As I strip off my uniform, my body instantly feels a thousand times lighter. I throw my boot camp shirt off onto the ground and a layer of mud crumbles off of as it falls. My arms burn with pain and my hands are covered in intertwined scars and blisters. I go to unlatch my belt, and one of the blisters bursts open and the tingling sensation of the exposed skin makes me grit my teeth. I feel the cold fluid leak onto my palm, and my belt finally comes undone with more fussing than it should've taken. Rhodes is not in our shared dorm at the moment, and I don't know when she will come back. Right now, I don't care. My body aches, pain blooming in a new place with every move I make. Even though I'm just in my undergarments right now, she and I have seen enough of each other that I don't bother going to the bathroom stall to change anymore. I finish changing into my oversized "US ARMY" T-shirt and black shorts, and crawl into my bed that was neatly made this morning for inspections. I feel my body sink into the bed, the cool sheets doing little to ease my pain. My sheets are clean, but I am not. It feels like my body is getting pricked with thousands of little hot needles. The utter exhaustion I feel is hard to describe. Boot camp was one thing, but these past 2 months of Intensive Combat Training have worn down my body in every way. My immune system is weak, my muscles are strained with new limits being tested every day, and my ability to take care of myself has been shaved down to only what is necessary. My clothes are filthy, my skin has a layer of grime on it, and my hair has been matted into a clump from the mixture of constant sweat and gel keeping it in place. I have so many bruises from training and DT that I feel like an abandoned peach being feasted on by birds, left to rot on the ground and slowly wither away oozing fluids and deteriorating.

I lay my head down on the pillow all the way, painfully reaching up behind my head to adjust. Once I am in the position of least discomfort, I close my eyes. I pull the light blanket up to cover my body, and it gives me comfort. I didn't even bother to comb my hair when I took my bun out, but that will have to be a problem for the morning. I sink into sleep, and I feel the weight of my droopy eyelids bring me down into a heavy slumber.

...

When I regain some form of consciousness, something feels different in the air around me. I no longer have complex and intricate thoughts; I simply stare up and see two figures staring down at me. Their mouths open with what looks like excitement as they discover I am awake, and I begin to feel resistance in my legs and arms. This feeling is completely different to only moments ago when my bones and muscles ached from exhaustion, yet I feel a mental link between the two sensations. Then the woman, mom, grabs for me, and suddenly I am lifted through the air until I am swaddled against her chest. Some part of me must know this woman is my mother, and I feel some connection between us. She cradles the back of my head with her massive hand. Well, it felt massive compared to my now weirdly small head. It feels like the warmest embrace I have never felt. It feels like the safest pair of arms in the world that could be wrapped around me. It feels like the sweetest smell as I feel her breath on me when her cheek nuzzles against my head.

The thoughts of my arms and legs being restricted has left me entirely, and all I think about is this woman, my mother, holding me so close to her and the slight bounce in her step and we glide around the room. The walls are light, and sunshine fills the room from an open window I see opposite from where I first started in this surreal place. My mother lays me down in her arms, and now I can see her face. She has something in her hand, and as she brings it to my mouth, I see some form of liquid sloshing around inside. I feel the bottle in my mouth, and suddenly the small sips of milk coming through feel so healing and comforting. I keep drinking slowly but surely, and I stare blankly at this woman in front of me. She has soft brown eyes, with long lashes fanning out around them in a beautiful way. She has freckles dotted across her skin, and her lips part in a wide smile as she looks down at me.

Aren't you just so precious, my sweet Mabelle...

I woke up in my bed, a metallic taste filling my mouth. I reach up, wincing at the pain in my arm, and find my nose caked with blood. I slowly plant my hands at my sides and hoist myself into a sitting position. Blood instantly starts dripping onto my lap.

What the hell... I pondered, quietly.

The memory of the dream rang through my head like loud, obnoxious church bells.

Thought spiraled out of control in my mind, and I struggled to see clearly.

I didn't know what to make of the dream. All of it was completely new, but it somehow felt familiar to me at the same time. I started questioning my whole past. I had never met my mom or dad, never. I grew up in a foster home, too young to know that my parents had abandoned me as an infant.

Was I really dreaming about...my mom?

The world did not know her.

They saw nothing special or unique about her.

Yet there she was, the cool embrace of silk wrapped around her skin as her presence sank and floated around the box. She felt small and thin, swimming in rich green colored silk that clung to the outline of her body. An emerald hue reflected off every wall in the box, turning the dull walls into an animated confinement.

