Corazon De Madre

"PROTECT! PROTECT! PROTECT!"

It was a strong voice resonating in her mind. No, it was like a sharp-edged sword poking in her heart. For the first time in her life, she was able to hear a voice. A voice, so loud that her ear felt numb. A voice, so strong that finally after her long slumber she was able to wake up.

"Where...am I?"

She said, with a weak tone. Her weak eyes squinted around, examining her location. However...

"Dark... Isolation room? or perhaps..."

The place she was residing, couldn't be described as vivid and understandable, but apparently, it was only filled with never-ending darkness.

Aside from that her existence could only be ascertained by the sound, she is making. Most notably weird is that she couldn't perceive reality. She is deeply confused. Is she standing? Where is up and down? Is there a light, she could see? Is she alone?

She felt a strong familiarity with this place, the longer time she looks around. A dark but calm place, isolated from the satanic world. Probably the only place she can call home.

"Gestation tank?" She realizes. "This feels like it. Submerged under the cool saline solution. Not just my personal heaven, but my origin."

She remembered her past when she came out to this world. A past shrouded with inhumane experiments. A life filled with sorrow and pain. A bloodied past that she couldn't wash off of her hands.

Putting aside her memories, she began to move around to comprehend her setting. Like an astronaut, she scampers without hesitation, in a random direction. This place seems to be mimicking underwater physics but lacks the actual water. No gravity seemed to be in place as she floated.

Her skin could distinguish a chilling cold around her; a clue that minutely defines her whereabouts. The extreme familiarity shrouded her judgment but it felt off of her, the longer she reminisces.

"This a gestation tank but it felt different."

"..."

Her memory began to burst-out and bestowed her some glimpses of answers, to the questions she seeks.

"Is this the side-effects they were explaining about at the pre-op?" She seized a possible answer. "Perhaps right...the bishop did not lie. ASC, altered state of consciousness, is the only side effects of the ghoulification procedure."

With her hands gaining strength, she reaches down to touch her belly. She wanted to verify if she was okay. Her new reason to live for another day.

A fruit that was born by the love of the only man that saved her from despair.

"Raul, I'm sorry my love...I didn't tell you...that I'm pregnant."

However, she felt no connection. The insides of her belly were empty! Though it had a bump, nothing filled its hollow space.

"What? How can this be?" Her hands trembled as her middle age face twitch." No! No! No!"

She held her belly and press her hands gently to her bump. She tried to connect to the developing fetus inside her, but there was no beat of life. It was a husk filled with nothing.

Salty tears began to flow out of her dilated eyes. It was an ominous message, she wishes to never receive. She can't feel her daughter like she uses to. Her new meaning in her insignificant life vanishes without a trace.

"I can't feel her...why?!" She shouted, " No, no, no...Please God, don't tell me they removed her, out of me! Please, please, please, she was my reason. Please don't....I'm begging you, my fate. Take me instead for my sins...rather than my daughter."

She continued to squeeze her tears out from her tear glands. She weeps until her glands became impassive. Gradually as time passes, she loses hope. A hope built upon her love for her daughter. If her reason was non-existent, she believed that she has lost her meaning. Being a mother was a dream come true to her, it was her first time to see the world in a new light other than her former life.

"I have served the church well. I have spilled tons of blood. My debt was paid on the day of its due. I have done more than enough for me to earn your precious freedom. GOD! Why would you do this to me? What more do you want? I-I..."

She continued to toss out a bucket of salty tears. Even though her tear glands no longer fulfilled its functions, her boiling emotions force it to work harder. It was adequately clear, that she had enough. All she wanted was for her freedom, a chance to become a mother for her child. An opportunity to live a simple but peaceful life.

Minutes pass, stillness became her only pillar. Nothing came to her, no one talk to her, she was alone, perhaps forever.

Sigh. Low giggle.

In the midst of the serene quietness, a lady of unknown origins came to see her, unnoticed. She came out suddenly from a dark space meters away from her. The lady's form illuminated like a light bulb and revealed the face of the person, who calls this place her home.

A young lady garb by a Victorian black dress, commonly worn by the elites of the Victorian Era, presented herself. She has a fair skin, complemented by a beautiful face and crowned by a long golden blonde hair. Her right iris was deep green but her left iris was in the form of red and black kakugan.

