For several days, the pain in Selene’s body did not subside; instead, it grew steadily worse.

After dropping her son off at school, she finally decided to go to the medical station for a checkup and get some medicine.

She thought it was just a routine exam, but the doctor frowned at her report, flipping through it several times before looking at her with a grave expression.

"Your cells are severely infected with zombie virus, leading to multi-organ failure. You have no more than two weeks to live."

Chapter 6

In the dim room, Selene curled up on the bed, clutching a black quilt tightly to her chest.

Her head hung low, her face buried in the quilt. Her shoulders trembled as she let out low, stifled sobs, like a child with no one to rely on—lonely and helpless.

The communicator by the pillow kept ringing. It took Selene a while to realize someone had sent her a message.

Opening it, she found only abusive texts:

【Murderer!】

【How can there be such a shameless disaster like you!】

【Why don't you just die!】

Selene looked at the malicious curses from strangers one by one. She threw the communicator away violently and covered her ears tightly with the quilt, trying to block out the terrifying malice and the buzzing noise.

She didn't know how much time had passed before a fit of violent coughing jolted her from her daze. She quickly covered her mouth and rushed to the sink, coughing as blood stained the white tiles red.

Selene stared at her ghastly pale reflection in the mirror, wiped the blood from her lips with trembling hands, and silently turned on the water to wash away the fresh red stains in the basin.

Afterward, she took the suppression medicine she had been prescribed and swallowed it numbly.

Selene looked down at her disheveled state and suddenly wanted to tell Silas everything.

No matter how much he loathed her, no matter whether he accepted it or not, she just wanted to tell him to take good care of their child. That would be enough.

Even if he didn't love her and only wanted revenge, it didn't matter anymore.

She was dying.

She picked up the communicator and, word by word, input the number she had memorized by heart, holding it to her ear.

"Beep... beep..."

She didn't know how long it had been. The courage Selene had mustered faded with the passage of time. Just as she was about to hang up, the call connected.

Her eyes brightened, and just as she was about to speak, she heard a child's voice on the other end.

"Daddy is taking a bath, who are you?"

Selene’s smile stiffened, and her heart convulsed, stripping her of any desire to speak.

"Hello? Is that sister-in-law?"

The voice on the other end suddenly switched to Yara’s sweet, sugary tone. A wave of nausea surged in Selene’s heart, making her hang up the call immediately, unable to listen any longer.

At this moment, she truly felt endless desolation; it turned out that from beginning to end, it had all been her own self-delusion...

A few days later, Selene’s condition worsened.

She looked at the temperature on the thermometer; she was running a low fever again. The stabbing pain in her heart became more acute, and even her consciousness began to blur.

Thinking of the leave-of-absence call from the orderly that day, she called around to ask if any friends were free to pick up her son, but she hit walls everywhere. In the end, she had no choice but to dial Silas’s number.

He answered quickly, his tone still cold: "Speak."

"...Silas, I have a fever. Can you pick up Andy?"

On the other end, Silas paused while organizing his ability potions. Hearing her raspy, strained voice, the refusal stalled in his throat for a long time.

The silence between them lasted for a while, until it was broken by Selene’s coughing.

"Cough, cough... I beg you, just this once, okay?"

Hearing the weakness and the crying tone in her voice, Silas felt a strange surge of irritability and muttered an agreement before hanging up.

"Just this once."

Selene put down the communicator, but her heart remained uneasy. The weather had been bad for days, and the overcast sky outside the window made her heart tremble.

The sky grew darker and darker.

Selene had slept through the afternoon, and her fever had finally settled into a low-grade one. She sat on the sofa, feeling anxious as she waited.

Suddenly, the communicator rang.

She quickly opened it to find it was a message from Andy’s academy teacher, making her heart drop.

"Andy’s Mom, something happened!"

Selene didn't know how she got there. She stared blankly at the burning training room of the academy, thick smoke billowing from the windows. Orange-red flames licked at the colorful walls, emitting the scent of death everywhere.

The teacher was talking to her with red eyes, but Selene couldn't hear a thing. Seeing that Andy was nowhere to be seen after scanning the area several times, she grabbed the teacher and asked hoarsely.

"Where is my son? Where is my son? Where is he?!"

"He and another child were still in the training room. A guardian surnamed Silas just rushed in..."

Selene’s desperate, collapsing emotions suddenly stabilized. That’s right, Silas had arrived before her; he would definitely be able to save Andy, he would definitely bring their child out!

Just as the words fell, Silas burst through the door, clutching a boy.

The next instant, the flames surged, and the entire building exploded. The violent shockwave knocked him to the ground.

Selene, ecstatic, wanted to rush over, but another woman reached the boy in the man's arms before her, wailing.

Watching Yara hold the child, crying with relief, Selene realized the child who had been saved was not Andy.

A terrifying conjecture stopped her in her tracks.

She lunged at Silas, grabbed his collar, and asked him in a tone colder than ever before.

"Tell me, our Andy is not inside, right?"

Silas’s wristband was half-burned, his usually cold face now covered in dust.

He was disheveled and distraught for the first time, his voice no longer indifferent, but trembling and parched.

"He... is still inside."

Chapter 7

Selene’s mind went blank, her facial muscles unable to express the sheer scale of her emotions. She scrambled to her feet and charged toward the building, now engulfed in even more ferocious flames, as if she could no longer perceive the overwhelming, all-consuming heat.

Silas grabbed her violently, roaring, "Are you out of your mind?!"

Selene’s eyes were bloodshot. She seemed unable to hear a word he said, driven mad, clawing her way toward the stairs until she collapsed on the ground from sheer exhaustion, still trying to crawl toward the training room where nothing but fire could be seen.

Snap!

A sharp pain struck her face, snapping Selene back to her senses from her maddened state.

Looking at the man in front of her, also panting with red-rimmed eyes, she looked at the burning building behind him and suddenly burst into hysterical laughter. The laughter turned into choking sobs as she collapsed on the ground, pouring out every ounce of her emotion. Tears flowed incessantly, as if they would never run dry.

Even when she had learned she hadn't long to live, Selene had never broken down like this.

Her burden, her final tie to this world, her little sun…

Selene had even planned to pretend to go outside the base to scavenge for supplies before she died, to record birthday greeting audio for him for every coming year in advance so that he wouldn't be too sad without a mother's company, and she could leave in peace…

But… but!

How could the child she had held and raised with her own hands, the sensible little boy who had taken care of her, leave her at such a young age?

Selene thought of him in the training room, watching in despair as the flames swept toward him. Was it painful? Would he have called her name?

All the words she wanted to say to him could no longer be conveyed. Andy would forever remain in the summer of his fourth year.

Selene would never understand why Silas couldn't have reached out to bring the child out. How—how could he have just stood there and watched him be left in that sea of fire and hell?!

She felt a despair so deadening that her heart seemed to be buried in the sea of fire along with her child.

No one dared to approach this disheveled woman sitting on the ground; the deathly silence surrounding her evoked pity and unbearable sorrow.

Several hours later.

After the base law enforcement team extinguished the fire, all that remained standing in the charred building were scorched, hollow bones.

Guided by the officers, Selene collected the last remaining fragments of Andy from the corner of the training room.