The Winged Heart

[Mar's POV - 1 year after Aurora's disappearance]

"Why won't you hatch?" I mumble as I stare at the sunlight that illuminates a tiny mass inside the egg, like a shadow puppet the size of an avocado.

It has been a year.

If I follow human standards, the child should either already have been born, or should have died already. But instead, the child inside the egg has only grown about 4 months of a human pregnancy.

So I am inclined to believe that, the egg neither has died yet, nor that it is ready to hatch.

I am doing something wrong… but what?!

I have tried everything.

From wrapping the egg in warm blankets (like the way I had found it), to keeping it warm with my own body heat, to giving it to a chicken, to warm it au-bain-marie (no warmer than 37 degrees Celsius, of course. Don't want to boil this precious egg.)

Nothing worked.

And yet, I must be doing something right too, because it has grown four months worth in size. But what?

What did I do right, and what did I do wrong?! I'm starting to regret not measuring the size of the child inside during my several experiments.

…

I'll have to do that from now on.

I'm cursing the fact that I never talked about raising a child with my wife. The information would be invaluable now.

But honestly, I didn't even think we COULD have children together! We're different races. Both humanoid, that much is true. But two very different beings.

I won't go into too much detail about how we had sex, except for the fact that it was amazing and that I could never get enough of it, but it is nothing like what I've seen humans do together.

"I miss you, Aurora," I mumble as I softly lay my hand on top of the fragile egg, and for the first time in twenty minutes, I look away from the shrimp like shadow inside the egg and close my eyes.

There it is. The reason that I have never given up; a slow and weak, but steady pulsing can be felt when I touch the egg.

If I would visualise the rhythmic pulsing into a graph, it would look like a weak little heartbeat.

I sigh and put a second hand on the egg.

What will you be like? How will you look? How will you act? Will you like the things that I like? Will we get along? Will I be able to raise you right?

I've never had any siblings. I don't have any experience raising children. It used to be just me and my father. And I don't want to see that man ever again. It's why I ran away, and kept running so he wouldn't be able to find me. I hope he never finds this little one either.

…

I'll have to remember to read some books on child upbringing. Even if the information is useless, it will be better than no information at all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It has been two weeks since I started measuring the child's growth during my attempts to hatch Aurora's egg. (Let's not call them experiments.)

Keeping the egg warm in blankets; 0,01mm per day.

Keeping the egg close to my body; 1,18mm per day.

Giving it to a chicken; 0,06mm per day.

Warming it au-bain-marie, but no warmer than 37 degrees Celsius; 0,15mm per day.

Laying it out in the full sun: 2,12mm per day

I look at my writing as the egg lays on an illumination light, used to check eggs for fertilization.

This is making no sense… No sense at all! The chicken barely makes it grow, but it does grow when it is close to me? Is the body temperature of the chicken too high per chance? No… that can't be, because then the results in the au-bain-marie should yield the highest result. But instead, the attempt in the sunlight I tried today, yielded the highest results yet. It must have been a lot warmer in the sun than the controlled environment of the au-bain-marie. A full 2,12mm.

I look at the ultra precise measuring equipment I have placed next to the egg. That's strange… it seems to be off. I never work unprecise. The "rapid growth" must have really thrown me off… right? I adjust the measuring equipment to a full 2,13mm.

Wait… It couldn't be! Is it still growing?!

I decide to leave the egg on the illumination light and go to the laboratory kitchen to go grab some fruit to eat. I'm done eating after 15 minutes and take my sweet time to walk back to my laboratory.

I check the measuring equipment and it seems off again. I quickly adjust it. It grew another 0,02mm in 15 minutes? That would be 1,92mm for a day. That's the second largest result I've yielded since trying to hatch the egg.

Wait a minute. This little lamp yields a result that is almost as high as the sun's?! But the sun is so much bigger and brighter?! How does that add up?!

I quickly finger the area where the light touches the egg. It doesn't seem particularly warm to me. Does that mean that it isn't warmth that makes the child grow, but light? But then how does keeping it close to my body yield a 1,18mm result? I'd strapped it around my chest with a swaddling blanket, it didn't come into contact with light enough to yield that kind of result.

I feel like I'm still missing something, but it's a path worth exploring. I look around my private laboratory. I suddenly feel like it is too dark in here.

