“Hide inside this deep freezer. Your mummy is coming to beat you with a cane. Don’t come out until I open the door,” Aunty Chidera, the housemaid, whispered to Junior.

Gloria sat on the cold kitchen floor, holding the lifeless body of her son.

Time seemed to stop.

The only sound in the kitchen was the angry HSSSSSSSSSS of the leaking gas cylinder, but Gloria was deaf to it.

“Junior,” she whispered, her voice trembling.

“You cannot leave me. I am your mother. I need you to stay.”

She looked at his blue lips. She remembered the day he was born. She remembered his first walk.

She remembered how he laughed this morning before Chidera took him.

“God!” she screamed, looking up at the ceiling.

“You gave him to me! You cannot take him back like this! Not in a deep freezer! Not by the hand of a wicked maid!”

She cried and squeezed the lifeless body to herself.

She squeezed him tight.

And then—

A miracle happened.

GASP.

Junior’s small body jerked.

Gloria’s eyes flew open.

COUGH. COUGH.

The boy’s chest heaved. He took a deep, ragged breath, like a drowning man coming up for air.

“Mummy…” he whimpered, his voice weak and hoarse.

Gloria screamed. But this time, it was a scream of joy.

“He is alive! Jehovah, he is alive!”
She hugged him, kissing his cold forehead, laughing and crying at the same time.

“I am here, baby. Mummy is here.”
But her joy lasted for only few seconds.

As Junior took another breath, he started coughing vi0l£ntly.

Cough! Cough! Cough!

“Smell…” he whispered, burying his face in Gloria’s chest. “Mummy… smell…”

Gloria stopped laughing. She finally took a deep breath.

The air was thick.

She looked at the corner. The 12.5kg gas cylinder was still hissing.

The reality hit her like a slap.
She had saved him from the cold, but now the gas was kill!ng them.

“Stand up, Junior! We have to go!”

She tried to stand, but her legs wobbled. The gas fumes were already affecting her brain. She felt dizzy. The room was spinning.

She grabbed Junior and staggered to the back door.

LOCKED.

She had forgotten. Chidera locked it.

“Help!” she tried to shout, but her voice came out as a croak. Her throat was burning.

She looked at the window. The heavy iron burglary proof laughed at her.

There was no way out.

She was terrified of everything. The light Bulb, the switches, even to turn off the deep freezer was a problem, those sparks in the switch..

The sound of the deep freeze thermostat, the hot iron behind every freezer…

She knew what a kitchen filled with electrical appliances and with cooking gas could cause…

SAVE THIS EPISODE AND SHARE TO BE NOTIFIED WHEN WE POST AGAIN