Leave While She Can

Still on her hands and knees, Lois scrambled for the curtain, thrusting it aside and tumbling out into the hallway beyond.

The shifting mass inside of her added urgency to her mad dash to escape. It was one thing for something to be stuck inside—thousands of people went to emergency rooms every year with strange objects stuck up their various orifices—but now she could feel the weight of the hard mass pressing uncomfortably against her cervix, and genuine fear shook the reporter for the first time that night.

A wise general knows when to retreat, Lois told herself. And even the Daily Planet's best reporter knows that there are times to call for help.

Half-rising, Lois loped for the ladder, hands grasping the ancient rungs as though they were a lifeline, and began climbing.

I'll call Zatanna...or John Constantine...or Dr. Fate. Definitely some magic/demonic stuff going on down here.

Lois felt her forearms burn as she ascended—but most of her attention was focused on what was happening between her legs. The uncomfortable pressure on her uterus was increasing, like the worst moment of a gynecologist's exam drawn out into a single moment, but increasing second by second. In her mind, she imagined her cervix being **** apart, a millimeter at a time, as the thing pressed into her deeper and deeper. Impossible? Sure. But Lois had seen the impossible too many times to rule anything out.

And once it is inside...what then? Lois worried, sweat beginning to pour from forehead and armpits. Will it stop? Will it break something in me? I mean, I wasn't planning on having kids any time soon, but I'd like to have them someday. If this thing hurts my womb, I could be looking at permanent infertility... A new, insistent thought pushed its way into Lois' brain. Unless the whole point of this is to get me pregnant with...something.

Gritting her teeth, Lois felt the heavy mass pressing upwards inside of her, trying to climb into her womb. Not going to happen. The reporter promised herself.

It was only then, as she neared the top of the ladder, that she realized the hole above was closing. The reporter redoubled her efforts, climbing with wild abandon. The statue was closing back over the tunnel. If there wasn't some mechanism to open it from this side...then the only way out was back down. Lois felt a little edge of despair as she felt herself racing against two clocks, the one above and the one within...