The Seed Thief

Vol. 2 Chapter 7.7

“Lulu!”

The voice called again from beyond the flames.

Lulu hesitated. Should she answer? Even when facing her own death, there was only one thing she was worried about.

It’s so hot here… It hurts so much… I don’t want him here…

She couldn’t call out to him. What if he came for her? What if she saw him and found herself unable to hate him? And what if… what if he died with her?

Hearing him say her name, in her final moments, was enough. So she decided to endure the pain and remain silent until he left.

But then…

“Argh!”

A sudden, excruciating pain ripped through her abdomen. Lulu writhed, her body feeling as if it were being torn apart. At the same time, water gushed down between her legs.

“Aaaaagh!”

Lulu couldn’t help but scream at the sudden pain. As if triggered by the sound, Ervandas’s voice, which had been calling for her, suddenly stopped.

“Ah! Ah!” 

Unbearable pain, unlike anything she had ever felt, twisted and tore at her nerves, along with the approaching flames. The agony of being twisted, crushed, and scorched all at once consumed her from within.

Lulu thrashed wildly. It hurt so much. She wished someone would just kill her quickly.

Then…

“Lulu!”

His voice, the one she had longed for, was right beside her. A heavy blanket was thrown over her, shielding her from the flames. Momentarily away from the heat, her mouth gasped for breath.

“Lulu!”

Lulu looked at the owner of the hand gripping her shoulder. There stood Ervandas, looking disheveled. His hair was tousled, his face covered in soot and tear stains, his clothes singed.

He was calling out to her in a way that he would never have allowed himself to do under normal circumstances. As Lulu struggled to look at him, a sharp pain surged down to her stomach again.

It was happening. Her baby was coming, now, in this moment, in this place. 

Why? Why now? Why here? Why did her child, her heart’s desire, choose to be born in the midst of such agony?

She no longer had the mental capacity to blame anyone. Gathering the last shreds of her sanity, she gasped.

“Er… Take the baby…”

“Please, Lulu. Stay with me!”

“If you don’t go quickly… we’ll all die…”

Blood, mingled with amniotic fluid, gushed between her legs. It felt as if a burning coal was being ripped from her body.

Her child, the life she had carried for so long, was fighting its way into the world, desperate, urgent. As if it knew the situation she was in. Realizing this, Lulu felt a sense of relief.

Er had come. He would take the baby. If he hurried, if he took the child and ran, that would be enough.

She had lived. She had been loved. She had tasted the sweetness of life, and she wanted her child to have the same. But it seemed like she wasn’t allowed to go that far.

“Ah…”

Another sharp pain, this one stronger than the last, ripped through her.

She squeezed her eyes shut, her world dissolving into a chaotic symphony of pain and sound. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even tell if the screams tearing from her throat were her own.