"Finally, you're awake. It's Been awhile since our fellowship in this place. You look pitiful and weak, Eva. What happened to you, my dear?"

The young lady came to embrace Eva like she was her child. As for Eva, she did not resist but allowed the lady to do her, a mother like hugged. It looks like, Eva was used to doing this with her a long time ago.

"My child where is she?" She gently pushes away the young lady out of her perimeter. She is more concerned with her, rather than the woman in front of her. "Don't play tricks with me again you witch."

"Huu."

The young woman blew a sigh. She looks at Eva and drew a mischievous smile.

"She's fine Eva, nothing to worry about. You're very lucky, you know that. Among all my daughter's you're the only special..."

Grabbed.

The young lady pauses her words, as Eva went to grab her neck tightly. She was deeply provoked by the young lady's mischievous attitude. She knows about her daughter.

"H-How...I...miss this killing intent...brings back memories, no? Hehehe."

"Again, where is my child, you witch?"

A simple question yet filled with killing aura, she tightened her grip for every second that pass.

"Maternal...instinct...is a very...powerful force...don't you think, Eva? You can become anything...you never knew...you're...capable of just...to...protect an offspring. I'm...dis-disappointed...that you...became like this..."

Understanding the meaning behind the words, this time she held her exploding anger. She let go of the woman's neck, freeing her from her powerful grip. If she continues to grapple her, Eva would never find answers.

"..."

The young woman was calm, and after that gripped she wasn't even affected, she should be coughing right now and gasping for air, and yet she only looks at Eva with a smile, as if nothing had happened.

"You finally change after conceiving a child, from that wretched man! I miss your former self. Why change, my dear Eva?"

"I'm not your toy anymore, I now have my meaning. So spill it out now! Where is my daughter?!"

Eva said with a serious face, her white hair flutter from her strong voice. Her patience was at full throttle in order to keep her from killing the woman. That lady is her only chance of knowing everything. However, she despises her two face personality, ever since they met.

Sigh.

The lady sighed deeply. She then changes her mischievous yet playful attitude to a serious face. Her teases seem ineffective anymore against Eva.

"Look here and see for your self. You will be surprised by your current predicament."

"What do you intend to imply?"

The lady hummed before she spoke to Eva.

"Someone healed you Eva, and I feel that person is much worse than the church you once served. And as for your daughter, she still resides in your belly, however, she is in grave danger!"

Like a magician, a projected screen suddenly emerged from the young woman's hands. It was like a magic ball that projected a place shrouded with the moon's light. Inside the ball was a sandy beach filled with coconut trees and illuminated ocean.

Eva clenches her hands tightly to control her emotions. She saw her desperate kakuja form trying to avoid death. Her instincts were born out from her will to protect her child, ablaze within her.

"Let me take over. Yrsa."

"As you wish my dear."

Shem skydive from the dark sky, onto the agile kakuja. His knife was prepared along with his tactical whip, in order to shut down the kakuja.

[Placental encapsulation complete. Motor cortex override in progress, estimated time of completion 60 seconds.]

"Good."

His body gained momentum as gravity pulled him down. The air resistance punches his face while accelerating downwards. Shem's goal was too immobilized the kakuja as soon as possible! He desperately needs answers that his advanced intelligence gathering systems couldn't confer to him.

[Terminal velocity reaching 300 meters per second.]

"Faster!"

[Affirmative. Initiating anti-gravity thrusters.]

Only the madame called Eva knows further than Shem could get. She was the wife of a Ghoul Elder, a lord of a million ghouls! In common sense, she contains beneficial data for Shem's search of the golden truth.

"I will dig any data, no matter how difficult it would be, as long as it can help me achieved my goals."

Shem abruptly speeds up, instantly reaching the back of the running kakuja supreme hunter. In a 1 meter distance, Shem rolled in the air and directly connected his knife towards the lower limbs of the kakuja. Without any sounds of cut, Shem's knife lop-off the legs out from the body of the kakuja, then he whips his electrical whip to its head and pulled down the kakuja, rendering its frame to crash down to the ground. Sands and dirt covered the supreme hunter.

"Roar!"

"Finally, down you go!"

Shem landed on the ground two feet first and slide away from the kakuja, like an ice skater. His anti-gravity thrusters allowed him to hover above the ground.

"In all of the sins, that mankind has done, I hate people who lie."