Chapter Text
The alarms were loud as they blared through the metal hallways and corridors. But even they couldn’t drown out her screams as she pushed with all her might.
The room shook violently, monitors flickering and control panels exploding into sparks around them while the medical team huddled around her. “You’re almost there honey” the Doctor told her, monitoring the dilations of her uterus. She lifted her head and fixed the exhausted woman with a firm glare. “One more push” she told her.
“I can’t” she panted. She was tired. Labour had taken so long she was weak. And the fact the station was in a crisis and needed her did not help her stress levels.
Her partner gripped her hand tightly. He hovered beside her while keeping an eye on the door. “You can do this” he whispered encouragingly. “Come. You can’t stop now.”
“He’s right” the Doctor told her. She held her steady while the room rocked again. She swore under her breath before barking one more time. “PUSH!”
The pregnant woman did as she was ordered. She was never one to back down from adversity. She was going to have this baby and she was not going to let a solar storm or fatigue stop her. She clutched her partners hand and screamed, her voice rattling the medical ward while the space station rattled from the solar winds outside.
Ten minutes later her screams were replaced by that of a baby’s. A beautiful baby boy. He looked so small and delicate. Which made the rattling space station the last place to keep him safe.
His mother allowed herself five minutes to rest before carrying her child in the soft grey blanket monogrammed with the company logo in her arms through the corridors. She had her partner and her doctor beside her while more of the crew sprinted about in a panic. The captain could be heard over the sirens barking orders. They ran into a room where their most valuable piece of equipment lay.
“I don’t like this” the Captain said, turning to his security officer. “The plan was to send you back through the window.”
“This little guy changed the plan” she said firmly. She looked down at the baby, who snuggled against her sweaty body for warmth. The roof shook and the room titled as the artificial gravity was tested. When the room settled she turned back to her captain. “I won’t leave him here.”
“There’s still a chance the station will hold” one of their engineers said. “The shielding could kick back in any minute.”
“The shield is gone” the chief engineer shouted. “One more solar wave like before and this whole place will be ripped apart. We can’t save the station.”
“But we can save my child” the new mother stated.
The captain shook his head. He looked down at the newborn. “We’ve only just started testing biological matter” he warned. “Sending mice through the transmitter window is one thing. A human being…”
“Theoretically, sending a baby would be easier than sending an adult” their lead scientist stated. They all looked at him. “It’s a question of mass.”
“If the facility is going to go down, wouldn’t it be better to send our data rather than a…” another technician said. But the chief of security’s glare silenced him.
They didn’t have the time to debate this. A decision had to be made. The woman looked to her captain pleadingly. He looked down at the child and then listened to the strain the hull was under. He closed his eyes. “Run your calculations and prep the transporter” he ordered. He turned to his technicians, and the scientists. If you want to burn as much data onto a single data drive, fine. Somebody at the other end will know what to do with it.” He stepped up to the woman, looking into her eyes. “This could very well be goodbye” he whispered.
She nodded. “But if we somehow make it out, I’ll find him again” she said. “If not…then I have a plan.”
They rushed to get the machine ready. The scientists took their measurements and their medical computer supplied all the data they needed. Part of the protocol for crew access meant registering the child via the terminal. They needed to give him a name, so she and her partner settled on one they had been debating. He had been hoping for a girl, but she knew he would be a boy. And she knew what to call him. So when all the preparations were made, she carried him onto the platform where they tucked a small data drive containing all the research into the project they had been working on into the blanket, along with a note for the company on the other side. And as a final measure she slipped a hand written letter into the blanket before taking the tiny hand of the delicate little boy.
“Whatever happens, know that mommy loves you very much” she told him, gently kissing his tiny head. She had tears falling from her face and she forced herself to step away. “We will see each other again” she promised, on the verge of sobbing as the crew pulled what power they had left available to them to activate the machine.
The room hummed as lights surrounded the tiny baby, who opened his eyes and cried out for his parents before they vanished into the light.
*
The groundskeeper walked through the cemetery feeling a chill down his spine. The fog had come out of nowhere and blanketed the small town in a milky haze. He looked up the hillside to the ruins of the manor house, recalling the stories his grandfather once told him about the monster that lurked in that house. He didn’t believe the stories, but they still made him anxious. And this small village was rife with ghosts.
But it wasn’t ghosts that he heard coming from the fog that evenings. As he stepped around a tombstone, he heard a baby crying. The sound stopped him in his tracks and he turned his head, trying to determine if he was imagining it. No, it was real. It was coming from the fog.
He followed the sound and approached one of the oldest gravestones in the village. The writing was faded and it was covered in moss. The stone was eroded causing it to slant at an angle. Nobody visited this part of the graveyard anymore. Too far from the church and the main road. The old man walked across the uneven ground until he reached it. Then he peered into the milky fog settling around the graves and saw the shape huddled by the gravestone.
The sound of crying was coming from it and he felt his chest tighten. “Dear lord” he whispered, removing his hat and dropping his watering can. He approached slowly, kneeling down to get a closer look. Sure enough, there was a baby lying on top of the grave wrapped in a blanket. It flailed it's tiny arms and wailed louder. It was so small it could only be a newborn. He reached down and gently scooped it up in his arms, staring at it in disbelief. “Now where did you come from little one?”
When he picked up the child, several objects tumbled from the blanket. He saw them and hurried to scoop them up too. One was something metallic, which looked broken and charred. Next was a piece of paper which had writing scrawled upon it. But not in any language he recognized. But then there was the envelope with a word scrawled upon it. It had singed corners but was as intact as the note. And it was the only word he could decipher.
A letter, it seemed, for someone called Vanya. But he had lived long enough in this village to know nobody with that name.
The groundskeeper looked down at the baby in his arms. “Hello my boy. You must be Vanya” he guessed.
And that is how, on all Hallows Eve, a child called Vanya came to be found in 2007.