes closed she closed her mouth and a smile spread across her face. Peanut butter. Well, it was green slimy peanut butter but it was peanut butter all the same. This must come from those little green mini avocado looking things. She ate a few spoonfulls and put it away. Her sticks were now spoons and forks. She had planned on whittling away her day using her spear but now she was just making a bucket for carrying water. She planned to find a log and burn out the inside of it, attaching a vine as a handle. This would help with cooking, cleaning, and just about everything. It''s the simple things that make all the difference. Hopefully while she was at the river she could catch a fish or a crab, anything. Thinking about food, her stomach grumbled. While she did have about six jars of goods back at her tent, she knew eating too much of it would run right through her. She needed grains and proteins. She filled her backpack on her trek to the river with anything that looked edible. One plant even looked like a blood red wheat. She had her fingers crossed on that one.


    Arriving at the river she took her new bucket and washed out the ash from burning out the hollowed hole. Then she filled it up, placing it next to her. Hannah spent the next hour trying to spear a fish, but only managing to get the insides of her boots wet, forcing her back to her camp. Not wasting any time or pity she laced her trail back to the camp with small game snares using the vines she collected when building her old walls. Arriving at her camp she reminded herself, it''s not tent-camp anymore. She has a damn cabin now. It was pretty rustic, just a bunch of logs piled together shored up with some moss, but it kept the wind out, and there was even a built in fire place. What she had created last night was just three flimsy walls and a fire, and she woke up to a home.


    She held her grumbling tummy as the sun began to set. All she had to eat all day was a couple spooonfulls of ''greenut butter''. Pulling out the jars, she went ahead and finished the greenut butter. She was pregnant and hungry and rationing wasn''t happening. She was growing the stuff in her garden anyways. Eyeing the other jars, she pursed her lips and drank some water. Standing up, she rolled up and packed up the tent, emptying her belongings on the cabin floor. She had a spear, a bucket, five jars of produce... four and a half jars of produce. She ate half of the berries with the greenut butter because she knew how they tasted but only half because she was rationing. Maybe she would never see a crab again. Maybe having extra food would get her eaten by whatever was howling at night. Luckily she had these walls now. Pushing all of her things out of her cabin, Hannah spent the remainder of the day hauling rocks from the river to her shelter floor. After placing her jars and utensils on some sticks she assembled into a rack, and laying her sleeping bag onto her cot, she threw a couple of logs onto the fire, drank a mouthful of water from her bucket, and passed the fuck out.

 Birthas and Dusties

    Mike woke up in the middle of the night next to Big Tits Heather. After fondling her a bit he kissed her and got ready to head back home. His stomach was starting to grumble and Heather could barely walk, let alone cook, especially at this hour. Mike winced at the hour on his phone. He hadn''t planned on staying so late but Heather was quite vigorous and he was determined to get her pregnant. All this work to preserve humanity really wore him out. Since he was young he had been with many women but the only Birtha he found was Hannah. The rest of these women were just Dusty princesses there for his enjoyment. Fortunately Jennifer could cook. Mike had been telling her since she was young she needed to learn cooking and cleaning if she was mature. In an effort to prove how mature she was she started learning from Hannah''s garden and started a food blog. If there wasn''t any food ready at home he would just wake up Jennifer and have her make him something. Women were always so useful when you managed them properly, he mused as he zipped himself up.


    Arriving home wasn''t what Mike expected. It was about 3am when he cracked open the door and Jennifer threw the light on. Mikes mind spun coming up with a decent excuse.


    "Hey babe. Sorry I''m late. I got to talking with Mayor Brown''s assistant Mack. You remember Mack right?"


    "MmmmHmmm." she said not buying it. Her arms were folded across her ample chest. ''She''s so hot when she''s pissed'', he thought.


    "Well Mack and I went out for a few drinks to blow off some steam after all of this. It''s been rough on me babe, with the whole Hannah thing. This wasn''t our plan." he finished.


    Jennifer let out a breath. "Why didn''t you answer your phone. I was so worried. I had to call my parents to cancel our plans. You said we would meet them last night, remember?"


    Mike winced. He would have to make up for this one. In his mind, he believed that most anxious women just need sexual attention so they feel valued. "Baby, I''m so sorry." He said as he approached her in the chair. "I''ve just been so stressed you know. I thought one night off after all of this wouldn''t bother you so much."


    Sighing, Jennifer dropped her guarded stance with her arms across her chest, letting her braless C cups drop. Mikes mouth watered as he pressed. "You know what could ease my tension right now?" and dropped his zipper. A few moments later Jennifer gagged and said, "Jesus have you showered recently?" and he shut her up until he was done. He knew she was just tasting Heather and that made him finish faster. Thanking her he pushed her off to bed and headed to the kitchen to check out the grub. He pulled out the leftover dishes and smiled. His old wife could cook, but his new wife was a trained chef. He was glad he groomed Jennifer on this night. All his plans were coming together beautifully, he thought as he tore through his meal. Between Hannah''s vegetables and Jennifer''s cooking, and Heather''s tits, he was really enjoying life. Even his boss let him nap on the job instead of watching the monitors if he took him out to pick up ladies. As Mike finished his meal, he left the dishes on the living room table, threw his dirty clothes wherever they landed and crawled into bed with Jennifer.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    ***


    Meanwhile, upstairs, a little boy with who had passed out on the couch in tears, woke up and crept down the hall clutching his little Billy doll looking for a glass of water. Mommy was away on Bay-cay-shun and Daddy and Mean lady would yell at him if he asked them for water so he had to find a way to get it himself. He walked to the bathroom sink but he couldn''t move the wooden step stool so he could be tall like Mommy and reach the water. He pushed a box up against the counter, hoping he could climb un top of the box but his weight just pressed him back down and he couldn''t reach it. He finally grabbed a straw and toddled over to the toilet. After flushing it, he took a drink and made his trek back up to his bedroom, occasionally holding his swollen arm. His tears and blubbering came silently as he went to sleep. He missed his mommy. He hopes baycashun will be over soon. Caleb wanted Mommy to be happy but Caleb wants to be happy too. Mommy would make the Mad Lady go away. Maybe Mommy will be back tomorrow. He''ll ask the Mad Lady tomorrow. Hopefully he will wake up to Mommy and not her. Maybe Daddy would let him go see Gramma again. Daddy didn''t usually talk to him and he ignored him when he did. His Daddy said he didn''t understand his words, but Gramma and Grampa and Mommy knew his words. His Daddy was a fart. He fell asleep making plans to find his Mommy.


    ***


    Roger clutched his arms around his catatonic wife who was curled up in his daughter''s childhood bed clutching her old teddy bear. The loss of their daughter and the police''s lack of response was making the world feel so helpless. Beth had stopped taking her grains today. She assumed Hannah was dead and that Mike killed her and Caleb was next. Roger had to admit that he was deathly afraid that was the case as well, but he had more hope. He had the means to bribe Officer Carter to pay attention to the case and he had just came back from paying him off.


    "It should only be a few more days until we can get Caleb back. And he might not hurt his own kid. Caleb hasn''t ever come here hurt before." Roger coaxed his wife.


    She remained silent. A few lingering moments later Beth reminded her husband in a stern tone, "Hannah was pregnant, Roger." Her voice broke as she said the word pregnant. Roger felt that sentence like a punch to the gut.


