I felt the coldness of the floor pressed against my cheek, a damp and cruel hardness that made me feel attached to the present while everything else began to slowly move away.
The smell of burnt fat that continued to come out of the heated pan mixed with the iron of the blood and with fear, filling the kitchen with a thick atmosphere.
Helepa’s laughter echoed somewhere near and, at the same time, far away, as if she didn’t live in that kitchen, but in another room, another world, another species.
My vision was beginning to blur at the edges, as if someone were pushing a shadow around my eyes and closing the day from the outside in.
The baby moved inside me, a weak and sacred impulse that pierced my pain like a rope tied to someone who is sinking.
That was the only thing that made me conscious, the only reason why my mind didn’t fall completely into that dark void.
I realized, with a clarity so primal it felt animalistic, that I had to endure just a bit more, if only for the sake of the small life that continued to struggle within me.
Victor paced back and forth across the kitchen, breathing violently, his chest rising and falling as if he were the victim of something.
The stick remained in her hand—stained, heavy, no longer a mere household object, but the physical evidence of an intention that no one there dared to name.
“Click here to read the full story”.
