When Jenine reaches the lounge, she sits down and stares at me while I am holding my daughter closely to my chest. “Finally, someone more important than me,” I think to myself.

“I gave my life for her, so I do not have much time left, Adam. I just had to tell you this before I went away. My mom was like me. She was a monster who survived on human flesh. Every forth night, she would go out to hunt and kill a human to satisfy herself and the master,” Janine said, and her voice gets tear soaked as she speaks.

“When she fell pregnant with me, she did not give her life for me,” she continues. “She did not choose to die so the spell would not be cast on me, but I chose to die. I chose to give my life for Mylah. When she opens her eyes and they have normal eye colour, then the spell did not get passed on to her. But if she opens her eyes and they are marble black, then the spell got passed on to her.

“I hope you will give her love and a better life. I also pray the master keeps his promises and lets Mylah lead a normal life,” she says, and then stands up and opens the door.

“What will happen to you?” I ask, standing up too and looking at Janine closely.

“I will die in the next two hours or so,” she responds, shrugging, and then bolts out of the door.

Suddenly, a bolt of lightning strikes, followed by Janine’s loud scream. I then close the door and sit down, staring at my child. She does not really resemble any one of us right now. To me, all infants look the same. She then whimpers in my arms and stirs, then her tiny eyes struggle, like she is trying to open them.

After a few more attempts at opening her eyes, and me staring at her, intently waiting to see the colour of her eyes, she eventually does open them.

When she opens her eyes, their colour is … they are marble black! Janine’s sacrifice did not work. Our daughter will go down the same lane her mother did, so I weep and scream as I realise that I will lose my daughter the same way I lost her mother.

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