The racket below was deafening.
Sounds of torn flesh and shattered wood pierced through the hole in the floor.
I knew I had to move.
Right now.
The house threatened to collapse at any moment, licked by the voracious flames.
My eyes landed once more on the corner of the room.
Where the old woman had abandoned her prey.
The newborn.
Against all odds, a faint wail escaped from the debris of bloody cloth.
It was alive.
A miracle in the middle of this butchery.
I didn’t think.
I knelt down, my hands trembling, and gently lifted the small body wrapped in its soiled blanket.
It was so light.
So fragile.
— Hold on, little one…, I murmured, my voice broken by the smoke.
I pressed it against my chest, on the opposite side of my fractured rib.
With my other hand, I pointed my gun toward the stairs.
I had to get out of here.
I headed toward the hole in the floor to steal a quick glance below.
On the ground floor, hell had broken loose.
The old woman Calamity and the female creature were fighting with pure savagery.
The girl was dodging frantic attacks with unhuman agility, but the old woman, possessed by a nameless rage, was not letting up.
Their movements were so fast that my tired eyes struggled to follow them.
I couldn’t go through there. New chapters come out on g.com first.
The stairs led straight into the middle of their duel to the death.
My only way out was the window I had entered through.
But I was upstairs.
I rushed toward the bedroom window that looked out onto the street.
The flames were beginning to block the path; the air was becoming unbreathable.
Leaning out, the ground seemed terribly far away.
Jumping with a broken rib while holding a baby…
It was suicide.
But staying here meant certain death.
Suddenly, a sinister crack echoed beneath my feet.
The bedroom floor began to sag in its turn.
— Screw it…, I grunted.
I wrapped my arms around the baby as best as I could to shield it with my own body.
And I jumped into the void.