Mandatory Motherhood: Short Stories

Pranksters

Colgate slowly made her way through the deserted halls. She didn’t expect to get locked in this underground area. Mia had asked her to retrieve something from a room in the subterranean area assuring her it was safe but after retrieving the wrapped box and returning to the entrance she entered through, she discovered that the doors had been locked.

She had been searching for an exit for hours with no success. To make matters worse she could hear weird sounds all around her, coming from the air vents, from around corners of the halls behind and in front of her, and sometimes coming from behind doors she passed by.

Every so often Colgate would feel like something was touching her back or her legs causing her to freak out and scream while looking all around her. Each time she would find nothing and she began to wonder if the sensations were just her mind playing tricks on her.

Sometimes she would find doors to some rooms left open and upon looking inside she would catch sight of something moving sometimes between and behind objects or quickly darting into a ceiling vent. Each time she would take off running while screaming in a panic. “It isn’t real! It isn’t real! There is no possible way there is anything down here but me!”

Colgate felt like she had been running and searching for an exit to the subterranean tunnels for hours when she and stumbled across some MREs and bottles of water in an office. She was frightened but her stomach growled at the sight she realized that she was hungry. She was happy to find some food until she found the first one was a chicken dish, but she thought her heart was going to explode when one of the MREs appeared to have slime dripping from it along with a giant bite taken out of it right through the packaging.

It was as if on queue the lights in the tunnels went out and after a minute or so the red flashing emergency lighting turned on. Colgate bolted out of the office and down the corridors randomly. She wanted to do nothing more than find an exit now. She screamed nonstop and she could swear she could hear loud bangs following behind her from inside the ventilation shafts.

After a while the pounding sounds stopped shortly before she came to a hallway with active glow sticks lying all over the floor. She tentatively proceeded down the hall to a giant open door with a logo on each side that Chris had told her was a warning for radiation and radioactive materials.

She peaked inside and found the interior to be a long and wide cylinder going towards the surface with a long tube-like structure in the center. With the emergency lights going she could make out ladders and walkways along the walls going up and she figured she might be able to get out through here however after taking a few steps inside she found she stepped on something goopy.

Looking down Colgate found she had stepped on something that resembled an egg, and around the room were several others, some almost reaching her shoulder in height. Suddenly there was the sound of something landing on the floor of the chamber with a loud thud and Colgate slowly looked around the room in fear. Under the tube in the center of the room stood a figure standing on all fours that appeared to be looking right at her.

It began to move toward her and she could just barely make out its figure in the emergency lighting. At first, she thought she had stumbled into a changeling nest from its body shape, but as it drew nearer she could tell its body wasn’t full of holes and was almost like a skeleton with a long curved hack-domed head. Then as it drew near she could make out what appeared to be a skull inside the domed head she felt like she was going to faint until it opened its mouth and another mouth inside it slowly extended out.

Screamed at the top of her lungs and fell on her rump, slowly pushing herself away. She found herself up against a wall as the creature got close enough to touch its face the emergency lights went out. Colgate stopped screaming ready to accept her fate.

Suddenly she heard someone say “BOO” and the main lights came back on. She found Mia in some sort of horror costume laughing in front of her. Looking around the room she discovered the egg-looking objects were paper mache while some boxes of gelatin mix half hidden behind a cart in the chamber.

Mia wiped her tears of laughter away and offered Coglate hoof back up. She hadn’t expected Colgate to slap her. She apologized nonstop the rest of the day only stopping when her boyfriend chewed her out for messing the base systems as a prank.