You don’t believe in bad omens.
You believe in schedules, school runs, and making the best of a hard week.
So when you step into your kitchen and the air feels thick, you blame the rain, the heat, the generator, anything normal.
Then you hear it: a long, ugly hiss, like the house itself is whispering, too late.

You call your son’s name the way mothers do, half-scolding, half-laughing.
“Junior?” you say, expecting small feet, a quick “Mummy!” and the thud of a toy against a cabinet.
Instead, the kitchen answers with silence, and that hiss grows louder, sharper, more confident.
It sounds like something alive.

Your eyes sweep the room and stop on the deep freezer.
It sits against the wall, white and innocent, with a lid heavy enough to feel like a promise.
Something in you turns cold, because you remember how your boy was laughing earlier.
And you remember how the housemaid, Aunty Chidera, smiled too calmly while she led him away.

You move faster than your thoughts, your palms slick.
The freezer lid feels warmer than it should, like it’s been fought with.
You grab the handle and yank, and for a second it doesn’t budge, like the freezer is holding on to what it stole.
Then it gives.

The smell hits first.
Cold air, plastic, something sour, and the faint metallic bite of fear.
And there, curled small like a forgotten thing, is your child.
Junior’s lips are blue.

Your knees slam the tile so hard you don’t feel pain, only panic.
You pull him out and his body is limp in your arms, heavier than any child should ever be.
His lashes lie still against his cheeks, and his face looks like it’s already drifting away from you.
You press your ear to his chest like you can command a heartbeat by listening hard enough.

“Junior,” you whisper, because a scream feels like it might break him.
“You cannot leave me. I’m your mother. Stay.”
Your voice shakes as if your bones are trying to climb out of your skin.
And the kitchen keeps hissing, uninterested in your prayers.

You rock him on the cold floor, your back against the cabinet, your skirt soaking up spilled water from somewhere.
Your mind flips through memories like a desperate photo album: the day he was born, the way his fist curled around your finger, the first time he ran toward you shouting your name.
This morning’s laugh flashes bright, cruel, impossible.
Then your eyes drift to the gas cylinder in the corner and the sound finally matches what you’re seeing.

The cylinder is leaking.
A steady, furious stream, a snake of invisible death curling through your kitchen.
You know what gas does in a closed room, you know what one spark can become, you know how quickly “home” turns into headlines.
But none of that matters, because your son isn’t breathing.
And the only thing louder than the hiss is the thunder in your chest.

“God!” you cry, and the word tears out of you like cloth ripping.
“You gave him to me. You cannot take him back like this. Not like this.”
You clutch him tighter, as if your arms are a hospital, a shelter, a second womb.
Your tears fall onto his face and you don’t even wipe them away.

Then something happens that makes time stumble.
Junior’s chest jerks like it’s remembering how to be alive.
A sharp inhale splits the air, wet and ragged.
And you freeze, terrified to hope, terrified to blink.

He coughs, once, then again, hard enough to make his whole body jump.
His eyes flutter open, unfocused, confused like he’s waking from a nightmare he can’t describe.
“Mummy…” he rasps, the voice thin but real.
It’s the sweetest sound you’ve ever heard.

You scream, but it’s not grief anymore, it’s raw, shaking joy.
“He’s alive!” you sob, kissing his forehead, his cheeks, his hair, as if you can warm him back to the world with your mouth.
Your laugh comes out broken and dizzy, like your body doesn’t know how to hold this kind of relief.
“Baby, I’m here. Mummy is here.”

But the joy lasts only long enough for the danger to step closer.
Junior coughs again, and this time it’s violent, deep, desperate.
He buries his face against your chest and whispers, “Smell… Mummy… smell…”
That’s when you finally breathe in properly.

The air is wrong.
Too heavy, too sharp, too sweet in the way poison can be sweet.
Your throat burns like you swallowed fire, and your head tilts, the room swaying as if the tiles are waves.
The hiss from the cylinder is now a countdown you can hear with your whole body.