    "Is pregnant. I refuse to believe she''s gone Beth. It''s just some blood. There''s no body. Just because they say it''s a suspected homicide doesn''t mean it is. Maybe she left him after she saw the pictures. We don''t really know, Beth. And Officer Carter is gonna figure it out. He may take bribes but he''s a good man. He says he knew Hannah''s friend Sarah from way back. He was asking about her. Told him about her jackass of a husband running off with a new Birtha. Men really are running around like these are the end of days, but I refuse to believe it."


    "But what if it is. What if this is it, Rog. I''m so scared, honey." she said as she blubbered. Roger stood up and carried her back to their own bedroom and laid her down to rest. Kissing her forehead he left the bedroom and sat down at the dining room table with a bottle of whiskey.


    "I''m scared too." he whispered to himself as tears silently fell down his face. Knocking back a shot he wiped them away and spent the rest of the night wondering where his child was.

 Changes and preparations

    A new dawn cracked through the door of Hannah''s new log home. Sucking in a breath, Hannah sat up confused as to where the green light went, wondering if she was home. Hearing the hiss of the dying fire, she realized she wasn''t home, but she wasn''t in the same place she was before. She had a bed. A fucking bed. It was beautiful. But her tummy growled and itched something awful. As she reached down to scratch her swollen womb she realized she had grown even more. With her son, she had grown quite fast when she progressed in trimesters but the growth she was feeling seemed a little fast. If she was home she would check to see if she had twins. Remembering the ultrasound, she hoped that what they found was what she was carrying. Giving birth alone terrified her. She had done it before but she had a midwife and a hospital down the street.


    She was starving and stranded in the middle of nowhere with no prenatal care. She didn''t even have a crib. Feeling the tips of her ears she realized they were pointed again, like how she was born. Freaking out, she rubbed the bridge of her nose, realizing her old nose returned too. She probably had her pointy ass chin back again too. Whatever was going on in this world was changing her, hopefully for the better. There wasn''t much she could do to stop it from happening, any more than she could stop her home from improving. There was now a window and a chimney, and a cooking rack over the fireplace. The floors seemed grouted and the walls were insulated. The makeshift rack she had yesterday was replaced with a wooden shelf, holding her jars, utensils and shovels. The wooden board she set aside to eat off of now looked like a wooden plate. And a few of the weeds that had been sitting in the tent had been dried and bottled. They must be spices. Yay spices, boo birth in the wild.


    Feeling a bit more secure with her environment, Hannah decided to go ahead and eat half of the bottled food. And then she finished it all before moving onto the garden. She ate a handful of fruit from each loaded plant she could find until her ravenous hunger was sated. She noticed that the plants in the garden had blossomed overnight again, and the fruits from yesterday had rotted off the vines, causing new plants to begin sprouting. "This is gonna be troubling" she said aloud to herself as she began relocating the little plants. Her baby bump was starting to become troublesome to move around.


    Hannah''s trips to the river became faster to traverse without searching for vegetation. With the collection she had now and the turnover of the crops she was bound to have more work than she could handle. In all probability the garden was going to explode and overgrow and there was little she could do about it. Either way, that meant food, which meant life for her and her child. Now she just had to secure protein and make sure the red wheat grew... which it did. And some grains had fallen off and taken seed in the ground next to it. Hannah scooped up what she could collect and tossed them into her backpack. She had to make separate trips because she wanted to keep the harvested crops separated. She spent the morning weaving baskets to hold her produce and then got back onto her swollen feet to check the game trail for meat. Trudging through the wet forest, Hannah realized that there was something wrong with her pregnancy. What if she gave birth early? Her womb had grown so drastically that her skin was torn and itchy. She needed to find some game today. She licked her cracked lips as she found trap after trap set off or untouched with nothing caught. It wasn''t until she had almost given up hope when she saw a bright orange bunny sandwiched in one of her traps.


    "Oh That''s so awesome." she said as she grabbed the bunny from the trap. The big trap she set with some thick logs had rigged and smashed the thing. It was the size of a cocker spaniel. It''s teeth could rip through her arm easily if it ate meat. As she skinned and gutted the bunny she finally saw what these cute little bunnies ate. Other bunnies. And they surrounded her cabin. After carrying the meat back to her cabin, she threw it on the grill, and set up a fence of sticks pointed outwards, so if one of those bunnies come at them, they''ll possibly impale themselves, or scratch themselves if the sticks broke. Hannah had fashioned a make shift rock axe from a broken bit of axe but the rock kept breaking apart into smaller pieces until she discarded it onto her shelf for future use. Hannah generously ate the rabbit meat and hung the meat that had began to dry from some sticks she hung from the ceiling. Her door seemed pretty solid as she jammed a log against the opening. She didn''t plan on going outside for the rest of the day. The rabbits had her spooked. Hopefully they only ate each other, but the fact that they were meat eaters made her sick with worry. Hannah spent the afternoon using sharp rocks to begin crafting a little crib to keep her child in, in case they came early. She ripped off the arms to her sweater so she would have something to wrap the child in. Hannah had given birth before so she knew what to expect, but that didn''t make her any less worried.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    With her environment improving overnight, and her efforts to improve her life there, she had hope. But what she didn''t have was a medical degree, or medicine, or emergency measures. So many things could go wrong in childbirth. All she could do at this point was prepare. When she saw that her wooden bucket had turned into a metal pot, she about cried tears of joy. At least she would have boiling hot water. She was so dirty she could get an infection so easily. Fortunately her new log home was relatively clean and her camp was now sprinkled with river rocks to help walk around the camp when it was muddy. Finishing with her last round of river rocks, she hurried to the river to grab some water to boil in her metal pot. Using the rest of her sweatshirt as a towel, she gave herself a hot wash inside her cabin, rubbing her swollen belly with some of the rendered fat from the bunny. The bright orange coat of fur was sitting outside waiting to be tanned. The coat of fur was going to be the bedding for this crib. And if the weather turns cold it could warm her child. She wasn''t sure if whatever was happening at night would continue forever or what was really going on. All she knew was that in this moment she had food water and shelter. If it weren''t for the madness of being alone, and separated from Caleb, she would say she was doing okay.


    This was much better than when she was scrambling while pregnant with Caleb. If it hadn''t been for Mike''s mother, she would have been thrown out of the village. While being a BIrtha was a privilege, the Dusties didn''t allow unwed mothers because their children usually belonged to their husbands. The Dusty wives would force a DNA test on any unclaimed child and if it belonged to their husband they would be able to claim custody. Usually these children became property of the dusty wife because they had more power with the law. At the time, she knew the Caleb''s father was pursuing a dusty woman for a wife. When she grappled with that reality she knew she wanted to keep her child and finally told Mike she would marry him, so her child wouldn''t be taken away. Mike was happy when she finally told him about the child, and even happier when he came a month early with no health problems. He treated her like gold shined out of her ass for a good six months. Then he started getting distracted by his phone a lot, and he started coming home later and later with believable excuses. The red flags were all there. Hannah wasn''t happy and had planned on leaving him. It had been 4 years without any more pregnancies, and she had thought he hadn''t noticed the birth control she snuck into a jar of ibuprofen. He hadn''t even touched her in a year, but when she was dropped off drunk from her class reunion she woke up naked next to Mike holding the bottle of ibuprofen and found herself pregnant after that.


    Although she hadn''t planned this child she was excited for its arrival. It was a little girl. She heard once when she was little that little girls are born with all the eggs they''re going to have in their life, and their mother creates those. So even her grandchild will be a product of an egg she made. Could she survive this birth in the wilderness? She was so sick of being alone. "Thank you!" she shouted into the air as she slunk her body onto her bouncy mattress. Thinking of the ways she could improve her life here, and prepare for the child, like bottles, diapers, pain killers, and antibiotics. Her worries multiplied as she counted the things she needed in order to survive. The list was so long that she didn''t fall asleep until the sun rose. She had planned on catching her benefactor if she could stay up all night, but as the sun rose she realized they didn''t come. Resigned to her fate, she finally drifted off.

