Chapter Text
Her feet felt on fire and her back ached. She can feel blisters forming on the back of her heel. She needed to push forward, she couldn’t risk being found outside after sunset. But does she wish—no prayer she can find somewhere quick to bunk up for the night.
Her back was also screaming at her to stop. Carrying her son, a sling on her front, and a hiking pack on her back, stuffed to the brim with supplies. Mumei felt like a damn turtle.
How long has she been walking, thirty minutes an hour? No, it had to be way longer than that. About two hours she had to say. This paved road seems to never end and all she sees for miles is grass and trees. No town or single house in sight.
At most, Mumei had about another hour and a half left before the sun started to set, so she needed to find somewhere fast.
She looks down at the handmade sling she carried against her chest. Her infant son Otus was thankfully fast asleep. Hopefully, he stays asleep until she finds a place to rest. She knows for a fact he will want to eat, and if she's out there walking on the road, she won’t be able to stop and feed him.
She walked about another half mile before finding an abandoned farm house. The front yard was grown with leaves and vines have started to take over the walls and roof of the house.
People have definitely been to her before or at least she prays that it was another person. The entire place looks ransacked. So she really didn’t have any hope of finding more supplies. At least she had a place to lie low for the night, and not become off of those midnight snacks.
Mumei figures the basement would be the best option to hide it. After using a clothes' basket, she found a makeshift bed for her sleeping baby. She starts setting up things for her and her son to spend the night.
What was left of the furniture she used to block the windows and doors of the first floor. She was able to find some blankets, so after checking them for bed bugs, she brought them downstairs for the two of them to use.
The basement itself wasn’t anything grand, but it worked as a shelter. Mumei began to spread out and layer the blankets she had found to make some type of bed to sleep on. Then she started to take out some supplies from her pack. A small camping chair, a small palm-sized flashlight, along with a lamp. Next she pulls out a sleeping bag along with a small pillow that she throws onto the makeshift bed, and finally she pulls out a definitely expired protein bar.
She looked over at her son, still fast asleep. The boy could sleep through anything. Probably due to the fucked up situation he was born into. If Mumei had known the world would have gone through a stupid pregnancy. Hell, she never wanted him in the first place.
Mumei gives a hard shake to her head. She really shouldn’t think that way. She was just hungry and exhausted. So she sits down on the camping chair, unwraps the protein bar and takes a bite. It was dense and tasted like chalk, but it was the only thing she had right now, and she really needed the fuel. She forces the rest of it down. She wished she had some water to wash it down, but unfortunately she had drunk the last of what she had while on the road. Maybe there will be a well she can use to fill up her canteen.
Then it hits her ears, the screeching cry. She can feel her shoulders drop and her mood sour even more. Otus had woken up, and he was hungry.
“I’m coming,” Mumei sighs as she makes her way over to the makeshift basement. “Okay-okay,” she hushes the infant as she begins to rock him while making her way back to the chair to sit now. She lifts her shirt along with her sports bra so she can nurse her son. “Are you happy now?”
Otus lets out a happy coo as she eats his mother’s milk. His small fist held tightly onto Mumei’s shirt.
“Pig…”
Mumei runs her fingers across the tuft of brown hair atop his head. She watches her son eat. She never understood why this was such a special moment for mother and child. It felt like an annoying chore. If she had access to formulas and bottles, she would have fed him that way, but to her irritation, she didn’t. Even though the only thing at the time she felt towards Otus was responsibility, she wasn’t some cruel monster that would starve the child. So she was going to feed him the only way she knew how.
…
BAMB, CRACK, THUD!
Mumei shoots up from the chair, her son still held tightly in her arms. Knocking the chair down along with the lamp that was next to it onto its inside.
Something was out there; it was right above them. She could hear footsteps above them. Mumei hadn’t secured the first floor well enough. The only thing keeping the beast that was now roaming the farmhouse from finding them. It was the locked basement door.
She tried to think of what to do, but she was stuck by fear. Her screaming in her ears, she was frozen solid. Was this their end?
A loud, pained, blood-crudding roar hits her eardrums hard. It was quickly followed by a louder, more viscous roar.
Mumei’s brown eyes stayed locked on the basement door, her baby held close to her chest. While she felt vile, starting to fill her stomach. She could hear the footsteps getting closer.
CRASH, THUNK!
In pure horror, the brunette watches as the basement door is kicked off and hinges. At the top of the stairwell stood a large shadowed figure holding someone or something by its neck.
“Who the hell is in my home?!” A loud roar echoes throughout the basement.