Stuck In Stasis

It was different this morning, though she didn’t know why it should be. It wasn’t like there was any change in her circumstances, any word that something might change and not just in the future but at all.

The days dragged on, she hadn’t bothered keeping track of them from the first and so had no real idea of when it had happened.

(If she had wanted, she could have asked the police, they kept track. They would be surprised if she asked simply because most parents counted the days themselves and needed no reminder.)

She woke in the morning, went through the motions of surviving-

(-not living, living implied that you actually did something to make it look like you weren’t morosely waiting for the die you died-)

-trying to make it look to anyone on the outside like she would be able to survive losing her only daughter.

(That they knew about. The knowledge of her many, many children was sparse, not even their sire knowing how many there were.)

Sometimes, very rarely, she would feel the impulsive urge to just end it all. To cut what little she had left of her daughter out of her life and move on.

But…

She couldn’t.

She couldn’t leave this life and try for another until she knew, knew whether her daughter was still alive somewhere or dead and waiting to be found in a ditch.

So she would stay here and wait for word, whether from the police or from her daughter or even from the ones who had taken her. She didn’t care how long it took.

It’s not like she would die waiting, not with what she was.

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Inspired from the prompt from Three Word Wednesday this week. It’s been a bit since I did a prompt from here and I found I missed it.

This is the sort-of sequel to an older work of mine, Won’t Leave You Behind.