Chapter 56: Stella’s mother

“Stella, run faste—”

Julia’s words stopped.

Her body stopped midstep, like something was holding on to her.

For a second, she was confused. Her brows furrowed faintly. She turned her head to Stella, only to see that her eyes had gone blank.

Time seemed to slow down for her.

The chaos around them—the distant car alarms that hadn’t yet stopped, the sound of screams coming from a distance—everything blurred around her.

She looked down, and her eyes instantly widened in horror.

Her breath hitched.

Her body…

One of the ant’s pincers was coming out of her stomach.

It protruded grotesquely through her abdomen, slick and black, ripping through her clothes from the back and bursting out the front, tearing through her spine as it passed.

For a split second, her brain refused to accept that it was real.

“KaghKkk!!”

The pincer was pulled out with a wet, tearing sound, making her jerk ahead violently.

Warmth spread across her stomach, with a large amount of blood soaking her clothes and dripping down her legs,

Stella, who saw all this, froze.

Her mind stopped working for a moment.

She had seen the moment the pincer had pierced Julia’s body. She had seen it very well—as that black, razor-sharp appendage went into her body, slicing forward with little to no resistance—but she couldn’t do anything because everything happened before she could even process it.

Her brain hadn’t caught up yet.

It was still trying to understand what her eyes had already witnessed.

Julia’s hand, which had been gripping Stella’s so tightly just moments ago, loosened.

Her fingers slipped, losing all their strength, sliding limply from Stella’s grasp.

Her body swayed strangely, like a puppet whose strings had been cut unevenly, before she fell down heavily onto the road.

The sound of her body hitting the ground echoed in Stella’s ears louder than the gunshots from earlier.

The ant screeched again, this time in victory, as if it had taken its revenge—as if it had completed some royal task and was now savouring it in satisfaction.

Stella didn’t even see the giant ant monster before her.

All the fear she felt for the monster vanished instantly, replaced by the fear of what was before her.

Julia.

She hastily moved toward her and kneeled before her, her knees slamming onto the ground. She turned Julia’s body towards her carefully, her trembling fingers slipping against the blood-soaked fabric.

So much blood.

Too much.

“Agh—Khghhh…! Kkghhh—!”

Julia coughed wildly as a thick mouthful of blood began seeping from her mouth, running down from the side of her lips, and dripping onto her collar.

Her vision blurred, and everything felt like it was spinning.

The sky above her looked like it was spinning strangely, as the pale blue darkened at the edges.

“W-What… happened…?”

Her voice was faint.

Confused.

Genuinely confused.

Julia couldn’t understand what was happening. She couldn’t understand why she suddenly felt so dizzy, as if the world itself had tilted beneath her feet. Why her limbs felt heavy. Why breathing felt… difficult.

Stella didn’t reply, only silently looking at her with a blank, hollow look.

Hearing no answer from Stella, Julia looked down at her wound—at the gaping hole torn through her body—making even her intestines visible.

Slowly, she realised what had happened.

She should’ve been horrified, terrified by such a sight.

But strangely, even after looking at such a big hole in her stomach, her expression didn’t change much.

Then she lifted her gaze toward the monster in the distance.

“Ste—Cough!… Stella… run…”

She couldn’t even shout, and her voice barely came out as a whisper as she gurgled on her own blood.

She didn’t need an explanation to know what had happened to her.

Just looking at her wound, at the hole in her stomach, she understood everything.

The damage was fatal and irreversible, and there was nothing to be done.

She could hear the thuds of her heartbeat ringing in her ears, with each thud slower than the last.

She knew she wouldn’t survive for long.

She knew she wouldn’t be able to see the next day.

But that was not her focus, because none of that mattered.

Stella.

The girl she raised.

The girl she loved like her own daughter.

She had to survive.

Stella, who heard her words, blinked as she finally zoned out of the frozen trance she had been trapped in.

Her heartbeat slammed violently in her chest as she looked at the pale face of Julia.

“No no no no no no no…. What is happening? Is this a dream?”

Her voice cracked, rising like she had lost her mind.