 Yeah, So, about Chris

    Chris and Hannah had been the closest of friends until about tenth grade. They rode the bus home together every day after school from elementary to high school. Chris would complain about his foster parents and Hannah would feed him all kinds of weeds and fruits on the way to school. Chris found her weird until his foster family started skimping his grain. Then the bus meals became his way of surviving. He noticed she began to bring more and more foraged food but he didn''t say anything because he couldn''t survive without it. He humbly accepted her weird foods and then in 8th grade she started growing her own foods. Chris was super impressed with her efforts but her father didn''t want people knowing about all of her talents, in case she would be kidnapped and used for her skills. People have been bought and sold for much less. Cannibalism was on the rise. People would do anything for a solution to the worldwide famine, even if it didn''t make any sense. So everyone held their tongues and Chris watched as Hannah''s garden grew.


    He would not have made it though high school without her help. But that all came crashing down after a blacked out night of heavy drinking. There had been a bonfire party for the Agriculture club and he and Hannah had succumbed to peer pressure. Chris didn''t know what he said that night, but Hannah had been cagey and wouldn''t talk to him ever since. He had tried apologizing for months but it seemed to only make her angrier and more disappointed. It wasn''t until a certain conversation that he assumed he knew what the problem was.


    He remembered he had been talking to Sarah and George about his parents idea of an engagement with the school flower. Rachel had curves in all the right places, and her parents had finally decided to seal her marriage contract. Chris''s parents had been contacted and negotiations were underway. Chris was pretty excited to be able to experience his first time with a pretty girl who possibly liked him. That''s when Hannah piped in, "Well what about children? You don''t want any?"


    Without realizing who he was talking to, Chris responded, "Well if we want one, I can find someone to have one with and we can just take it. Her father has enough power." Chris''s heart dropped as Hannah''s face went white. She clutched her gut as she started to back away like a wounded rabbit.


    "Hannah, I didn''t mean-" Chris began. And then stopped. Hannah must be a Birtha. Of course. How could he say that in front of her? Everyone used unwed Birthas this way. It was common practice. But most women didn''t know what they were until they initiated the marriage contracts. Which meant Hannah is initiating marriage contracts. The idea of that twisted in his gut like three day old fish. He was only 16 years old and was expected to know what his entire future was going to look like. Pick a wife, pick a job, don''t pick your nose. He just wanted to lose his virginity and pass hydroponics IV so he could tick one of those off the list. His parents were working on the other. But Hannah had a good point. Chris did want children, and he couldn''t fathom the horror of taking a child away from a girl like Hannah. He would have to talk to his parents when he got home. Rachel had a great rack and he needed a Birtha. No, what he really needed was Hannah.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    ...who had already ran out the door as all these realizations were hitting him. Chris found out later that week that Hannah''s family had made a marriage contract with the creepy older neighbor who would stalk her at parties. He tried to reach out to her but she had blacklisted him and had dropped out of school. Soon he heard that she got married to that bozo and had a baby. He hadn''t seen her again until the reunion a few months ago. Reunions were pretty frequent as the world came to a close. In the span of five years one could have five children and die. Not everyone had the grain for power, internet and cell phones. This was the first one for their class and he was excited. Everyone knew the more reunions you attended, the less people would show up.


    It''d been five years and he still hadn''t met a woman who''d made him yearn the way she had. And he''d had plenty of dusties. It was almost revenge, sleeping with the dusty women. Looking at him with those longing eyes, hoping to be wives who can snatch away other women''s babies. Stop and slow down weren''t in his vocabulary, but it was never enough. Fucking Hannah walked back into his life and smiled at him. She fucking smiled at him. His heart fell to the floor and he spent the rest of the evening as her coolie. Yeah she was married, but hell. It was his Hannah. They talked about their morning breakfasts and agriculture experiments. They talked about the time he got mud all over his dress shirt before chorus practice. The time he had to fix her bike chain so she wouldn''t get grounded. It was just like how it was when they were kids again.


    As the booze set in and they were the only ones left in the bar and they stumbled to a cab, giggling and singing their old favorites together. He followed her home in the cab and she showed me around her house. It was small and tidy, but she deserved better. She popped off the lid of a bottle of wine and poured me a glass, downing her own, giggling. Mike''s not coming home until dawn so you can relax. We can call you a cab later."


    Hannah discarded the glass and started drinking straight from the bottle. Chris laughed at her, "Slow down Hannah Banana" and grabbed the bottle, drinking some himself. Watching the red wine glisten on her lips Chris took the initiative and kissed her lips. She moaned in response. Soon their clothes fell and he carried her to the bed. A few hours later Hannah passed out from exhaustion and Chris had to sneak out before getting his ass beat. ''It was worth it though'', he thought, until he realized Hannah was still ghosting him. He had been chewing over what happened between them for months and then her father called him searching for her. It wasn''t long until he found out that not only was she missing, and possibly presumed dead but she was also pregnant. Fuck. Chris felt this might be his fault. Mike had quite an intimidating presence. Chris could stand on his own and could hold his own in a fight, but if this guy was running around murdering his adulterous wife, what would he do to Chris?


    Unbeknownst to Chris, her husband had come home early that morning to Hannah drunk and naked, and decided to put one of his plans in play. Hannah had been planning on leaving Mike. After four years with no births, and constant neglect, she had finally smuggled some birth control into an ibuprofen container and had been taking it in case Mike had began relations with her again. Mike went ahead and had his way with her while she slept and she woke up to him shaking the ibuprofen bottle.

 Mikes bad day

    Mike grumbled awake to this alarm blaring in the morning. Rubbing his face he dragged his ass out of bed and slipped his boxers on, stumbling to the kitchen for breakfast and coffee.


    "Jenniffer!" Mike yelled from the kitchen. "Where''s the coffee?"


    "We''re out!" she yelled back as she came down the stairs, with a towel drying her hair.


    "Well trade some stuff to get some while I''m at work." he whined.


    "Trade what? Have you seen the garden out back?" She asked him incredulously. Mikes gaze snapped up at her and he started toward the backyard, concerned about his moneymaker.


    "Shit." he said as he saw all the dying plants. "Is there anything usable left? Can you fix this?" he snipped at Jen, as if it were her fault. Hannah was always the plant person. Honestly, Mike never really realized how precious her ability was, only that it was one he could easily exploit. He assumed since he brought home the proteins and grains that the produce wasn''t that important. The produce was just what Mike spent on his extracurriculars. Unfortunately Mike didn''t realize how much his activities were really costing him.


    "I can''t fix this Mike. Nobody can. Why do you think this shit sold for so much? I''ve looked at her supplies and used them the way we were taught, and this is just how it is now." she said, frustrated with the situation. "I''m not fucking Hannah Mike." she snapped.


    "I know. This is just truly inconvenient." he thought. His girlfriends would be less interested without all the extra grains and produce he could provide and trade. This was really inconvenient for him. How would he buy his booze and pills? How would he settle his bar tabs? How would he fuck Heather and Tiffany? He side eyed Jennifer and considered cutting his losses. Then he remembered his son and realized he needed a sitter. Well, it can''t be helped.


