Termination (Edited!)

Forgive me for this, it's my first rough draft. I expect to rewrite it 2 or 3 more times before it's final, but was hoping to get some initial reactions to work out where to focus my attention, or if i need to start from scratch. This'll be my first ever writing competition entry, and first attempt at a short story in over a year, so i'm expecting it to not go brilliantly.  :? 

Random Theme:

She wasn't supposed to be here. This wasn't supposed to be happening. It was too early... wasn't it? She counted back. 5 months? Maybe 6? After 3 hours of it, the pain in her thighs was crippling, but she forced them to hold her weight. Abby looked into the mirror, gazing at her alien body and wondered: 'how has this happened?'

Of course, she knew the science of it. Her mother had made sure that, when her daughter was still too short to look her father in the eye, she would understand what would be expected of her- her body was not her own. A seed would be planted. It would grow. For nine months and, 'if she was lucky' an eternity afterwards, it would devour her soul, her essence. This fact came as no surprise to her. She'd always suspected, somewhere in her 7 year old brain, that the body was something... separate. Distinct from whatever it was that made her her. But to hear it from her Mother's mouth... to hear the details... that she would be nothing more than a host... it was jarring.

She pushed her mind to travel further backwards. 7... 6... 5... She was lying in her best friend's paddling pool, legs akimbo, Toffee the bear stuffed up her vest.Their parents were indoors, babbling adult-talk over hot cups of paint stripper, that they insisted on calling espresso.

"Well! Missy! How on EARTH has that gotten in there?" Ellie sounded like her mother. Abby shook her head. "We will HAVE to get it out" She declared, rolling up her sleeves, sitting down, and-

She had decided to be a dentist. Her mother had told her that, before she was born, she'd had a dream that her first daughter would be a great healer. Abby thought this was a ridiculous notion. She wanted to be a teacher. Or an artist. Or an explorer. Or... anything that wasn't a 'healer'. It even sounded ridiculous. Her mother was ridiculous. Abby wanted to grow into her own person; Independent of her mother's expectations, her father's ignorance. Unfortunately, as is usually the way with these things, she felt pressured into a compromise. A dentist it was, then. Maybe not as 'great' as her mother had foreseen... but she was helping people. She had no interest in it. But she wasn't expected to inspect people's... well... More private issues. So it was good enough.

   

Then she found out. The blue line looked so small on the end of it's tacky white plastic stick... Unimportant, dismissable, a child's toy. But to Abby, it was a death sentence. Literally. She'd been raised a catholic, and classed herself as such. In retrospect, it would have been more accurate to call her a catholic atheist with a severe fear of reality. She clung to the doctrine of double effect to justify her reasoning- yes, she was ending a half-life... but it was the lesser of two evils. She was just struggling to name the other evil, without it sounding so self absorbed. And then, horror of horrors, the clinic lift had broken. With her in it.

"Oh fuck it all..." 

She'd thought it had been going too well. She'd called in sick to work, left home early that morning and driven through the unusually quiet roads to the abortion clinic, sailing through green lights. The lady at the desk had been  brisk, efficient, but not impolite. The waiting room was empty. A few tests and an ultrasound (She closed her eyes, so she wouldn't have to look at it), to ensure the bugger hadn't rooted itself too deeply into her bladder, later they told her the room number, gave her a plasticy blue apron to change into when she got there, smiled and sent her on her way. The lift had mirrors on each side, reflecting infinite jittery Abbys, layered one atop another. The one at the front, the almost-real one, leaned in and wiped an eyeliner smudge that had wandered down it's canvas. Her breathing was even, her heartbeat regular. Everything was going pretty well.

The lights cut out. It was sudden. The lift's whirring mechanisms whined to a stand-still, safety catches clunking into place. She was alone. It was dark. All she could do was think. She remembered. She remembered her mind, silenced in it's attempt to disengage, dissociate from the body. Not her body. She remembered his imposing force on top of her. She remembered the futility of her prayer to the god that she couldn't really believe in. Not anymore. Sometimes faith is lost slowly, starved out like a sickly child. Other times, it is forced out by the simple realisation that our world is a monstrous, decayed place. Her dying innocence called out to Yahweh, but he, in his benevolence, stayed silent.

And then the pains started. 

The creature examines me, it's mouth open, quivering. Oh, God... it's crying. I can see it... but not hear it. Maybe... Maybe I should do something... Something to help it... It isn't mine... But i ... I must have some obligation towards it... I should-

The lift shuddered into life, lurching downward, jolting her unbalanced mind back into order.

'Ground floor'  he announced. She looked up into his robotic eye, begging forgiveness.

She turned and stepped through the lift's iron doors, leaving the beast behind her, wailing.