4.

Mental health issues are more prevalent today than ever before or at least we are more aware and understanding of such today than at any other time in the past though what do you do when you and your partner experience things that neither of you can explain. Can it simply or not so simply be put down to stress and worry? And what if others come in on your experience too? An ultrasound and an odd birth may be explained off to a degree, a photograph, a digitally taken photograph may not be so easy to explain.

Charlotte Allen is six days old and has been photographed for the very first time. It may be considered odd in this day and age that so much time would pass before a child is photographed; such were the circumstance and all else surrounding the birth and the days since that having a photograph taken was not a top priority or even a consideration.

Corinne Allen is still suffering from fatigue though she has been improving, somewhat improving at least. She has been able to get up and about, perform some light activity, make some breakfast and such; still, she needs rest, a lot of rest. She has yet to leave her home since the day she returned from the maternity hospital.

While having not properly washed as in having taken a bath or shower or having not so much taken care of herself over the past week, Corinne Allen is reluctant to participate in a first family photo. Besides her continued but improving tiredness, there hasn't been much which could be considered odd or strange from Charlotte's second day of life up until now. Not being up for much of a debate, she gives in to her husband's insistence, Bill gets his way, and a first family photograph is to come into existence.

Bill has a digital camera; he sets it up and turns on a timer and family sit on a cushioned seat with both mum and dad sharing the positioning of the new born and both mum and dad do the best they can to look as happy as they can. There is a click and a flash, and a photo has been taken leading onto a second to be set up.

'I'm not feeling all so good' Corinne tells Bill as he settles in for a pose for that second photo.

'Anything I can get you?' he asks her once the camera clicks and flashes for a second time.

'I don't know, do we have anything for a headache?'

She puts a hand to her forehead, and he places Charlotte in her crib. Corinne hears a very brief crying echo, Bill does not.

'I'll go check.'

Bill goes to the kitchen and soon returns with a glass of water and two painkillers. The painkillers and water are dropped immediately upon return for upon that return Bill sees that not only has Corrine passed out, but she also looks so pale that it appears as if her body has completely become drained of blood. In a panic he checks on his wife and uses his cell phone to call for an ambulance. Blood is taken and tests are run as they also had been on the day, she gave birth, nothing comes back which can explain why Corrine has been feeling as she has been for the past week or as to why she has collapsed on this occasion.

It is not until the day after Corrine's health scare that Bill gets a chance to return to his camera. Two family photos had been taken. Bill looks at them both on the camera's display. No, this can't be right. He had thought all the funny business had been over and done with. Whatever is wrong with Corrine, Bill had been sure that she would be fine, in time. Their daughter however ...

He connects his camera to his laptop and prints off both of the photos without further inspection upon the laptop. The prints are most certainly frightening, and they confirm what is it Bill was sure he had seen on the camera display. He and Corrine are sitting on that comfortable chair of theirs and they both share the holding of baby Charlotte.

In the first photograph Charlotte looks doubled to the point where she looks more like a Siamese twin joined all along the body rather than being one singular child. This is so very frightening. Bill places his right hand over his mouth in disbelief. He takes a look at the second photo. This time the double of Charlotte is more complete. It appears as if both parents have a hold each of a separate yet identical child.

What the hell is Bill meant to make of this? Where can things go from here? Should he inform his wife of these photos? Who else could he or should he show these photos to?

5.

When Bill Allen got his wife home after having been given an all clear following her bout of unconsciousness, he organized for someone to come be with her. He had also arranged an appointment with the obstetrician who had overseen the birth of his daughter. Bill brought his daughter to the appointment as well as the prints of the digitally taken family photographs.

'I don't know what to tell you Mister Allen ...'

'Call me Bill, please ...'

'... Bill. As I say, I don't know what to tell you. Maybe you need a priest and not a doctor.'

'Have you ever heard, seen or dealt with anything like this before Doc?'

'Me personally? I can't say that I have. If it can mean anything to you there are more than a few odd stories doing the rounds lately. One of them being of a lady who had struggled to become pregnant, when she did become pregnant everything about her changed to the point where she needed to be institutionalized. She had become overbearing, untrusting, and even aggressive where she had been nothing of this likes before becoming pregnancy ...'

'Not quite what has been happening with my family.'