    Exhaling, he went back to the kitchen, downed a glass of water, ate leftovers from the night before that Jennifer heated for him, and left for work. Jennifer headed back to take a nap. She had been up late waiting for Mike to come home and needed rest. She completely had forgotten about her "new son". Caleb woke up after having an accident on his bed. "UT OH" he said as he got out of bed. He didn''t mind, though. It was just really uncomfortable. Hearing his tummy grumble, Caleb cracked the door open to peer down the hallway. His Dad''s door was closed. Feelling his tummy grumble, Caleb grabbed his Billy doll and snuck down the hall. Caleb crept up to his parents door and heard faint snoring. He slowly opened the door a couple inches and peered in, but where his Mommy should be was the Mad Lady, snoring like dad''s lawnmower when it broke. Scared and sad, Caleb shut the door and went to see if he could scramble up some food in the kitchen. Grabbing a box of opened cereal, he went over to the couch and started to fill his stomach. He turned on the television and put his cartoons on, while getting most of the cereal on his mouth.


    Jennifer woke up a few hours later to loud ass cartoons blaring in her ears. "UGH" she whined as she rolled out of bed. She was so fucking tired and now this damn kid was waking her up. She needed a drink. She stumbled down the steps to see the little boy passed out covered in cereal and crumbs. "Oh What the fuck. This is gonna take FOREVER TO cleeeeean.." she whined. Then she shrugged and left him like that so she could go get a drink from the kitchen. Grabbing the bottle of vodka she had a few shots to smoothe away her problems. She had been looking forward to being his wife since she was 14, but this is not the life she thought she would have. Hopefully today will be better. This morning was not a promising start. She had never studied gardening. Mike never put importance on learning it and would always criticize Hannah for her toils because of his mother''s position in the industry. Although he''d been enjoying Hannah''s produce for years, he had gotten used to the luxuries he had, and didn''t realize living without them would be a change. This was not something he factored into his plans. After getting a little buzz going, Jennifer cooked herself some eggs and went to the living room to watch some television. And then she remembered the kid.


    "HEY KID" she said, shoving his leg. "HEY!" she yelled at the little boy. His head groggily lifted from the pillow, with a few cereal bits stuck to his cheek and forehead. Knitting his brows together he looked up and saw the mad lady. His eyes went wide and he froze, staring at the woman.


    "GO TO BED. Don''t be sleeping on the sofa." she instructed him as she dropped her plate of eggs on the coffee table, while grumbling about all the cereal she had to brush off the couch. As she sat back and sipped on her orange juice, Caleb eyed the plate of eggs on the table and the juice in the womans mouth.


    "GO ON, SCOOT" she yelled at the boy.


    He fumbled off the couch, landing on his swollen arm, crying out, and rushed up the stairs, blubbering.


    "Fucking kids." grumbled Jennifer. She had resigned to not having children long ago, and Mike''s attempt at finding a Birtha had been a horrifying experience for her. She thought maybe he was a Dusty and not a Billie, until Hannah wound up pregnant. She had been saving up for the marriage test that the rich get so they would be sure. When Hannah had gotten pregnant so quickly, Jennifer had spent all her saved grains of booze for the following months. Jennifer scarfed down her breakfast while watching her shows, trying to find peace in her new life. Peace she found until around lunchtime.


    Roger woke that morning with a bit of a hangover and a plan. First, he would check on his grandson, then he would go check in with Officer Carter to see if they were closer to finding his daughter''s body or arresting whoever left his baby''s blood all over the bathroom walls. The blood on the bathroom floor where his child should have been constantly flashed through his memory, choking him. His wife had been lethargic all morning, barely even dressing herself. It was like being married to a zombie. He felt the same way she did but he couldn''t let it show. He had to be her backbone. HIs sweet Beth. She didn''t deserve this. None of them did. He only hoped this was all just a big mistake and they would find his daughter any day now. Roger grabbed his keys from the tray and loaded his wife into his car. Roger reached over a squeezed Beth''s hand before starting the car towards their journey toward finding some answers and some peace.


    Pulling up to Hannah''s house days after her disappearance, you could already feel her absence. The flowers had wilted, the front door was smudged with fingerprints and the gate was left open. Roger held his wife''s hand and walked toward the door, knowing he would have to confront the woman who was trying to replace his daughter in the most cruel way.


    Jennifer startled awake at the loud knocking on the door. Straightening herself out, she walked to the front door and found an angry set of old people at her door. As her head cleared she realized it was the bitch''s parents. Jennifer went straight to the point "Yeah, what''s up? You know Mike''s at work."


    Rogers lips tightened in distaste. "Yes we have been trying to get a hold of him but he hasn''t been answering his-"


    "He probably doesn''t want to talk to you. He''s already talked to the cops. Get off his back." she snapped.


    A pair of eyes peered out behind the banister to watch for his gramma and grampa. He heard them at the door from his room. He peered through the rungs of the banister hoping they were there to take him away. His arm hurt so badly. He was sniffling and whimpering while holding it. His grandparents noticed him a moment later and called out, "CALEB? HEY BUD WE JUST DROPPED BY TO SEE YOU." and Roger just pushed past the disgusting woman, dragging his wife over to his grandson.


    "You can''t just barge in here like this!" Jennifer yelled as she scrambled for her phone to call Mike. She wasn''t sure what he wanted her to do. She wouldn''t mind some time away from the kid. While she didn''t mind the idea of being a parent, actually fulfilling the role was a lot of work for someone so ungrateful. She rang him three times while his grandparents squatted around the kid becoming more and more animated. He didn''t pick up the phone so she wasn''t sure what to do. She would just go with the flow. It wasn''t really her kid anyways.


    Roger and Beth were in full panic mode. Little Caleb''s arm looked like it had been broken, and he wouldn''t tell them how it happened. Stolen novel; please report.


    "Do you know how his arm got broken?" screeched Beth, scooping the boy up into his arms. "How could you not notice this child was in so much pain?"


    "I''m still bonding with him. He didn''t tell me he was hurt." She shrugged.


    "I''m taking him to the hospital. You can tell his father or not." Beth snipped as she ran the kid out to her car. Roger sneered at the woman and followed his wife. As he strapped himself into his car he saw tears streaming down his wifes face as she held his grandson in the backseat.


    "We are failing them Roger. Do something Roger. Do something. I can''t lose them BOTH." his wife blubbered out. Caleb began crying along with his wife, and Roger picked up his phone to call Officer Carter.


    Meanwhile, Mike was at work asleep at his desk again. Mike often napped instead of watching the lab monitors, and his boss didn''t care as long as Mike could funnel him some cute dusties after work. With out coffee at home, and after a long night out, he slept soundly though the first half of his shift. He was continuing his nap into his second half when his boss showed up screaming in his ear.


    "Oh my god, what the actual fuck Mike. You slept through the whole FUCKING ROBBERY. All the samples are gone. Years of work, Mike. FUCK."


    Mike rubbed the sleep from his eyes, not realizing the situation. "Hey Bob. What''s going on?" he said as he looked at the monitors seeing swarms of police funneling though the lab rooms. He instantly woke up.


    "You''re fucked man. I can''t help you this time. You slept through a fucking break in man. Millions of dollars of research is gone. I can''t justify this loss to my bosses."


    "What are you trying to say, Bobbie?" he asked him, as his heart frantically beat through his chest.


    "You can pick up your compensation at the service desk, man. I can''t keep you anymore."


    "Cmon man, it was one time. I won''t do it again. I just ran out of coffee, and all this stuff with Hannah."


