Tundra McFarlane was eighteen months pregnant. The longer-than-usual gestation period could be explained as twins, who had decided to serve their sentences consecutively instead of concurrently, due in part to poor lawyering.
As for Tundra, she now lay on the hospital gurney, giving birth, finally.
"PUSH!" Said the doctor.
She pushed, and pushed, and pushed some more. But the babies weren't coming out.
"PUSH! PUSH!" Said the nurses.
Still she pushed, but not a creature was stirring.
"WAIT!" Said the doctor. "Maybe we have this wrong."
He went to his desk and, removing his mucus-covered gloves, opened up a drawer on the right hand side. He pulled out a large manual.
Flip-flip-flip. "Hmn, no, no, hmn. Interesting. Hmn. Aha!"
"What is it?" Tundra was concerned, and having a hard time holding back, having already pushed for several hours.
"Oh, something about treating fungus with tea-tree oil. Sorry! Where was I? Oh yes, hmn, delivering babies."
He flipped through some more pages.
"Aha! Here we are, hmn... water breakages, yes yes, I know this, hmn, legs apart, yes, hmn. Nurse?"
"Yes, Doctor?"
"Dilation. Do we have dilation?"
"Sorry?"
"The patient, here, is she... dilated?"
"Yes! Of course, doctor."
"Very well. So, do we have a measuring tape?"
"Oh, gods!" Said Tundra, exasperated. "That's it! I'm pushing!"
And out popped her babies.
***
Tundra and her husband, Montana, named their babies shortly after the clean-up crews returned them in blankets.
"The first baby," Tundra declared, "Shall be called Switchblade, and he shall be a gangster."
"Mm-hmm, that shall be very good." Montana agreed.
"The second baby," Tundra said, "Shall be..."
"Hmm-mm, that shall be good." Montana said.
And so the baby was not named properly.
***
The gangster-baby, Switchblade, went on to become a very dangerous boy. He would steal lunches from all his classmates and regularly held try-outs for his gang. Not very many children survived, for instance one try-out was to hold a pine cone in your hand as tightly as you could until the count of ten, and then be punched in the face.
The child without a name became pensive. He would think about things such as why mirrors reverse left-to-right but not top-to-bottom. He would think about the root causes of poverty. And he hated Dora the Explorer.
***
Tundra and Montana died.
***
The day finally arrived, decades later, for the two babies to battle.
The second, pensive child had become a terrible villain, and was gathering together the magic crystals to try and revive Thoraxian, the God-beast who would destroy the earth, laying waste to all living things.
Switchblade had been slowly gathering friends together, with more and more powerful equipment, after having learned early on after he graduated from dragon-training school that the Empire he had been trained to serve was really and truly evil, and had ordered him to torch a nearby village, which he had done, and then realized how bad of a thing to do that was, and so had turned against the empire.
Switchblade drew his switchblade. "Brother, we meet at last."
Their battle was taking place atop Mt. Death, and lightning stroke down from the heavens, hitting lava, which shot up into the air five-hundred feet as a large and ancient pipe organ made from elephant bones played the prelude to Bach's fugue in D-minor. A crow cawed.
The unnamed one smirked. "Oh, but we have already met. In the womb, if I believe."
"Whatever."
"Yes, in the womb. I have not forgotten, brother."
"You cannot forgive, OR forget. You will only bring pain unto yourself." Switchblade stood, his face twitching, disturbed by this line of discussion.
"Hah, hah-hah." The incompletely-named one seemed to genuinely find this amusing. "Cannot take your own medicine, then? Oh, brother, you do yourself such a disservice. Surely, you must have told your friends?"
"No! You! Shut UP!"
"Oh, shut UP? Shall I? I shall SHUT UP. No, I shalln't. Instead, I think we all ought to hear this story."
"W-what did you do, Switchblade? Is there something I should know about?" asked Joanna-lessa, Switchblade's girl and chief healing spellcaster in the Legendary Party. "Switchblade, is there something you're not telling me." She took a step backwards.
"Oh, aww! Well brother, have you not told her of our history? Have you kept secrets from ALL of your friends?"
"Switchblade." The music paused. "What are you... what are you not telling me?" Joanna-lessa looked at him with puppy-dog eyes.
"Well, brother, if you won't tell, I will." The unnamed one's voice took a tone of spite.
***
When we were still in the womb, your LOVER (he spat this word like sour milk) was jealous of me, for I was the stronger. We jostled and bumpled around, and he was always pushing. It was very unpleasant for me, but I took pity on him and did not strike him down. Instead, I tried to show compassion to him.
This he repaid with cruelty. When we were further developed, about this size of a small potatoe, our fingers had formed. When mine formed first, he saw them and his diabolical mind grabbed onto evil thoughts. So when his fingers formed, he knew just what he would do. He pinched me, over and over again. He pinched me until it hurt a lot, yet still I held back.
Finally he tired of this game. But by then, we had developed further, and our legs had sprouted. We were then about the size of a large potatoe.
Still, I was stronger, but he did not care. Your LOVER (again, spat out) used his legs to kick me, and kick me he did. He kicked my skull, and he kicked my ribs. My privates had not yet formed so he did not kick them, but he kicked my groin nonetheless. He kicked me so that my bones would have broken were they still not flexible like young birch branches. Still, I did not launch my attack.
Next what formed was our teeth. And with these, he bit me. Yes, your LOVER bit me in the womb.
And when our eyes formed, he glared at me meanly.
When our nose formed, he blew snot upon me, and when our spleen formed he blew acid from his rectum.
Finally, our lungs and voiceboxes formed, and this was when he dealt the final blow, the blow which would cause me to never recover.
I tell you, because of what he said, I was scarred worse than any of his previous attacks. And for this, I cannot forgive him. For this foul lie, this terrible untruth, this dastardly deception, he will now die.
***
"Brother! You hold me unfairly responsible for a small mis-deed! I was young and stupid! I was only a fetus!" And with that, Switchblade attacked.
Stabbing through the Unnamed Brother, his rage boiling over, he killed him in one stroke.
"Heh heh... brother..." the unnamed one gurgled through his coughed-up blood, "you are..." blood sputtered out of his mouth, and he died.
Lightning stroke one last time, then the clouds parted, and sunlight shone down. The crystals were taken back to their respective kingdoms, and all was well.
***
Years passed. Switchblade and Joanna-lessa were married, had children, and became king and queen of Canada. However something still tugged at Switchblade's heart. His whole life he carried this heavy burden, until his deathbed.
He called his true love to him.
"Joanna-lessa, there is something I must confess."
"My love, rest, do not move..."
"No, I must tell you... what evil I did to my brother... long ago... in the womb... what I told him..."
"No, my love, do not... you do not... I love you..."
"I must, or I cannot depart this world. Let me unburden my heart."
There was a long dramatic pause while the music swelled up.
"What did you tell him, my love? What was it?" Joanna-lessa's cheeks were covered in tears by this point.
"I told him a terrible lie. Something to shake his very core... There... in the womb... I told him... that he was adopted."
And with that, Switchblade slumped back.
"Oh, my love... my love..."
"Thank you." Switchblade's face became peaceful, at last having released himself from his terrible secret. And he passed from the world of the living, and two years later Joanna-lessa died too but with less fanfare.
THE END.