You try to stand and your legs argue with you.
Gas fumes make your brain thick, slow, slippery.
Your hands fumble around Junior’s small body, lifting him, adjusting him, trying to hold him while you hold yourself together.
The kitchen lights glare overhead, and suddenly even the bulb feels like an enemy.

Every switch becomes a threat.
Every appliance feels like a sleeping beast with sparks in its teeth.
The freezer’s thermostat clicks softly, and you imagine heat behind metal, wires behind plastic, one tiny spark turning this room into a funeral pyre.
You don’t touch anything.
You don’t even breathe right.

“Up,” you whisper to Junior, voice tight.
“We’re leaving now, okay? Stay with Mummy.”
He nods weakly, coughing into your shoulder, and you stagger toward the back door.
Your palm hits the handle and twists.

Locked.
Your stomach drops so hard you feel it in your throat.
Chidera locked it, because of course she did, because a wicked plan always comes with a lock.
You shove the door once, twice, harder, and the lock holds like it enjoys the power.

You turn to the windows like they can save you.
But the burglary proof is thick, iron bars crisscrossing the glass like the house is in prison.
You slap the metal and it doesn’t move.
Outside, the world exists, bright and careless, but it might as well be another planet.

“Help!” you try to shout.
The sound that comes out is a ragged croak, scraped raw by fumes.
Your eyes water, not from crying now, but from the gas and the fear and the way your lungs are beginning to protest.
Junior coughs again and clutches your shirt like he’s afraid to let go of life.

You spin, dizzy, searching for any exit that isn’t forced through fire.
Your mind keeps trying to do math it can’t afford: How much gas is in the air? How long before…?
You remember stories, the kind neighbors tell in whispers, about houses that exploded because someone flicked a switch.
Your hands tremble, because saving him from the freezer might have only moved you both into a different coffin.

That’s when you hear footsteps outside the kitchen.
Not Grandpa footsteps, not sleepy-family footsteps.
Quick, light, familiar footsteps that don’t belong to innocence.
Your heart slams once, hard, because you know that rhythm.

Chidera’s.
She’s coming back.

You clutch Junior and step away from the kitchen center, instinctively keeping distance from the cylinder.
Your mind screams at you to stay quiet, because if she hears you alive, she might finish what she started.
But the gas hisses louder, and your son’s coughing is a broken drum you can’t mute.
You feel trapped between a murderer and an invisible flame.

The kitchen door creaks open a fraction.
You see her silhouette before you see her face, a shape framed by the hallway light.
For one second she doesn’t move, like she’s listening for proof.
Then she steps in.

Chidera’s eyes go straight to the open freezer.
The color drains from her face so fast it looks like someone erased her.
Her mouth opens, but no words come out at first, because reality hit her harder than you ever could.
Junior is alive, and she wasn’t supposed to fail.

You don’t scream at her.
You don’t waste breath on insults.
You just stare, because something inside you has switched from grief to steel.
And in that stare, she understands you saw everything.

“What did you do?” you whisper, each word thin from fumes.
Her eyes flick to the gas cylinder, and for a heartbeat you see calculation spark there.
Not concern. Not guilt.
Opportunity.

“You should not move,” she says quickly, raising her hands like she’s the helper now, like she didn’t just try to bury your child in cold.
“The gas… it can explode. Stay. I will open the door.”
Her voice is too smooth, too practiced, like she’s said lines like this before.

Your skin prickles.
Because her words make sense, but her eyes don’t.
Her eyes keep traveling, scanning: the switches, the appliances, the closest way out.
And you realize something horrifying.
If she locks you in with the gas long enough, the story becomes “accident,” and she becomes “witness.”

Junior coughs and whimpers into your shoulder.
That small sound breaks your hesitation like glass.
You back toward the window, toward the bars, toward anything that puts distance between you and her.
Chidera takes a step forward, too fast.