    "Yeah I wasn''t even bringing that up either. You''re being investigated for MURDER and you''re playing house with Jennifer the next day. I mean it looks really bad. If I didn''t know you, you''d already be gone. But this-" he gestured to the invesrigation going on through the monitors. "I can''t gloss this over, and no one else is available this time to take the fall for you. I''m so sorry man." said Bob as he ran his hand thorugh his hair in frustration. Bob appreciated Mike''s company. He had done him a lot of favors, but this was Mike''s ONE JOB, and he failed.


    "So what, just go now?" Mike asked, voice cracking.


    "Yeah, lab''s closed now anyway. Probably for months. I''m gonna even have to tighten my belt. This was a huge loss for all of us." he explained.


    "Fuck." MIke said as he grabbed his keys and walked around the building to the service desk. The attendant gave him a disgusted taste and practically threw his final grains at him. Walking out of the building, Mike noticed he had a few missed calls from Jennifer but he wasn''t in the mood to deal with whatever was going on with her. Lately she just seemed like work.


    Then like candy falling from the sky he got a message from Big ass Tiffany.


    [Busy?]


    [IMG of her naked]


    [15 min?]


    [IMG of her licking a cucumber]


    Mike smiled and gunned it to her house. Mike found himself buried inside Tiffany venting his anger and frustrations when her father walked in. Her father, the fucking police chief. Tiffany had been unwed, and more importantly, underaged. Jennifer had been 14 when he started going after her but her adopted parents never found out. Mike just about yelled when he saw the mans shocked face burst through the door.


    "DADDY!" Tiffany screamed, and tried to hide a smile. Oh shit. This had been a setup. Tiffany wanted to snag herself a husband so if she did happen to be a Birtha, she won''t lose her kid. The importance of a double parent household was overrated. Her father raised her just fine. The trouble was, she didn''t know he was already married, or that the police chief knew what trash had defiled his daughter.


    Chief Andrews couldn''t believe he let someone so repulsive access to his daughter. He spent his whole life sheltering teaching and protecting her just to have to lose herself to this kind of man. He had to get her tested as soon as possible so he knew what course of action to take against this man.


    "DADDY STOP!"


    And if this man got his daughter pregnant and his wife was still alive, they could take her child away. His grandchild. He had a few coworkers who had expressed interest in her but he thought she was too young.


    "DADDY WHAT ARE YOU DOING STOP!" she yelled as she pulled at her father.


    I guess it can''t be helped. He would have to force a marriage contract on her. He thought he could raise her and teach her not to make these kinds of mistakes but he must have given her too much freedom. He took a deep breath and looked down at the man.


    Mikes face was smashed in and the chief''s fist was covered in blood. Grabbing cuffs from his waist he flipped Mike over and put him under arrest.


    "DADDY STOP!" his stupid daughter sobbed in his face. "I LOVE HIM!" she yelled, stunning both the men listening. Her then sneered at her words, and mike grinned.


    "PUT SOME FUCKING CLOTHES ON TIFFANY" her father snapped.


    "NO DADDY DON''T!" Tiffany yelled, confused. Her father was supposed to start a marriage contract, not arrest the man. Her friend Chrissy landed her husband this way, and this guy was really hot.


    "HE''S MARRIED TIFFANY" her father clipped out as he lead the man out the front door.


    Mike was processed in the station he had called Jennifer to bail him out


    "Holy shit Mike. We''re only down to tomatoes and cucumbers. I can grab those. And the back-up grains, but then we''re out." she explained.


    "I got some back up with me, I just can''t access them until I''m bailed out." he glossed over. The back up he had was his compensation from losing his job, which he wasn''t about to confess to Jennifer. She was testy lately and he didn''t want to have to call his mother. He wasn''t even sure if she''d show up if he called.


    "Alright, I''ll be there in 10. Oh yeah, Caleb broke his arm somehow and his grandparents shoved their way in here and took him to the hospital to get fixed."


    "What the fuck, Jen, you just let them take him?"


    "Well he had a broken fucking arm Mike and they pushed their way in here. We aren''t married yet so I have no rights." she complained.


    Mike let out a long breath. "Can you just bring the bail? We can figure out the rest later. I love you Jenny."


    "Love you too.. Be there in 15." she said alluding to their old meet in 15 to fuck texts. She thought that she was the only one he used this line on. He laughed out loud. "15" he replied and hung up, smiling. Then he sat down to talk to his lawyer about all the charges that were coming at him, from murder, rape and abuse. None of which Mike believed he was responsible for. Mike would admit that he liked to sleep around, but it wasn''t really hurting anyone, was it? That''s what they were discussing. The trouble is that all of his behaviors before and after her disappearance came together in a pretty little package that could send him to prison. People starve in prison. They live off the welfare from their families, and Mike''s mom was ruthless, Hannah was gone, and until a full two weeks pass he can''t marry Jennifer. What family would feed him if they put him away? Mike began debating on fleeing the community.


    When Jennifer showed up to bail out mike with her cart full of food, the police couldn''t keep their mouths shut. Considering the police chief was personally interested in this matter, Mike wasn''t sure what the man would have in store for him. He hadn''t come up with a solution for his predicament before Jennifer confronted him, with tears in her eyes, like she was breaking. He had seen her like this a million times before, but this time it seemed more extreme because she was angrily silent on the ride to go get Caleb.


    "I need to grab a few things I left at my old place tonight and I promised my parents I''d stop by for dinner tonight." She said, while staring out the window.


    "Yeah, sure. I''ll swing by your old place before I grab Caleb. What time do you want me to pick you up?" he asked trying to get her to look at him.


    "I''ll just take my bike. I have to get it anyway. It''s not a lot of stuff." She lied cooley. Fuck that. She was going to rage tonight. She hadn''t slept with anyone but Mike her whole life, and here he was out there cheating with girls as old as she was when they met. Maybe she was just too old for him now after waiting all these years. A manic laugh bubble came out of her throat.


    "What''s so funny?" Mike asked smiling at her. He was just glad she wasn''t yelling. Talking with her was like walking on eggshells.


    "Nothing. I''ll see you later Mike." She replied as she nodded over her shoulder at him and got out of the car heading toward her old apartment building. After Mike pulled off, Jennifer pulled out her phone and finally called the George, the who''d been pursuing her since grade school. He was about to have the night of his life. And so was she. She found out later that night that men came in different sizes and Mike was actually rather small, and embarrassingly untalented.

 Hannahs world

    When the morning sun hit Hannah''s home, she was blisfully sleeping curled into her blankets and sleepnig bag. As noon set in, the woman began to wake and see that she was still in this alternate world, and that her room had changed again. She sat up like a kid on Christmas surveyed her new surroundings, and was shocked at what she saw. The first thing she noticed were the walls. Yesterday she was surrounded by logs and mud and today they looked like white plaster. The next thing that jumped out at her was the furniture. Her bedframe looked like the one she had growing up at her parents house. A smile of familiarity tugged at her lips.


    Then she saw the curtains. The window in the log home of yesterday was boarded up with a piece of bark. Today there were curtains. But these weren''t just any curtains. They looked exactly like the tie dye ones she made at her parents house. She wanted to bring them with her to her home with Mike but he found them tacky. Reaching out to touch the fabric, she noticed the giant black spot on the bottom right side of the cloth where she accidentally spilled the color in the wrong spot. Then she noticed the emoji sticker on the bedpost that she stuck on there when she was 14. She moved around the room looking at all the items that had shifted from her crafts to gifts from this fairy godmother of hers and could identify most of them. The shelving unit that housed her jars yesterday, and her dried goods today still had the water glass mark from the party she held with Mark three years ago. All of the items she was surrounded by were from her world. It was a bittersweet feeling. Her heartbreak was like strangulation. It hadn''t even been a week since she had been separated from society but facing all of these instances alone was overwhelming.


