I Don't Want This

Lois hesitated. Her hand wavered on the slider. There was a cold feeling in her belly, and a sense of lightheadedness.

"Why am I reacting like this?" she whispered to herself. "It's just...it's just a game. It's not real."

Hand shaking a little, Lois click back. Reducing the "size" of the pregnancy—the number of babies—back to one. She stared at the image of herself on screen. It didn't look any different than when she had seen herself in the mirror this morning. Except that Lois on the computer screen was pregnant. The Lois sitting here, staring at her, was not.

Slowly, almost as if guided by something else, the cursor drifted over to the "weeks" slider.

Perspiration beaded Lois' upper lip. She could feel the clammy drip under her arms, down her ribs. The hand that held the mouse shook, and she swore, she really swore, that it wasn't her moving it at all.

"This isn't me." The reporter's voice quavered. "I don't want this. I don't want to be pregnant. Not like...not like this..."

Click. Click. Click.

Lois swore she didn't move her finger. But the image in front of her advanced. Week by week, her belly swelled. At twenty weeks, the dark line began to appear, stretching up to her belly button. At thirty weeks, the navel popped. The breasts were larger, the nipples darker, resting on her rounded stomach.

Click. Click. Click.

The thirty-ninth week. The doppelganger's distended abdomen had dropped, low enough to hide her pubis. Still just the single baby, and Lois was less taken with the physical changes than the eyes...the expression on the face. Like a woman with a secret, smiling back out at her. Her own face, as she could be.

Lois Lane, this is what you would look like knocked up. She heard her own voice in her head.

On screen, a new button appeared.

ACCEPT.

Her whole body was shaking now, a shiver running up her spine, nipples hard, hair standing up. Every part of her was screaming danger, but the reporter couldn't move. Only watch, as the arrow slowly traveled across the screen....to hover over the "accept" button. Her hand was a rigid claw on the mouse, index finger poised on the button.

"No." she whispered. "No no no no no..."

But she felt her finger click the mouse.

The world went red.