'No, but we haven't got to the goods yet. A friend of mine oversaw the pregnancy and the birth within that institution; it actually took place last week too in fact, a few days before Charlotte came into the world. Looks like mum is to stay right where she is for some time, and the father has full custody of the child along with his sister-in-law if you can believe that.'

'Boy or a girl?'

'Excuse me?'

'Was the child a boy or a girl?'

'A girl ... actually there were a couple of other odd cases, all in the last week or so, were all girls too, once heck of a coincidence. I could say the birth of your daughter and the photos you have too makes your daughter's birth the most unusual but then again, I didn't experience any of the other births.'

'I know this may be a bit of a reach, but I couldn't trouble you for some names and numbers or addresses of those families?'

'I couldn't do that even if I wanted to. I don't have them to hand either. If needs be ...'

'Normally I wouldn't ask such a thing ... if it weren't for ... ya know ...'

Bill is holding on to those photos of his and he does have the look of a man desperate for answers, desperate in a sane way if desperation and sane can be put together in the same sentence.

'I will see what I can do Mister Allen ... can't make any promises.'

Fourteen days come and go by such time where Bill Allen comes to visit an institution. An institution where in thirteen years' time a certain Majella Smith will begin a three year stay against her will, an institution where the daughter of God will also come for a stay and a place where Sammy Fontaine will, one day in the near future, come to work as an orderly.

Bill has come here to visit with a woman who gave birth within the facility's walls three weeks earlier. Bill has questions, he has worries and he needs answers, answers he hopes to at least begin to find here. He has gained a full access visitors pass which will stand up if queried. He is not quite sure what this lady looks like, what her demeanour is or anything else of this nature. In this place, however, she should be quite easy to spot as most of the guests here are teenagers.

Lacy Ellis is a young woman; seven months within this facility by the time this visit is coming her way, despite being a young woman she is more than just a few years past her teenage years so identifying such a person shouldn't be too difficult a task.

On top of this, Lacy Ellis's frame thinned as her pregnancy had developed and now that she is no longer pregnant her frame as a whole looks unnaturally thin. She also has an obsession with three next to dead potted plants which were brought to her from the home her sister and husband share. She sits in the facilities common room with the larger of these three potted plants in her possession as Bill Allen approaches.

There is a slight reaction within the plant as that arrival is made as if the plant itself is informing Lacey Ellis of all it is with which she needs to know.

'Missus Ellis?' Bill asks.

'You've got one too, haven't you?' she quietly says and more of a statement too than a question.

Those eyes, the lady's eyes, how they looked up and at Bill as he spoke and how they remained locked upon him as she spoke. Bill has never been so freaked by such a thing as he is right now.

'Ma'am, I don't know what you mean by that.'

'Your daughter, she is a child of Satan, right?'

'Excuse me?'

'Oh, come now ... don't tell me you don't know this.'

'Ma'am, how did you know I have a daughter?'

'Our daughters are sisters don't you know.'

Lacey Ellis had been sitting when Ben Allen arrived, now she is up on her feet and skipping around her seat and this act is drawing attention from the other guests within this common room. Ben attempts to ask a question, he is unsuccessful given the circumstances. Commotion within the room quickly grows to the point orderlies interject themselves to calm things down as others are reacting to Lacey Ellis and in the attempt to calm things, they take Lacey to her room.

'Excuse me, I am not done' Ben states.

'Who are you?' asks one of the orderlies.

'It doesn't matter who I am, I am not done here. I've got questions to ask that lady.'

'Sir, I need you to leave' speaks another orderly. Bill attempts to speak again but the orderly interjects, 'sir, please leave the premises, you shouldn't be here.'

'I have every right to be here.'

Another two orderlies have come to meet this visitor and escort him off the premises.

'What can you tell me about that woman and her child?' Ben asks. No reply comes and the escort begins to get a little rough. 'Don't touch me ...'

Unusual it is for someone who is ordinarily such a gentle person to get wound up and wound up so quickly to the point where he is escourted out and away from a place he has come to be. If three weeks of fatherhood has done this to him then how will he be after three months or three years? A journey has only just begun, and the road ahead really is a long one.

Because of incidents like this one, access to this facility by the public becomes damn near impossible unless a full clearance is granted, something a television reporter by the name Johanna Appleby does not have at a time she comes with questions.