“This has to be a dream, right? RIGHT?”

She slapped herself across the face, hard, wanting the dream to break down, but the sharp sting that burned through her cheek only made the reality before her even more cruel.

The blood in her hands didn’t disappear, nor did the hole in Julia’s stomach vanish.

“No, no, please don’t leave me. Please don’t. I won’t ever shout at you again! I won’t argue! I won’t complain about anything from now on! I’ll listen to everything you say! So please—just stay! Stay with me!!”

Tears streamed uncontrollably down her face, blurring her vision.

Her entire body trembled violently in fear.

Her breathing became ragged, broken into uneven gasps as she found it hard to breathe.

‘Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?! WHY?!!! WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME?!!!’

Her thoughts spiralled wildly.

She couldn’t understand.

WHY?!

First, the marriage.

Being forced into a life she never asked for.

And now this.

The only person who had ever stood beside her all her life without any condition—without any hidden motives—was dying in front of her.

“I–Idiot… RUN!!”

Julia forced the word out of her mouth with everything she had left.

Her throat hurt, making it hard for her to talk, along with the blood rising from inside.

She could feel her vision blurring further.

Her vision darkened for a second before she gritted her teeth and bit her tongue, barely forcing herself to stay conscious.

She was feeling dizzy.

And she was cold.

She was feeling very cold.

It felt like winter had suddenly wrapped itself around her.

“No, no, please. I will call the ambulance. Don’t close your eyes! Please! Just don’t leave me! Stay awake, please!”

Stella fumbled for her phone with shaking fingers, but dropped it immediately when her hands slipped in blood. She grabbed Julia’s wound desperately, trying to press down on it as she had learned in one of her biology classes.

But she couldn’t.

There was a hole.

A massive, open space torn through her abdomen.

Her fingers sank into blood and torn fabric and ruined flesh.

There was nothing to hold together.

There was nothing to compress, nothing to hold together.

Nothing to save.

Nothing she could do.

There was nothing, absolutely nothing she could do.

And Stella wasn’t ready to accept that, because that terrified her more than the monster ever could.

“Please… r..u.n…” The word broke apart inside Julia’s throat.

Julia used all her last remaining strength left in her dying body, as she forced her trembling hand to move.

Her fingers fumbled weakly at her side until they found the handgun that had slipped from her fingers.

The metal felt unbearably heavy, and cold—or maybe it wasn’t cold. She didn’t know.

Her body barely obeyed her as she handed over her handgun to Stella.

Her hands were weak now. They barely curled around the metal before sliding it into Stella’s trembling palm.

Even moving her hand felt too heavy, too difficult, like she had to move a mountain.

Suddenly, a memory resurfaced.

***

Little Stella stood before her, sitting on her lap.

She had short, messy golden hair, and her cheeks were rounder, her eyes wider, filled with innocence.

“Julia? Can I call you mother?”

Julia was stunned for a moment.

The question struck her deeper than she expected.

No.

She had not expected that, but… maybe it wasn’t too surprising, since her mother had died just a year ago.

Stella always felt lonely after her death, so maybe it wasn’t bad that she was relying on her.

Julia smiled gently, as her eyes teared up a bit in happiness.

“You can,” she whispered, brushing Stella’s hair back gently.

“But only when no one is around, okay?”

“Why?” Little Stella tilted her head cutely with a pout.

Julia leaned forward and lightly pinched her nose.

“Because your father might get angry.”

Hearing about her father, little Stella’s expression soured instantly. Even as a child, her eyes dimmed at the mention of him, since he was too strict with her.

After a long pause, like she was trying very hard to solve a really, really hard math problem, with each thought slowly bumping around inside her head.

Finally, she nodded obediently.

“Okay… Mom!” She jumped at her, wrapping her tiny arms around Julia’s neck.

Small tears dripped from Julia’s cheeks, which she wiped quickly, hiding them from Stella so she wouldn’t notice.

That had been one of the happiest moments of her life.

That warmth.

That trust.

She could never forget it.

*****

(50 powerstones by this week = An extra chapter)

50 powerstones by this week = An extra chapter

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