A Midnight Moonbirth: Alley's Unexpected Adventure in Lunar Wildness.

I'm not sure how long I've been in labor. It was late afternoon when I got here, and now it's almost midnight. The contractions have gotten stronger with each passing hour, and as the sun went down I felt my body shift from the typical pain of contractions to a dull ache that started in my womb and radiated outward through my body.

I made my way around the edge of this crater, moving as quickly as I could manage, but no matter how fast I walked or how little time I stopped for snacks or water, the sun still set. I tried to hurry, but between the contractions and the sunlight draining from the sky, my progress slowed down to a crawl. By the time I finished the rim of this crater, the sun had already set and night fell over everything like a blanket.

I sit on a ledge overlooking what looks like an equally deep drop-off on one side and a wall of rock on another. There are no trees up here to provide me with shelter, just large rocks that jut out of the ground every ten feet or so. At least it's not freezing cold up here; there's something about space that makes it so you don't feel temperature changes as much. Still, it's chilly enough that my teeth chatter whenever a contraction hits me hard.

The moon peeks out of one end of the crater and then disappears behind the other end before showing itself again. I watch it slowly make its way across the sky and wonder what everyone else back home is doing right now. They probably think that I'm dead by now. If they're still there at all after whatever happened to our colony so many years ago.

One thing's for sure -- nobody is going to hear me scream through the vacuum of space. Well, someone might if they were listening closely enough, but most people would never know that this was happening unless they looked up at just the right moment during their walk in orbit around our planet and saw me sitting here alone on a ledge about fifty miles above them.

It was only supposed to be a quick visit to town. My mom always told me that you don't want to get caught between two big men arguing over a gambling debt, so I didn't want to be too close when these two guys started shouting at each other outside of The Blind Snake Club on Venus Avenue. Instead, I ducked into an alleyway while they passed by me in opposite directions, hoping that they wouldn't notice where I had gone out of sight.

"You're going down," shouted one man who looked vaguely familiar like maybe he worked at one of the farms growing wheat on Mars or something like that. He shoved his finger into another man's chest before pushing him against a dumpster and walking away without looking back once. But then he stopped suddenly, turned around, and said "Oh wait! You already have!" before laughing maniacally at his own joke and walking off again after giving himself another pat on his back for being such a funny guy with such great jokes to tell people about poor Zack Blyth who lost all his money at poker last week instead of placing it into savings where he'd be able to afford those robotic arms he wanted so badly for his kid once he was born next year! Maybe then Zack wouldn't have to worry about having a baby on Earth while living out here in space far away from all his friends and family! Ha! What a loser! That will teach him to be smarter with his money next time! Oh well! C'est la vie!

So yeah... Zack Blyth is most likely dead right now because nobody wants to associate themselves with anyone who ran their savings dry just so they could buy useless things for themselves instead of saving money for their kid's future needs. Probably died some lonely death on Venus Avenue since nobody wants to go near that place ever since those two guys started fighting three days ago and everyone is afraid that if they try to stop them from beating each other bloody then they'll get caught in the crossfire too!

"Everything alright over there?" asked a voice somewhere off in front of me among all these rocks jutting out from the ground around me as if giant fingers were sticking straight up through the surface of this lunar wasteland without any regard for gravity or laws of physics whatsoever!

I turned myself towards where I thought she should be standing based on her voice sounding as if it was coming from somewhere high above me -- somewhere along this high cliff face separating me from whatever lay beyond it -- but instead found nothing more than darkness surrounding me in every direction except below me where thousands upon thousands of stars spread themselves across endless blackness with their twinkling lights seeming bright enough that even though this woman shouldn't stand anywhere near close enough for me to see her yet... somehow... she still does?

She walks towards me slowly, timidly almost like she doesn't want her footsteps too loud lest she disturb something... or someone? But it wasn't until she stepped closer