Lucia let time sail her by on the sea of green waves. The box was closed, the only light was that reflecting off her own skin. She had grown so pale in the box that she imagined herself as the moon, illuminating the walls with a radiant frosty glow.

Lucia was indeed, nothing special.

She'd been convinced of that long before the box, but she did not remember why. She was in the box because she had no one. No one though her unique, no one saw her as worth keeping. She was born by moonlight, a whisper in silence.

Lucia knew there was nobody in the box with her, yet she did not feel alone. Sometimes visitors came and passed through the box, but none stayed. They could not stay, even if Lucia asked them to. She would grow too sensitive to their light, and she would become weak in their presence. The life of anyone who traveled through the box drained quickly before her iridescent eyes. They might appear, youthful and spirited, but they always left withered, empty, and aimless. Lucia could not speak with them. Lucia, in fact, did not do anything in the box. She was the guard, only there to observe as the travelers came and departed from her presence.

But not even that made Lucia special.

The visitors entered the box close to Lucia, and they slowly drifted through the space until they reached the opposite side. The visitors glared at her during their time in the box, out of spite and anger, thinking her responsible for what they experienced. They assumed she was taking their life for herself, grasping for immortality or relief in her own confinement. They assumed she was the force that drained their lives from them. But the magic that took their existence was not hers, but that of the box.

Sometimes, Lucia wished it was her. She wished that she was powerful enough to drain the souls that came into the box with her, or that their suffering would benefit her in some form. She wanted to believe herself capable of such power.

But alas, she was not.

Lucia was not special, and she was not powerful.

Those thoughts would flee from her mind just as easily as they came. The box did not allow for anything to stay except its guard and its master.

The box was controlled by a magic produced by its creator. Lucia's master condemned her to the box, where she would be the only light amidst darkness. The only sound among the silence. Only a wisp in the space. Lucia had once thought herself special, she once believed she was worth saving.

In fact, once upon a time her master had agreed with her. He had been the only one to tell her that he would save her. He saved her from her confines of loneliness, despair, and deep sorrow. He promised salvation, peace, and tranquility.

When he found her in the pit that she had dug for herself, she believed what he said.

Her master, the potentate of the box, of her soul, of the world, was none other than the Lord of the Underworld. Upon her rescue, Lucia was reborn with a new name, no doubt in semblance to his familiar title Lucifer. Of course, she did not call him by that name.

In fact, she never addressed him.

Lucia watched as her master came every once in an eternity to see her. His appearance was flawless, trimmed in shadow and full of mystique. She perceived him more as a presence than a person. But he was the center of her gravity, the only thing in all the worlds that could move her. When her master stood before her, she reached out for him in every way that she could. He would not move, and neither would she. Her body was unfeeling, her mind the only proof of her sentience. She felt his presence saturate the room until her light was dimmed and intermingled in his dark reach. He would speak to her, and she would stare back at him in awe.

"What a marvelous job, my sweet."

"Oh, how you glow, my dearest."

Lucia could not nod her head, could not move in his presence. The silk around her could not force her limbs to move even the slightest bit. She only looked upon him, her yearning thoughts centralized on him. She had an obsession for her master, not only out of desire but out of necessity. He was her potentate, her ruler, her overlord. She felt frosty drafts wafting out from him whenever he was near, and her emotions stretched out warmth in return. She felt unmatched comfort in his icy presence, she never expected anything different from him. One might call it love, or devotion.

Lucia did not know such words to describe her affixation on her master; she only knew what he spoke. She only knew the doctrine he parted onto her, and she held it close to her. His words were all she lived by while he was gone. And when he came to see her, to see the box he had designed, she drank in his presence until it permeated her throat and coated her body in his scent. Each time he departed the box, she reverenced him as the creator. He was all that she had known, his presence the only thing to soothe her.

Lucia remembered nothing of her time before her master, save for the pit he pulled her out of. the feeling of hot ragged soil sticking to her skin, the wooden planks barricading her every movement. Now, the box filled with luxurious green silk was her shelter, and her master was the vertex in which she existed.

Oh, how she wished for him to return.

This was her eternity. Her time before her master did not matter to Lucia, only him. The only things that mattered to Lucia was her master and the box she guarded. The box that he had created. She had been created for the box, and for its creator.

