Mistro

 Astara awoke in the moonlight of the incubator grotto to an earthquake and flashes of thunder and lightning. 

She had come here to be close to her. She felt her memories slipping, and she didn't want to forget. Astara had noticed that the magical places she had created were slowly disappearing. Astara grasped at the memories with desperation. Vivid images of her forests, odd woodland creatures, and flourishing scenery filled her vision and disappeared. "No!" Astara would yell, reaching out with a hand as if she could grab hold of it. 

Marcus caught her mourning in this way several times. He's already forgotten, she'd come to understand. When she'd try to describe what was happening to her, he'd grow concerned and tell her she knows so many people and experienced many things.

"They must all be meddling together." he'd say with worry and concern in his eyes.

Astara was with child. Their second, a boy she had finally told him. Marcus worried that this stress might have an effect on the baby. 

When she began to forget, it frightened her. Was something wrong with her, or was this a part of it. Apart of what? She'd ask herself, and then fear would creep in... She started leaving herself notes in places only she would visit or see. They would always state her name and then some little factoid to help her remember. Finally, the name was forgotten, and the notes would simply say, "her" in the place where the name would be.  This hurt Astara deeply.  It felt like being touched by an Angel but not knowing it until the Angel had left the vicinity, and all that was left was the emptiness in the space it had occupied in your heart.

Astara cried occasionally, not knowing why she was so sad. Then she'd caught a glimpse or remember something, go check for evidence; Sometimes, evidence would be there, sometimes not.  

But the grottos were always there, reminding her of something wonderful that use to be a part of her life. Finally, they too began to disappear. One by one her places vanished from the ship. Curiously, the places she created for Astara and her family had not disappeared; not yet, anyway. Her forest home was still there, the beautiful meadowy plains where she and Syra and Marcus would play, that's still there. This incubator. She hadn't created it for Astara exactly. But, Astara did request it. 

As she looked around, marveling at the craftsmanship, she began to feel pain in her abdomen and grow faint. The great stand where her new egg was to grow and then hack loomed ominously in the setting sun. Another pain is sharper now. Her belly felt rock hard. She cries out as another interval of squeezing pain grips her and drives her to her knees. She sees flashes of Mohinder slicing her in half. "Oh God,". she says, screaming. "Why, why..." She passes out. 

"Rest child. Not to worry. Won't be long now." came the voices of her ancestors.

So here she found herself, lying on the ground in the incubator grotto next to the great stand created for her son. She pushes off the ground to stand, and her hand lands on something sticky. It was blood. "What the hell..." She's sitting up straight. She immediately checks her waist. No signs of the cuts, not rivets. She is whole. Her mind wanders back to that day, and she shivers. "He killed Emma that day; he cannot kill you, Astara." Then she notices that the pain has stopped, but the ground around her is covered in blood. Now, she sees it, a trail of blood first crawling away from her and then walking. 

"What the actual fuck!" she says to herself.