Her body was torn in half, left twisted in the dirt. Blood soaked the ground. Her scream still echoed in my ears.
We thought that was the end of it.
But then…
Something moved.
My friend shouted, "There's something—someone!"
Inside the mangled remains of the woman's back, curled into a trembling ball… was a child.
No older than three.
Alive.
Covered in blood that wasn't her own, her tiny fingers clutched the shredded fabric of what was once her mother's clothes. She didn't cry. She didn't speak. She just stared.
Eyes wide. Empty.
We couldn't leave her.
We picked her up gently, her little body cold and silent, and carried her through the ruins, back to the only place where life still meant something.
Sanctuary.
A massive, reinforced building with steel doors, stone walls, and a heartbeat of its own.
Thirty-four men work daily to guard it—risking death to gather food, medicine, wood, metal, anything that helps us survive.
Seventy-eight women keep the inside alive—cooking whatever fruit or meat we find, crafting barricades, stitching clothes, building weapons from junk.
This is where we brought her.
We didn't ask questions. We didn't need answers.
The dead woman was likely her mother.
And this girl—this silent, blood-soaked child—was now one of us.
But I couldn't shake the thought…
If monsters killed her mother…Then why didn't they kill her too?