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.

Helepa spoke with annoyance, as if she were married to my bad habit and looked at a pregnant woman lying on the ground.

He said that I always did the same thing, that I cried, fainted and made a scene, reducing my pain to an annoying performance for the family.

Raúl grunted from his chair that, if I had been his wife, I would have learned long ago, as if violence were a reasonable lesson and not a crime.

Nora continued recording with the phone raised, tilting her head to avoid losing the best angle, as if that were a grotesque entertainment program.

He murmured that it was going to go viral, calling it “pregnant wife drama” with such a cold, repulsive air that even the air seemed sick.

I tried to move, even if only a few centimeters, just to check that I still controlled my body and hadn’t turned into a mere thing lying on the kitchen floor.

I couldn’t, because the pain gripped me from my hip to my belly and left me trapped in a terrifying immobility, more humiliating than the blow itself.

Then I heard something, a low and distant sound that at first I thought came from my own head, a kind of confused vibration piercing the mist.

First it was a motor, then another, and then the sharp squeal of frepmatics with violence against the house, too abrupt to be a quiet visit.

Victor frowned, annoyed, and asked who the hell was arriving at that hour, as if night, violence and secrecy belonged to them.

Helepa got up with annoyance and walked to the stage, barely pushing aside the curtain with two impatient fingers, still believing that she had control over the stage.

I saw her face change almost immediately, as if an invisible hand had erased her smile, and for the first time all night she seemed frightened.

He called Victor by his name with a thinner voice, less arrogant, and told him that he thought he was visiting, but that word didn’t sound right.

Then the blows came—three brutal impacts against the door, not like knuckles knocking, but like something demanding entry without asking permission.

They weren’t just knocks; they were dry, violent detonations—a force from the outside that wasn’t coming to talk, but to break whatever stood in its path.

A masculine voice roared to open the door, and although my mind was still racing, I recognized that voice even through the dizziness and pain.

It was Alex, my brother, the only person in the world that I was sure wouldn’t stop this day if he found out what was happening.

Victor let out an arrogant, contemptuous exhalation and called Alex an idiot, still convinced that the size of the house made him the owner of the night.

Raúl stood up with that domestic thug air he adopted when he believed that violence was on his side and backed by other men.

He said he would take care of it, and walked towards the door with a slow step, still believing he had time to control access and the narrative.

PART 2