The History of the Phantom

A Birth and A Death

9 months later

It was the day when the daughter of my best friend, the love of my life, was born. I was visiting Mary and Gustave one evening at their house. Mary was dusting the walls and singing melodies to herself as Gustave was playing me a song on his violin. At this moment, I wondered what passions the child was going to have when she was older. With both such musically talented parents, I expected the baby to play an instrument of some sort just like them. Yet again, that doesn't always happen. It didn't happen for me.

I have never met my father yet, but he was pretty well known around the city so I knew who he was. From what I heard, he was one of the best doctors around. People constantly said how he was an incredible genius with medicine and science. I am kind of the opposite. Instead of an interest with mathematics and factual evidence, I am more of a fan of art. As you guys already know, my passion was writing music. So therefore, children develop their own specialties on their own sometimes.

How do I know he is my real dad? Well the only person who has never spoken kind words about him was my mother. She claimed he betrayed people and he only cares about himself. Also, his father has a disfigured face just like me. Since my mother was such a bitch, she was clearly after my dad's money when the two of them were dating. It's pretty obvious considering she struggled to make money by herself while he was a very successful doctor.

"Oh god," Mary muttered under her breath in pain. She immediately stopped singing and rushed over to the two of us. Even after just a couple seconds of running, she was already gasping for air. She clenched her large stomach with her hand as she tried to keep herself from collapsing onto the floor. Her inner thighs were soaked in some sort of liquid.

"We need to go to the hospital now. I think it's time," She snapped. Her left eye was twitching in agony. We all sprinted out of the house and stormed into the hospital around the block. When we entered the front door, Mary grabbed the woman at the front desk by the arm so abruptly. The lady was startled by Mary's aggressiveness.

"Madame, let me go!" The woman shouted. She looked at her in disbelief. She was probably thinking is this woman mad?

"I'm having a baby and it's coming," Mary said without letting go of her arm. Then the woman realized why we were in a rush to be here.

"Oh I see. I'll get you the doctor," She told Mary. A nurse walking down the hallway saw what was happening and lead us to a nearby room. It wasn't until three minutes later when the doctor finally came in.

"Ok, time to get this started," the doctor said.

"Hurry up!" Mary was clearly not having it and wanted the baby out of her as soon as possible.

"Yes, sorry madame. Spread your legs for me." She opened her thighs until there was enough space for you to see what was in between. I peeked in there, curious to see what the doctor wanted to look at. I was too young and naive to know about lady parts. I was raised by an abusive mother, and I was trapped in an environment where multiple people wanted to attack me. I never got the chance in my life to learn about the birds and the bees until now.

When I looked at the hole between her thighs, I almost wanted to vomit. I don't want to go into too much detail, but there was blood squirting out of it every time she made a huge push. My head was spinning in circles and my legs were like jellyfish. They struggled to hold the rest of my body up, and I felt like I was going to collapse immediately onto the floor. The sight was so sickening, I was on the edge of passing out.

"Come on honey you can do it! Come on! You can do it!" Gustave chanted beside her. He was holding her hand to give her support.

"AHHHH IT HURTS TOO MUCH," Mary screamed on the top of her vocal chords. Her grip on his hand was so tight, you could see his hand was turning red.

"Just push! Push!" He yelled as he clenched his teeth. You could tell he was trying hard to hold back the pain she was giving him.

"WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I'M DOING?!" She let out a strangled cry that was more horrifying than you could imagine.

"Is she going to be okay?" I asked.

"Yeah she will be," Gustave said but he didn't seem certain.

The next several hours was of her panting and screaming like an animal. Eventually, Gustave let go of her hand since his was hurting too much. I walked over to Mary's other side and pet her arm to ease her. Hey! Don't judge me, I was only ten years old at the time.

"I see its head! You are almost there!" The doctor announced joyfully after what seemed like forever.

"Please no. I don't want to," Mary sobbed.

"Sweetie, when you are done with this we can head home. We will start this new chapter of our lives. We will be parents together," Gustave tried to reassure her.

"I don't think we will." She shouted more as she pushed the baby out of her.

"I love you. Both of you," Mary whispered to Gustave and me when the doctor cradled the child in his arms. Then she closed her eyes as she let out her final breath. Her skin gradually dropped a few temperatures and started turning a sheet of white. Gustave was in disbelief about what had just happened right before us. When you looked into his eyes you could see so much heart break and suffering. As tears were running down his cheeks, he quickly ran out of the room with his hand covering his mouth.

"Is she... Dead?" I asked the doctor sadly.

"My boy, life is difficult. It throws terrible things at us which we can't handle sometimes," He whispered quietly and sympathetically.

"She can't be dead. That's not fair." I wasn't upset, I was furious. I felt betrayed and hurt. Every piece of my heart felt like it was torn apart. I felt so homicidal, I could kill a little innocent puppy. How could a loving lady like Mary die like this? My mother was still alive, the tall man was. Both of them deserved death more than anything. Unfortunately, Mary was the one to pass away right before my eyes. I wanted to break something with my own bare hands.

"I'm so sorry."

I turned to look at the doctor and that was when he really got a good sight of me. His mouth dropped like a thousand bricks. His breathing became a faster pace than before.

"Why do you wear that mask?" He asked so abruptly.

"Um... I... I... Like it," I said. He could see straight through my lies.

"Your face. It's like my father's."

Then my mouth dropped.

"Dad?"

He didn't respond. He stood there silent for a few minutes.

"Um... Would you like to hold the girl?" He finally said.

"It's a girl?"

"Yeah."

"Sure."

Then he gave me the baby, and I held her close to my chest. Before, she was crying like crazy. Once she was finally placed in my arms, she was quiet and seemed content.