This is my 31 sentence story for this week (round 18). Please note I am excluding myself from any prizes - this is just for fun.

To find out more (and to see the picture prompt) please check out Hive account@tristancarax's post:
@tristancarax/the-31-sentence-contest-round-18

The story needs to be written with the correct number of words in each sentence. This week's sequence is:
8, 22, 6, 12, 19, 26, 4, 7, 13, 31, 29, 1, 27, 18, 10, 5, 11, 30, 23, 25, 20, 21, 15, 28, 16, 3, 9, 24, 14, 17, 2

(so the first sentence must contain precisely 8 words, the second 22 words, the third six, etc, etc)

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The Lockdown Ceremony was particularly special this year. Proud to be selected by the village Elders, Mabel stood beside the gated entrance, watching the sun climb slowly above the mountains.

She would miss the morning sunrise!

Gabriel waved from the path and her vision blurred as tears formed. Her husband smiled, waved once more before turning to shuffle his way back along the path to the village. Gabriel was older than Mabel - she was his third wife - and as one of the survivors of the original outbreak his genes were of great value.

Mabel took a breath. She rubbed the swell of her belly. Turning her back on the morning light she walked into the Lockdown Facility. The gate swung shut behind her, and there was a light breeze as the thick metal sliding doors swooshed closed leaving Mabel alone in the artificially lit corridor of the Facility.

“Welcome home, Mabel,” the bot said, its suckered arms open, as it glided over towards her, almost silently, on a pad of air beneath its triangular shiny metallic body.

“Hello.”

Despite weeks of preparation from the Elders, Mabel felt awkward talking to the strange robot that seemed so far removed from her experience of simple village life.

“If you would do me the honour of following, I will show you your quarters,” the bot said.

Mabel followed the swiftly moving bot along the bright corridor.

“Am I moving too fast?”

The bot paused to allow Mabel to catch up with it. She followed the bot into a room that had one wall lined with books, another filled with a large black rectangle she identified - from her preparation lessons - as a television. As she approached the television flickered into life and - despite her preparation - Mabel gasped as she saw her husband walk into the village. It looked so lifelike, so real, and Mabel felt another pang of regret at leaving her life behind but the Pest was on its way.

Mabel and her unborn baby would have a better chance of survival in the Lockdown Facility than in the village. Mabel hoped that Gabriel, and her friends and family, would still be alive when the doors opened in a years time.

“You can turn it off if it becomes too uncomfortable to watch,” the bot said. It demonstrated how to operate the television and then showed her around the rest of the facility; the bedroom, the medical room, and a simple but well-stocked kitchen. Not for the first time, Mabel wished the Facility could safely accommodate more than two humans.

She’d be lonely.

For a few months, anyway, until the baby arrived. It was her duty to protect the life she carried within her belly, to keep it safe from the invisible enemy, and nurture it.

Mabel made her bed and unpacked the small bag she had brought with her. She ate the meal the bot prepared her and watched life in the village continue as before.
Without her.

alt