Jump: The Fallen: Testament 1 by Steve Windsor

first house and I know where I’m going from here. Shortly after that, things fell apart. Almost as fast as this fall.
    Then I jolt to a stop. More like a slam, really. And it’s raining outside and I immediately recognize where I am. Doesn’t take much. Contempt-filled doctors, overworked, sunk-in-eyed nurses, and a huge angry orderly standing in the corner. I’m in a State Med-mart birthing room.
    That’s what the hospitals turned into—assembly line chop-scrapers where they take citizens apart and put them back together, like mechanics wrenching on old, rusted guzzlers that nobody wants or needs anymore.
    I look at the doctor—disgust and contempt written all over his face—and he forces a downturned smile at me. It’s easy to look at a citizen that way—you got too much of something, what’s the use in having one more?
    I jerk my head toward the window when a huge bolt of lightning flashes, but it’s hard to hear the thunder over Kelly’s screaming, and then there she is.
    Amy . Bright, beautiful Amy, stretching her way out of Kelly’s vagina. I can’t watch it again.
    I turn my head, but it doesn’t matter. The image was seared into my mind long ago. Kelly rips, she screams, and then there’s all the blood and then—who decided that childbirth had to be so brutal? I’m just glad as shit I never had to do it. I mean, it looks painful. And bloody? I’ve seen less guts when I field dressed deer.  
    Then the blood and shit comes and a nurse scoops all of it off the table, dumps it, and then asks me if I want to cut the umbilical. What? Like after all that deliciousness, I probably want some dessert.
    “Hell no,” is all I can remember saying over Kelly’s whimpering. And then I’m queasy and the room spins. Or spun or something, but I feel the same sensation now. As real as it was when it was real. Then things go black.

— XV —

    DAL WAS WILD now, and he shot fire from his wings. He longed for the warmth of the past. And the shimmer of the great hall could not quell his rage and regret. A lament for all time of a love cast overboard and drowned beneath the seas of blood he had spilled.
    “Indeed,” he said to all in attendance. Soon they would all choose again. “Who did decide that bringing forth life should be so barbaric? Birth and death mimic each other. And to the woman you said, ‘I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children.’ ”
    Life answered on impulse, “This was my judgment.”
    “For the crime of tasting sweet fruit? You are right.”
    Life stared into all of their pasts. How could her children have. . .? “I gave them the garden with very simple instructions. They succumbed to your temptation and—”
    “I should come back and work for you,” said Dal. “I could never conceive of such unholy punishments. Your indifference to suffering is—”
    “I could only ever show them the path,” Life said. “They must choose to follow it or—”
    “Suffer the consequences,” said Dal. “My contempt for your children can only be matched by your own.”
    “They will have suffering in this world,” Life said. “That is my Word.”
    But Dal was too drunk on the fall. “Yes, yes, but why ? Why must we all . . .?”
    She spoke of her own law as simple fact, shooting it at him like arrows of guilt, “There comes a day . . . when all will be judged.”
    Dal paused for a second and then shot some of her own words back, “And you shall wipe away all their tears and there shall be no more death, or sorrow, or crying, neither shall there be any more pain. . . . And yet I do not fear for myself and my position in this.”
    “You should fear your deeds,” Life said to him. “For they shall be your judgment.”
    Dal cawed a small laugh. “You are slow in keeping promises, as they understand slowness,” he said. “Your patience while they perish is cruel. Many will never come to repentance and redemption, certainly not this