She was condemned for eternity to watch the travelers and guard the box. Her master kept her there, and she had no desire to be elsewhere. If her master was to return, she would be there, waiting for him. She would guard the box for every eternity, as long as her master would return to her. She may have been condemned to the box, but the box was also condemned to serve her and her sea of green silk. She waited, until the box opened once more to let in its master, her master.

"My Lucia, are you ready for a change?"

There was nothing I could do about it. They said that I was the only one who could carry all five fetuses. These fetuses inside me all have different mothers, and their fathers are to remain anonymous until they successfully make it to full term. Medical technology has come so far that one woman can carry multiple fetuses at once and all they need is a sterile platform to transplant it from one body to another. They chose my body to carry five fertilized eggs because I have been the most reliable host in the quadrant. In the past four years I have delivered eight babies. The doctors had to surgically expand my womb in order to hold these five, even though they were barely zygotes when the transplant happened. The surgery was four months ago, and since then they haven't released me from my isolated quarantine room. I am to stay here until I give birth, with the IV keeping me sedated and hydrated and the machine monitoring my heartrate. Dr. Menage keeps all the hosts restrained and monitored so he can make sure that we don't turn in our resignation early without the desired results.

When I signed up for this project, I thought I was going to be helping families who couldn't have their own children. I knew that pain, and I was willing to help women who couldn't have their own children. What I didn't realize was that I would become a vessel for as many pregnancies as possible, with no concern about success. At first, they did only one at a time. The goal was not that every child made it to full term. The goal is to stick as many fertilized eggs as possible into any suitable host and hope that at least half of them survived. They gradually tried for twins and triplets until I was unfortunately lucky enough to deliver a set of triplets last year. Now, only two months later, they have put five fetuses inside my womb in hopes that I will keep up my reputation of delivering every baby that I am given.

"Hi Maribelle, are you ready for your ultrasound?"

I remain silent as I see the nurse close the door behind her. I will not waste my time with pleasantries in this cell. She's going to do my ultrasound whether I am ready or not.

I see the withered old nurse come in, her eyes glossed over like she is in a trance. She hobbles over to my bedside to read the monitor, and even though my eyes are trained on her she never meets my gaze. My fists clench up beneath the restraints with rage as she hums a melody that seems slightly familiar. Is that Beethoven? This ancient woman is humming Beethoven while I'm tied down to this bed and drugged in this forsaken place just to have an unnatural number of babies come out of me eventually. It takes everything in me to not spit on her wrinkly face as she lifts my gown up to prepare for the ultrasound. She can barely squeeze the tube hard enough to get the cold gel onto my belly. She starts spreading the cold goo, but I don't really feel it. The numbing sensation has become a new normal with Dr. Menage and so many nurses invading my body every day. My belly is so swollen that I can't imagine how it's going to expand any more to accommodate the fetuses as they continue to grow. She bends over slowly to turn on the ultrasound machine on, and after a couple beeps, she brings the transducer up to eye level. She pulls her smudged glasses down and seems to examine the transducer to make sure that it's sterile.

She repositions the handheld reader and gives me the faintest smile as her hand drops hard onto my abdomen. The room is deadly quiet except for the unpleasant sound of sloshing gel. Once she gets a good position, she steadies her hand. I can't tell if her hand is shaking because she's nervous or because she's older than the fossils buried under this building. The sound gradually becomes louder, and I barely hear a constant thrum of heartbeats. They sound unsynchronized and scattered, like a herd of elephants trampling the ground on a distant television.

But I hear them. The nurse moves the beacon and marks each of the five distinct heartbeats on her chart. The sound from the ultrasound intertwines with the sound from my own heart monitor machine, creating a dissonant melody. I guess that is what six hearts beating together sounds like. For a moment, I am in pure astonishment at the five lives that are developing in my womb. And then, a rippling pain seizes my abdomen. Suddenly the room is blinding white with no more shapes or dimensions and my abdomen feels like a pot of boiling acid. I feel my whole body convulsing beneath the restraints and my vision becomes dark and watery. I feel wet, and I regrettably consider that I may have peed myself due to the extreme pain. The warm wetness just makes me scream as I soil myself with no control.

"Maribelle? Oh goodness... Maribelle, can you hear me?" The nurse inquires frantically.

My eyes roll into the back of my head, and I am no longer conscious of anything around me. I only feel the pain of my abdomen and the babies in me raging from suffocation.

Yes, there are five heartbeats in my womb right now. With mine, that made six heartbeats, like six gears turning to keep a machine running. Isn't it just a shame that my heart might give out before I can save the other five?