Chapter 4 - The Voice from the Shadows
The interior door at the far end of the hallway swung open with a soft, oiled creak that barely disturbed the oppressive silence of the house. An older woman with sharp, observant gray eyes stepped into the corridor, her green cardigan buttoned tightly against a chill that seemed to emanate directly from the floorboards.
Without a moment of hesitation, she rushed across the polished wood, her rubber-soled slippers making no sound as she dropped to her knees beside the trembling, pregnant form on the floor.
"Was she abandoned?" the older woman asked aloud, her voice carrying a strange blend of bitter certainty and sorrow, as if she had asked the exact same question a hundred times before in this very hallway.
She leaned closer, peering into the tear-streaked face of the younger woman, and answered her own rhetorical inquiry with chilling calmness. "Yes, she was. Your first baby is coming right now."
"No," the pregnant woman sobbed, shaking her head violently as she clutched the older woman’s forearms with desperate, bruising strength. "There are two. Twins. Mark knows... Mark has to come back."
The older woman’s expression hardened, a shadow crossing her features that had nothing to do with the dim lighting of the hallway. "Mark is not coming back, child. Men like Mark only return when there is nothing left to steal."
"Help me," the younger woman begged, her body convulsing as another contraction crested with terrifying intensity. "Please, we have to call an ambulance."
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"There are no phones in this house that reach the outside world," the older woman replied firmly, sliding her hands beneath the younger woman’s shoulders to hoist her upward. "And even if there were, nobody is coming to save us. We have to do this ourselves."
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