Here's something that's been swimming in my brain for months. Whether it's good or an epic fail, here it is none-the-less.

She awoke to sterile lighting, and once her eyes adjusted she saw a ceiling and wall that matched it. She wasn’t quite sure how she got there or why, but she knew where she was, it was a room in the Borden Lab Station where she worked. They all looked the same. The beat of a monitor was what had roused her, someone’s heart was beating in the room. Giving herself a once over she discovered it wasn’t hers, and with a quick glance around she saw someone in white patient fatigues was lying on the bed on the other side of the room with their back to her. A few machines were next to the bed, some attached to the individual, some not.  With no covers on him she could tell her roommate was a male, it’s not hard to tell a woman’s shape from a man’s after all. When she got off her bed to approach him however, he shifted onto his back and the line was a little harder to draw.

What met her sight was an abdomen that was swollen enough to appear heavily pregnant, and it took her back for a moment before she shook such a silly notion out of her head and continued her advance. Next to the bed she stood as he slept, but she just couldn’t take her eyes of his belly as it rose and fell with his every breath. A midwife in her previous trade she forgot she was looking at a man and reached out the rest a hand on the swell. It was warm, firm. She moved the other to meet it and pressed down gently, and snapped away in absolute shock when something inside pushed back against her.

She stared at the man’s face as he shifted and wore a look of minor discomfort. This was impossible! Fixating back on his abdomen she reached out and slinked his loose shirt away to bare the skin- she hadn’t noticed her jaw was hanging down the entire time. Tiny movements peaked and rolled just under his skin and her heart started to beat faster and faster. She was shaking.

Taking a quick look at the device next to her revealed an ultrasound machine- it really was real! This man was with child, and judging from the size he wasn’t far off from giving birth. She had to see this on the inside. She grabbed the jar of jelly off of the machine and spread it on a bit of his skin. The chilly substance produced a tiny shudder, but didn’t wake him. She flipped the instrument on and rested the tool just below his navel. The sound of the heartbeat woke him and he gripped her wrist, she jumped.
“What are you doing?” he asked, staring at her.
“I-I-um,” she was at a complete loss for words. What do you tell a pregnant man? “I was just checking on the baby-“
“What?” He was blank
“Um… you’re pregnant.”
“Excuse me? You know I’m a man right.” He mumbled something about a dumb bitch and attempted to sit up, but was forced back down by his surprising girth. “What the fuck?”
“Look I know this is weird but you really are pregnant.”
“No. I’m not.” He shifted his weight to get out of the bed and sat on the edge away from her.
“Please lie down, let me examine you.”
He held his belly for a moment trying to wrap his head around what was going on, then shook it off and stood with great difficulty. “I don’t know what the hell is going on but I’m getting out of here!”
It was around this time that both of them noticed that the room had no apparent door.
“Please sir!”
 “I’m leaving!” He ambled over to a circular portion on the wall, good a door as any, and beat his fist against it, “Let me out!” She ran to him and put a hand on his shoulder, he brushed her off, “What have you done to me!?” Suddenly he felt it, something wriggled inside him. He stopped and stared down, with both hands on his belly. He felt it move again and staggered back into the wall, nearly falling if not for his companion. He looked at her again, his face in complete confusion, “WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE TO ME!?” His knees lost their strength and he sat on the floor.
“I’m not sure, I just woke up here myself. Please come back to the bed.”
Before he could reply his eyes widened in fright as the child inside him seemed to do a complete somersault.
“What? What’s the matter?”
“I-I don’t know- oh god! It’s moving!”
“Shh, it’s ok. That’s normal.”
“But-“
“I’m telling you it’s ok.” She kept a calm face, but her mind and heart were racing. She had no idea if the child was just being energetic or if he was going into labor. Could a man even go into labor? He was already doing one impossible thing, why not something else that was just as impossible? She had to get him back to the bed. With a hefty lift she had him on his feet, but he hung off of her neck in great discomfort, shuddering with every movement he felt inside. She helped him back to the bed and laid him down. He writhed on the mattress and moaned, holding his stomach and shutting his eyes tight.
“Shh. Please it’s all right. I need you to relax, just breathe.” He complied, but was still shaking like a leaf. “Now I don’t know what’s going on here but I’m going to help you alright?” He nodded. There wasn’t a question in her mind as to the state of the pregnancy now, he was giving birth and she had no idea how to assist. She pulled the shirt back off of his belly and it undulated before her eyes before calming down again. That was not normal, not even for a woman. With a quivering hand she placed the ultrasound tool on his skin and fixed her eyes to the monitor. This was no unborn baby, it was something else.

“What is it!?” He screamed, trying to see the monitor. She switched it off, not even knowing what she herself saw. “What did you see!?” She gave no immediate answer, and went next to his head, putting a comforting hand on him. “I… don’t know.” She wavered, “All I know is that it’ll be over soon.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think you’re in labor, and have been for a few hours already.” He started breathing in a panic, “No, no! Stay calm. We’re going to get through this together, I just need you to keep breathing and listen to me. Alright?”
He nodded with whimper. She stroked his hair soothingly and went to the foot of his bed, without really thinking she moved to slide off his pants in the misguided hope of finding some sort of way to birth the ‘child’. Before she could though, he began heaving. “What? What’s wrong!?”  He gave no reply, he could only grunt. “Grip the bedrail!” He did so but his body was rocking and his legs kicked about, “Please calm down!” She watched his stomach squirm and shake, he started to scream. She straddled his legs in an effort to pin them down, and was knocked against the undulating swell. She could swear she heard a tear and a pop inside as the creature within him pressed furiously against his skin. He arched his back almost to breaking, blood burst from his mouth as he kicked her into the wall. Then all was still as his life ended, and his stomach ripped open in a profusion of crimson.

His companion stared in horror as the nightmare he’d given birth to emerged from his ‘womb’ and shrieked a wail that raked across her ears. A black and bloody, tentacled monster with only some hint of a human form. It lashed out with a tendril and gripped her neck, raising her up against the wall. It approached her terrified form and studied her, running a horrid hand down her body from her face to just against where her uterus was. It seemed to grin. The woman’s eyes widened as she watched an appendage emerge from below the creature, too much like a phallus to even fail to guess at what would happen next. With the fate of the man still fresh in her memory she screamed and fought with all her might as the appendage thrust upward and disappeared inside her.

Queenmaker project, Subject A, B, C and D: closing comments.

                As expected subject B gave birth to subject A (hereafter known as ‘Queenmaker’) at 5:30 am. Choice of subject C from staff was a superlative move by the command staff and ensured that subject B brought no harm to himself or the Queenmaker. We find it fascinating that Queenmaker was able to change its own DNA makeup first by using the male hormones from subject B, and now the female hormones from subject C. After copulating with subject C, Queenmaker resigned itself to death but it is the hypothesis of this committee that the impending birth of subject D (The true queen) will bring this step of the project to an exemplary close.