Chapter 45: Fireflies in the Dark

The cabin of the helicopter is completely dark and crowded with gore-sticky vampires, quickly slipping into comatose states. Still, I don’t mind the knees sticking into my back or the rotten meat stench. My hands cradle my mother’s head delicately.

Strapped to a gurney once more, to prevent any unnecessary jostling, my mother looks more like someone pried from an Egyptian sarcophagus than ever. Her heavy eyelids barely quiver. Her flat chest rises and falls in an irregular rhythm, falling still for seconds that cause me to hold my own breath in return.

In that loud and darkened space, my mother and I are alone among unconscious immortals.

A painful string tightens in my chest, I can feel her life in the balance. Sometimes, she slips further away. Sometimes, I can feel her love under my touch.