    Fortunately big changes had happened overnight for her. She had a pot belly stove, furniture, cabinets and even a toilet where her poop hole was outside. The seat was ice cold but it was better than hanging her butt cheeks out in the wind. She stacked a pile of dead leaves next to the toilet and prayed for toilet paper. Her ass was starting to get a rash. She wasn''t even sure what to do about soap or shampoo. Even with frequent baths, she couldn''t scrub the body odor away like she could with proper cleaners. She needed a proper bath, but wasn''t even sure how to ask her benefactor, or how to construct one with the resources she had. At this point she kind of had a grasp on how her surroundings were changing, and how she could shape them to what she wanted, or at least she hoped she did.


    Her stone axe had tuned metal overnight, which was a huge boon for her. The broken rock fragments on her floor had turned into her mother''s favorite knife set. She hoped that her benefactor hadn''t stolen any of these items. Her mom took pride in these knives. The pot belly stove was the type of thing the survivalists in the deserts relied on the survive in the winters, and if that was stolen, people would die. Hannah had to just be optimistic and pray that these were just copies, but she was too optimistic. Fortunately this was just a newer model that had disappeared from its display overnight.


    Hannah dragged her ass out of bed sometime after noon to sneak around the game trail and check her traps. Opening her door, Hannah was in for another shock. Her little camp was paved in concrete, and surrounded in a barb wire fence. Her old camp fire had become a covered outdoor firepit. If she had friends, she could invite them, and even charge a vacation rental fee, she mused. She headed to the pile of branches that she had set aside for dragging rabbits back to her home to see that small effort of hers had turned into a wheeled cart. Hannah laughed out loud in glee. She had wheels! She dragged back one and a half bunny corpses this time, but one of them was half eaten, like it had been found by another rabbit. There was still plenty of meat and fat on it, and the bones could be used in soup as well, so she plopped them on the cart and wheeled them home. Wheeled! The terrain wasn''t friendly on the wheels and sometimes it was a pain in the ass, but since her surroundings weren''t overgrown or hilly, there weren''t many troubles.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    In one of her traps she caught some kind of pink and blue bird. If it hadn''t been for her cart she wouldn''t have been able to carry this thing back to her camp at all. It''s neck had gotten caught in the trap on the ground and strangled itself. The vines and the knots she used were very strong but she didn''t realize how strong. After hanging the rabbits from the hanging metal rack that appeared in the rafters last night, she headed back gut and dismantle big bird. The job took most of the day, and then she had to figure out how to cook all this meat, and harvest the new round of crops before she would let herself quit. At least, that was her original plan.


    After moving the meat back to her home, the sun was starting to drop over the horizon. Hannah lit the outdoor fire, cooking some of the rabbit meat and spent the wee hours of the night assembling a crude looking smoke house stacked with all the meat she had collected. At this point, she couldn''t even see the fields in the darkness. Hannah felt overwhelmed but she knew that when you had abundant food, you needed to harvest and protect it. In modern society food is life and leaving any of this behind could mean her life, or the life of her child. Debating on taking a torch to her Tree garden, she finally decided against it. She was pregnant after all. Tossing back some cooked rabbit meat, she wrapped up the bright blue feathers and cooked meat and headed into her new home. Dropping her harvests on the kitchen table she didn''t even bother washing her hands and dropped straight into bed.


    From being betrayed by her husband, to being thrust alone into this world, she was still being looked after and her needs were being met more than they had been at home. If she weren''t so lonely, this would be an ideal situation. She missed her Caleb like she was missing a limb. The plan for today was to lay around and do nothing, but she just couldn''t bring herself to do that. She had energy to work, more than what was explainable and her mind was too quick to turn to depression when she was idle. For all she knew there could be hundreds of other people around her doing more than her and maybe they weren''t friendly, maybe they were. So many scenarios went through her mind that she felt she was going mad. The idea of other people made her more excited than afraid, but everything about her situation seemed far fetched. She grabbed a couple pieces of firewood and stuck them together in the shape of a gun to see if it''d upgrade tonight. It looked crude but she was tired and only put like five extra minutes into the thing before giving up and dropping it on the nightstand.


    Tossing her old sleeping bag on the floor, she wrapped herself up in the new soft blankets in her old bed and fell stared at Caleb''s old crib. She had liked how she had bush crafted her daughters crib but felt comforted that Caleb''s old crib was reliable. The trouble was that every time she looked at it she just felt the loss of her smiley eyed little boy. Every time she heard an animal cry at night she was hearing Caleb cry for Mommy. Every time she realized it wasn''t him, it hurt. She tried to wake up throughout the night to make sure the smoker was running and predators weren''t coming inside the fence. She was too tired to even realize that while she was intermittently napping between stoking the smoke, her surroundings had began to morph again. Her sluggish body dragged her through the motions as she spent a long night curing her meats. As she groggily headed back to bed after checking the smoker for the hundredth time, she tripped over her sleeping bag she tossed on the floor, and something round and solid was inside of it.

 Mike and his bullshit

    The altercation Mike had with his former, or soon to be former in laws was quite uncomfortable. Picking up his son from the hospital, Mike didn''t realize that he would be under speculation for abuse and he did not bring sufficient bargaining stocks to get the pigs off of his back. Hearing Beth scream at him and accuse him of being a murderer rattled him, but he didn''t do anything, so it was frustrating, if anything. Sitting down with his sons doctor, Mike finally saw a way out of this situation. Her pretty pale face blushed every time she looked up at him from the file. He could tell she was nervous just being around him and he started working his charms.


    "My wife left me about a week ago, and my friend has been watching my child. I really don''t know how his arm got like this, but I will make sure it won''t happen again. If my wife hadn''t left he would still have proper supervision. I''m a new single father and I''m trying my best." He explained to the woman, fake tears in the corners of his eyes. The woman was empathetic to his situation, and apparently attracted to his being a father. He soon wound up with a racy text from said doctor and some plans for tomorrow night. This had been the story he told the child protection officers his in laws had bought, and it was rather effective. Honestly, Mike wasn''t sure how his kid''s arm got hurt, but it was wrapped and it''d heal. All kids break arms and legs and stuff. Mike still had a scar on his arm from his first bike accident.


    Looking down at the kid, sadly staring at his feet Mike offhandedly remarked, "Scars are cool." and Caleb''s eyes lit up and he smiled at his father. Mike grunted and looked back down at his phone, waiting for the release papers. Beth had been led out of the hospital by her husband about ten minutes after he showed up since they weren''t needed anymore. When Caleb realized his grandparents had been sent away he wasn''t happy, but when his daddy talked to him he was hopeful. HIs daddy didn''t usually have to much to say to him. Especially nice stuff. Usually it was about messes and toys and being mad.


    When Caleb got back to the house, he sat down to watch some cartoons and wrapped himself up in a throw blanket on the couch. His father dropped his new medicine on the counter and ran to the shower. While his father was in the shower, Caleb grabbed a bag of bread from the kitchen counter that he could reach and tore through it was the episode ended. Curled up in his throw blanket with bread crumbs all over his face Caleb fell asleep after a long eventful day.