"Sunshine, why do I always find you in a dark room?" Aurora's words come to mind.

Right? She would always turn on the light.

It's worth a try.

I quickly switch on the overhead light and reangle my dusty desk lamp to illuminate the egg's most shadowy parts.

Fingers crossed!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two weeks have passed. I managed to get the growth-rate up to a fabulous 2,24mm per day, but it won't go up no matter what I do.

Still this is a good growth-rate. I'm still unsure why keeping the egg close to me worked like it did, but at this rate, I can expect my child to hatch over 8 months!

I'm so excited that I can barely wait!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

8 months have passed. The child inside the egg has grown so much that I can't look inside the egg anymore with the illumination technique. It has grown to fill the egg to its maximum capacity. I am expecting the child to hatch from the egg any moment now.

"Come on Buddy," I mumble as I gently lay my hand on the egg and close my eyes. The pulsing that I can feel is no longer weak and slow. It's a regular and strong pulsing now. Much faster than my own heartbeat.

I tried measuring the egg for the same energy that my wife naturally radiated and as expected, the egg radiates it too. Not as much as my wife yet, but four times more than my own.

I don't think it will be wise the let this child around other humans once it hatches. I know that it doesn't affect me, but I know that Aurora used to keep her distance from normal humans too. I did once see her heal a sickly woman, simply by holding her hand.

I startle when I feel the egg shudder under my hand, quickly followed by a loud, terrifying crack-noise.

The egg cracked! IT IS HAPPENING PEOPLE! THE EGG IS HATCHING!!!!

What do I do? Do I help the child come out? Do I let it come out on its own? WHAT DO I DO?!

I jump up as if hit by lightning. Every nerve in my body is jumping. My hands are shaking so badly that I wouldn't even be able to hold my wife's hand if she were to go into labor, let alone help a child to come out of an egg.

I need to calm down first!

I close my eyes, breath in slowly, hold my breath for about five seconds and release my breath as slowly as I can. But when I open my eyes, the first thing I see is the crack in the egg and my nerves jump all over again.

I curse as I make a little nervous dance and then look at the crack again.

Wait, why hasn't it grown yet? Is something wrong?

I sit on the chair in front of my desk and gently trace the crack from top to bottom. It's a big crack, almost 3mm wide. I can see some sort of membrane inside.

"Hey Buddy, why did you stop?" I ask as I tap the egg lightly with my finger. Immediately, the crack grows. The crack itself is now half the length of the egg and a triangular piece is starting to come loose.

"Yes! That's it! You're doing great. Come on, a little more," I say as I fiddle at the loose piece. To my surprise, it actually comes lose on its own as a little fist pushes against the membrane. Now the egg actually wobbles and rolls to its side as the child inside seems to move. I saw the child move before, but it was never enough to make the egg wobble! I hover my hands around the egg to make sure that if it falls over, that it won't roll off my desk. Another tremor rocks the egg from within and a crack all around the top becomes visible. The little hand is still pushing against the membrane, when it suddenly rips. Some fluid comes gushing out as it rips, flooding my desk and all the papers on it.

I curse, but cleaning it up will have to wait, because I don't trust the egg not to fall off my desk now.

Another big tremor rocks the egg and this time it breaks the egg in four large pieces. The membrane ripped along with the four pieces, revealing a soft little pink chest going up and down rapidly.

I freeze for a second.

Am I allowed to clear the egg shells now? They are still covering the child's head and legs. The child doesn't seem to be struggling to break the egg anymore. It is only breathing very fast.

Before I can regain my senses, or can decide about what to do, the tiniest little cry sounds from underneath the shells. This kicks me back into gear.

I quickly remove the shells from the crying child and hold it. I don't take it into a loving embrace immediately, I first want to take a good look first. The child looks healthy. It is crying on its own, which is a good sign. And it's a boy!

That's when I remember that the child has an umbilical cord too. It is attached to the egg's membrane. (I had seen its shadow inside the egg.) I cut it the way I've seen midwives do and clean it up.

The little guy is still crying and suddenly, tears flood my eyes so badly that my whole vision turns blurry.

"A little boy has hatched from the egg alive and well," I mumble as I hold the child in a loving embrace. "Welcome home, my boy."