9

The fight continued. Maria was knocked all doors, but in vain. She was crushed between cogwheels. She decided to read the lawyers' letter once again. It was her sentencing.

The letter fell out of her hands, Maria's devastated body crashed on a chair. 'This cannot be!', the noise in her head was telling her. 'It sure can!', the emptiness in her heart answered.

Maria was regaining consciousness. She felt as if she had a gob in her chest and it contained all forgotten grievances of the past and unpleasant memories of youth. They turned out to be preserved, saving everything Maria hated. The gob started was growing, inflicting a dull crushing pain - a scent of trouble. The gob was also turning, winding on the nerves that were drifting in the secluded, hidden fibers of a silent soul for a long time. When the gob reached its critical mass, it exploded like a bomb. A blast wave lifted Maria from her chair.

'I won't give..!', she squealed abruptly. 'Doy hear me? I won't give you my child!!!'

In support of her words, Mary picked up the letter from the floor and tore it to pieces.

'That's it!', she said with certainty.

However, anxiety was already jumping over her bare nerves.

She could expect anything from those people.

'Oh, Kate, my baby! What happens now?', Maria's brain was literally haunted with that terrifying thought, spreading panic and rampage in her head.

She felt furious need to make sure that her child is safe. Mary will cover her daughter with her own body. Let them just try to get close to Kate, if they dare! Maria will jump down their throats and bite them in two. She will not give her precious child to anyone!

Maria took her woolen cape from the hanger, but gasped and grabbed her heart right away. To avoid falling, she leaned on one of the wooden case shelves, laden with beautiful trinkets. This saved her from falling for few moments but she ran out of breath quickly and Maria slowly crumpled to the floor not releasing the temporary support.

The case swayed, the Serenity figurine fell on lacquered flooring and fragments of ceramic branches danced around the room.

Then, the fruit of life slowly rolled out from the pieces of the figurine. It stopped right in front of the woman's face. She was laying on the floor and her, whose lips continued to silently repeat 'I won't give you my child'…