    Mikes nerves were a little frayed by all the nonsense that had been going on. He had lived such a free and easy life until everything changed. Mike liked variety and was bored with his wife but the amount of nonsense that went around Hannah''s disappearance was starting to get on his nerves. His in laws had threatened media coverage and as much as Mike wasn''t guilty, he also didn''t want to get something blamed on him that he didn''t do. He used Hannah, and even though it was morally wrong, it wasn''t illegal. He saw ruining a girl as opening their sexual horizons. The ones who killed themselves were prudes who didn''t deserve the life they were given. After all, that''s what dusties were there for, or at least that''s how his most men his age used them. Death these days was just survival of the fittest anyways. The city arenas showed the gruesome truth of that. The amounts of pain a man will go through to feed his family is put to the test for the entertainment of the rich. Mike had the opportunity to attend a few of these, but the transportation to the city and back had cost him a month of his crops.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Seeing his kid passed out on the couch covered in crumbs, Mike was relieved because he neither had to feed or put his son to sleep. Mike grabbed his kid from the couch and carried him to his bed, dropping him on top of the covers, still wrapped in the throw blanket. Shutting the door behind his son, he sent a text to a girl he fished on the street the other day. She had chocolate brown hair and freckles on her nose. He went straight to the point and sent her a picture of his swollen manhood.


    [dick pic]


    [WOW]


    [15 min?]


    [ok]


    Mike smiled, grabbed his jacket and sent a quick text to Jennifer about being home late. After the stuff with his wife and his job, and now his girlfriend being a bit crazy, he just wanted to let loose. This new fish of his was a cute little thing. All the right areas were swollen and she seemed like she liked the attention, but wasn''t used to it. Sandy was a bit shy, but if he worked it right he could be balls deep in this girls first time within the hour. His member swelled in anticipation as he walked past the bills he decided to ignore and started the car.


    Sandy sat by her bed with her phone in her lap as she covered her bright red face. The boy she loved and dated since grade school got engaged to the girl who makes her life a living hell. He stopped being friends with her and the new couple seemed happy. Her whole world was a roller coaster this past week. All because her parents said they wouldn''t find out that she was a Birtha until she was 16. They said if he couldn''t wait, he wasn''t worth it. Her parents didn''t realize that two years means more to her generation than theirs. By 16, Scott would be married to Cheryl and they''d probably already have two kids. Her heart was so sour that it felt dead. Scott sneered at her parents outdated ideals, and Sandy lost Scott, and soon with him, all of her friends.


    Sandy met this man at the bus stop in front of the hospital and although he leered at her like most of the uncles out there since her assets grew, this time she didn''t reject him. She just wanted to feel wanted, even if it was like this. At least he was handsome, she thought, as washed her face and touched up her makeup for the tenth time. Surveying her room, she ran to the kitchen and grabbed a bag to throw away all of her stuffed animals and childish looking stuff. She was too old for these kinds of things now anyways. Or at least she would be, after she let this man make her a woman. Maybe, if she''s lucky, she would be a Birtha and they would marry, she thought hopefully. When the knock finally came to the door, all the hairs on her arms stood on end. She was scared and nervous. But she thought of the boy she had loved and lost, and resolved herself to open the door.

 Sweet Relief, Instant worry

    Hannah rubbed her foot trying to figure out what she had tripped over when she heard a small whine from the bag. Her whole body tensed and every hair on her body was standing on end. The cabin was pitch black save for the crackling fire coming through the grates of the stove that heated her home. Something was in her home. She was surrounded by wildlife that seemed aggressive at least to other wildlife and she was protected by a fence, that she now assumed had a security issue, unless this was her benefactor. Trembling, she peeped out a wobbly, "Hello?" as she crept into a corner fumbling for something to protect herself with. Grabbing a large stick she gripped it in front of herself. In response she heard a whimper from the sleeping bag on the floor. Her hand barely kept the grip on the stick as she held it into the fire long enough to get it lit.


    Every second felt like a lifetime. She took the stick and held it outwards toward the lump on the floor, seeing a small shape inside the bag. Grabbing another stick from the floor, she used it to quickly open the bag to see what crawled inside. Thrusting the blanket off the small creature she jumped back quickly, not knowing if it could be a snake or a porcupine. The animals on this world seemed like they didn''t fear or understand humans, but that didn''t make them any less deadly. She saw the teeth of the rabbits she''s been eating. Even the birds had sharp beaks, and everything animal she''s seen here has been super sized and splashed with color. Maybe that''s why the wildlife ignored her. As she jumped back the light on the tip of her stick went out and she had to relight it. As she was frantically relighting the stick, the figure emerged from the blanket.


    Trembling, Hannah held out the relit stick and repeated again, "Hello?" looking at the figure as his little head looked at the fire, scared. "Mommy?" he asked as he rubbed his eyes with his hand and his casted hand. "CALEB?!" screamed Hannah as she dropped her stick and rushed over to her son, throwing her arms around him, crying. "I missed you Mommy!" said Caleb over and over, as he started crying along with his mother. Holding his arm, she asked him, "What happened?". Caleb explained in his little boy way that his arm was broken by a mean lady by a bowl. It took a full twenty minutes to pull a full story out of him. He began to get distracted by the things around the cabin and that''s when Hannah realized she wouldn''t be getting sleep anytime soon. The house needed to be childproofed immediately.


    She quickly began to instruct him on what not to touch and asked him to stay on the bed and try to go back to sleep while she got enough sticks to build a quick safety fence around the wood stove. Unfortunately it wouldn''t be magicked or whatever tonight since the changes already happened, but it was better than having him burn himself. She refused to let him out of her sight as she looked around her cabin. She had been making this house livable enough for him to safely live here, but there were still modern conveniences that were going to be an issue. She was now in a world with no television, no daycare, and she hadn''t even secured a way to get milk. Children need milk, right? And medicine. What was she going to do about medicine? Caleb''s arm was going to need something, probably. She would have to cross that bridge when she got to it. She grabbed a scrap of the ''magic'' paper and began to scrub together a list of projects to make the house safe and ready for her children. She smiled as she ran her hand through her son''s hair. She wasn''t alone anymore, but what did that mean for her son''s future?The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    As Caleb''s smiling face drifted off to sleep Hannah wrapped up her list of projects to start before the next reset. She figured every night her projects would complete themselves how she saw them in her head. It shocked her when her items from home found their way into this new world, but it did bring her a sense of comfort when they appeared. When her wooden shelves turned into her mother''s floating shelves that looked like clouds she loved and appreciated it, but there was a sense of loss every time her project took form without her hand in it. It was like her baby walking before it could crawl. Fortunately that was exactly the pace she needed to get this home ready for her family. And then she wondered, staring at the sleeping bag, if he wouldn''t be the last person that showed up in that sleeping bag. Hope bloomed in Hannah''s chest. Maybe she could see her Mom and Dad, Sarah, George and their kids, or even Chris without that Rachel tramp.


    Hannah scolded herself for that last thought. She caught up with Chris at the reunion but they mainly talked about their past and not their present, like they were avoiding the the fact that their closeness had ever ended. Fortunately Jenna hadn''t been in town for the reunion so Chris was his old self. She had stopped asking her old friends about Chris a year after Caleb was born and he had married Jenna. Losing him hurt too much, but they were two different people who chose to live different lives. It was like they were speaking two different languages but when they spoke to each other they could still understand each other in a profound way. Their world died that year in high school, and for one brief night she let him relive it. And then she woke up.


    Chris was a sore that would always be open, but Hannah slapped a band aid on it, and thought of all of the other people who could benefit from this world, who could be a benefit to this world and what needs they would have. Hannah spent another fifteen minutes jotting down a list of projects to get done, and ideas to try to make more sleeping bags. She had theories as to how to bring people over and how to keep bad people from crossing over. These lists were the only semblance of order she felt she had in this chaotic world. Everything was always changing and she felt like she wasn''t in control. Just this little list helped her pull her thoughts together and take back control of the situation, and keep her son safe.


