where the small child and the other figure lay.

where the small child and the other figure lay. What happened after that is a daze in my mind. I have a vague memory of my flight from those two carcasses. It seems as though I was running for an endless period of time, not seeing or hearing anything, but juBt running in a crazed state.

Perhaps I was trying to leap out of a nightmare and find myself in bed, but I wasn’t successful because I’m still waiting to wake up. I recall finally recovering some of my senses again, and falling on my knees, gasping for breath, trying to live while hoping secretly to die. Finally I recall vomiting till I collapsed.

When I opened my eyes again, I found myself in a dark grove surrounded by trees...and dead silence. It took me some time to get back on my feet because my head and limbs throbbed, and my stomach mercilessly gnawed as if it were writhing inside of me in agony. Then I discerned a small house situated some distance from the clearing. I stumbled towards it as I supported myself by grasping onto the branches of the trees which appeared to be in a decadent state, and their bark felt like ashes on my fingers.

At last, I reached the front door and knocked. The door had already beep partly opened, and encouraged by my hard knocks it squeaked open to, a dark room. As I walked in, I thought I heard a small cry. It took some time for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.. .and then I saw them. There was a young, dark-haired woman lying heaped on her rugged floor with a pink baby bottle in one hand. Her still body seemed to be covering something, and as I noticed this I heard the faint cry again. It sounded like a weak wail of an infant.

I walked towards the woman and gently turned her over. She had a sweet, motherly face, but one look told me that she was dead. Death, by this time, had ceased to surprise me, so my