    Hannah was exhausted since she had been up all night working on the smoker. Little did she even realize that the whole machine had been upgraded overnight. As she jotted down her last thought her head finally dropped on top of the pillow next to Caleb''s. Hannah''s face was smudged with charcoal and her arm was wrapped around her son under the soft blanket, her other hand clutching her list as the morning sun crested the hillside peering through the leaves and another day began.

 Chriss complicated life

    Chris startled himself awake at his office desk, shaking off the biting headache ripping through his skull. It''s not that he wanted to drown himself in whiskey, he just wanted to feel less what he was feeling. The loss, the anger and the confusion warred inside his soul. He was such a coward. He never should have let her walk out of his life, and now he might never get to see her half cocked smile as she chewed on her straw or pencil or whatever she had around her. She always had something in her mouth. He loved that about her. And the way she would look up at him over her lashes like they were sharing some sexy secret between the two of them. He didn''t realize he loved her until she was gone. One day they were laughing and sharing notes in class and the next she just wasn''t there anymore. And that emptiness made him realize what a loss he had.


    "Hey! Chris!" Called Rachel as her tall heels clapped into the study.


    "You didn''t knock" Chris replied as he tidied up his mess from then night before and opened his emails to check on work... and Hannah.


    "Whatever." She replied, rolling her eyes at what she felt was a little man. Her father had forced her into the marriage, considering what she really was, and coached her on how to handle her role from the moment she had gotten her original test. The fool needed a job, and her family needed a socially acceptable husband. What happened behind closed doors had nothing to do with marriage, and she had been clear about that.


    Chris had thought Rachel was his dream come true when she told him he could sleep with as many dusties as he wanted without her caring. She even suggested some unwed birthas that he could target, in hopes of claiming a child. Rachel claimed to be terrified of childbirth and would make excuses to abstain from him for as long as possible. Chris often found himself waking up next to women who werent his wife without his knowledge or consent after being overserved alcohol by his wife.


    At first, Chris thought that maybe this forced marriage would work out. He could sleep with who he wanted, have a great job, lots of money and a hot armpiece at home. He even fantasized that he could keep Hannah on the side one day and find some happiness.


    But everything about his life was out of his control from the moment the wedding ended. Her parents, the rich botanist who employed most of his schoolmates parents, set them up with a house, a job, a chauffer, bodyguards and a butler. Cameras and microphones were all over his home and his in laws found enjoyment in mocking his two and a half minute orgasm (after his wife hadn''t touched him in months), or the fact that their daughter was screwing at least three other men in the house while he was napping. They blamed him for not impregnating their daughter, and often flaunted her lovers in front of him to get him to try harder.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    If he had known the kind of perverse life he was stepping into at 17 years old, he would have taken Hannah and ran away. The money and the luxuries were beyond what he thought possible. The farmhouse he was raised in was such a drastic shift to the luxury condo he shared with his wife. He was actually surprised to see her around. She had left for 3 months this time with... Rolf? Randolf? Who knew.


    "Whats up? Why are you back?" he asked, annoyed as he shut his computer down and looked up at the woman. Her red lips cringed in distaste. She hated skipping formalities. A childhood of forced etiquette turned her into such a snooty adult. Even after all these years she still had a beautiful body, and he didn''t mind using it, but it was like fucking a sofa cushion. Angry sex only took him so far. He didnt even want her facing him when he took her, he would turn her on her stomach and find a hole. She had never responded to him. She claimed it was just a phobia and begged him not to tell her parents. Any efforts of finding a lover had been quickly ended by her parents with some kind of humiliating phone call or other. In order to find any pleasure he would have to argue for a week with his wife until she either brought him a drugged girl or drugged herself and left lube on his nightstand. If he only begged her for sex it would be some dusty. She wouldn''t even offer herself unless he brought up their need for children, and even then she would often bring someone with her same body type hoping to fool him. These women would still be knocked out cold when he woke in the morning, and he felt sick after uncovering the ruse. This went on for years until she started leaving on her vacations.. And now she was back.


    Rachel stalked around his office like it was hers, refusing to sit looking down her nose at him. "Let''s divorce" she stated.


    "Okay." Chis replied, raising his eyebrows, pushing himself back from his desk. Well, I guess this might not be his desk anymore. Divorce? What did that even mean for him? He never considered that she would let him go. Would their parents accept? "What about our parents?"


    Rachel snorted, looking down at her soon to be ex husband. "My father has long since voiced his dissapointment in this union, and you may as well know that he hopes to bind our family with the Long family. Young Mr Long has expressed an extreme interest in a" she slowly trailed a finger down the top of her blouse towards her unbuttoned top buttons "union with me." She smiled up at her husband who hadn''t t been able to touch a woman in months. She was finally free of this ruse, and was onto the next. When she was 14, she was captured and raped after her results of her fertility test were leaked to a group of human traffickers. Her fathers men had found her naked and bound to a dirty bed with one of the gang members panting over her. The gang was eliminated, the security breech was fixed and her records were altered. After that she was stuck with marriage to a man who only saw her as a birth giver; Something she could never be.


    The lie kept the marriage from ever being stable. She had tried to find a way to give him the child he wanted by paying girls who hadn''t been tested yet to lay with her husband but none of them produced what he wanted. Fortunately her father needed this deal so he could get the new tech for his crop production, and Jimmy Long already had four kids and lived up to his last name. She had spent the past three months with him, and it was turning into love. Now she just had to get rid of this man. He had been useful, but he never loved her. Maybe she never gave him a chance. Oh well.


    Chris ran his shaking hands through his hair. He was full of a mixture of excitement and fear. "What about my job? And my money?" He looked up into her coal black eyes as she slid the paperwork in front of him that she had already prepared. It was basic divorce papers. They had an ironclad prenup. All he had to do was sign. He looked up at her, with the pen in his hand waiting for the answer.


    She scoffed, "You can have your savings and your little management job. But just so you know, your new boss will be my new husband and he is a jealous man. You should probably start looking for new employment. It would be better for all of us." Chris was cradling his head with his right hand and looking down at the paperwork trying to decide if this was the right thing. Laughing at himself he signed the paper, realizing he was kidding himself for thinking he even had a choice in any of this. He looked up at the woman, "How long until I have to move out?"


    "The sooner the better." she replied as she snatched the paperwork off of his desk and sauntered out of the room. She didn''t hate him, she just hated that chapter of her life, and he happened to be in it. She just wanted it over.


    Chris fished the bottle of whiskey from the bin and took a swig. If he was going to move on with his life, he needed closure and with Hannah missing there was no way he was going to move on. His heart still ached thinking about the way her toes curled when she got excited or her eyes crinkled when she was being playful. He loved her and he never told her. That night at the reunion showed him everything they could have been together. It was like a fantasy he woke up from and everyone forgot they were in it. But he remembered. And he felt responsible. Hell, he wanted to be responsible for her. He prayed that she just went off the grid away from the crazy husband. He just needed to find out where. Since he was soon to be out of a job, he decided to call up Hannah''s mom and offer his help. He was going crazy knowing she was missing and all of thier old friends were as well.


    "Hey Ms. B?" Chris said as the phone picked up but all he could hear was sobs on the other line. "Ms. B? Are you oK? It''s Chris?" Chris heard more sobbing on the other end and his heart dropped into his stomach. "Ms. B? What''s going on? Did they find something?" The sobbing on the other end calmed a bit and he heard her respond.


    "Caleb... He''s... Missing now... too"