“No,” you snap, voice rough.
Your hand finds a metal stool near the counter, and you drag it, scraping tile.
The noise makes Chidera flinch, because loud sounds bring attention, and attention is the enemy of secrets.
You jam the stool under the window bars and hoist Junior higher against you.

Your head swims, but you force your brain to focus.
Gas rises, gas spreads, gas waits for a spark.
But air still exists outside those bars, and you need it like a drowning person needs surface.
You wedge your fingers between the bars and the windowpane and shove the glass panel as far open as it allows.

A thin line of fresh air slices into the kitchen.
It isn’t enough, but it’s a beginning.
You press Junior’s face near the opening so he can breathe cleaner air first.
He gulps and coughs and clings, and you keep your own mouth close too, stealing oxygen like it’s gold.

Chidera’s voice sharpens.
“Madam, stop! You will cause problem!”
She moves again, trying to grab you, and you swing the stool without thinking, not to hurt her, but to make space.
It hits the floor with a crash that echoes through the house.

Somewhere upstairs, a door opens.
A voice calls, sleepy and confused, “Gloria? What is that?”
It’s your neighbor, Mrs. Adeyemi, the one who sometimes checks on you when your husband is away, the one who always notices too much.

Chidera freezes.
For the first time, fear touches her face in a way she can’t hide.
Because now there’s a witness.
Now there are ears besides yours.

“Help!” you croak, forcing the word out like you’re pushing a boulder uphill.
“Gas! Please! Help!”
Your throat burns, but you shout again, louder, because if you pass out now, your son will go with you.

Mrs. Adeyemi’s footsteps thunder closer.
She appears at the kitchen doorway, takes one look at the hissing cylinder, and her eyes go wide.
She doesn’t waste time on questions.
She screams toward the hallway, “NEPA off! Everybody out! CALL FIRE SERVICE!”

Chidera tries to slip backward like smoke, but Mrs. Adeyemi blocks her path without even meaning to.
The maid’s gaze darts around, hunting for an exit.
And you see her calculation collapse into panic.
Bad people are brave only in silence.

Mrs. Adeyemi grabs her phone with shaking hands, dialing emergency numbers so fast she hits wrong buttons twice.
She keeps her body between you and Chidera, instinctively protecting you even though she doesn’t know the whole story yet.
“Gloria, open your windows!” she shouts.
You cough hard and nod, pressing Junior’s face to the sliver of air.

“Don’t touch switches!” you rasp, because the warning matters.
Mrs. Adeyemi swallows, understanding, and backs out into the corridor to shout again for the main power to be cut.
Someone else responds, a male voice, your landlord’s son from downstairs, yelling “I’m coming!”
The house is waking up, and wickedness hates waking houses.

Chidera makes a move, suddenly bold, stepping toward the back door keys hanging on a hook.
Your heart spikes.
If she gets those keys, she can leave you locked in.
You lurch forward, dizzy, grabbing the keyring with fingers that feel numb.

Chidera grabs the other end.
For one second, you’re in a tug-of-war with a woman who tried to kill your child, in a kitchen that’s filling with gas, while your baby coughs against your shoulder.
Your see-sawing vision threatens to black out.
But anger gives you a strange kind of strength.

You yank, hard.
The keys come free, and you stumble backward, almost falling.
Chidera’s eyes flash.
She raises her hand, not with a cane, but with something small and metallic from her pocket.

A lighter.
Your blood turns to ice.

Mrs. Adeyemi screams from the hallway, “NO! DON’T!”
Chidera’s face twists, desperation spilling out of her like poison.
“If I go down, you go down,” she hisses, and her thumb moves toward the wheel.

You don’t think.
You throw the keys at her face as hard as you can.
They strike her cheek with a sharp smack, and she flinches, the lighter dropping from her grip and skittering across the tile.

The sound of that lighter sliding feels louder than thunder.
It stops near the fridge, harmless for now.
Your knees nearly give out from pure fear.
But the danger is still everywhere, invisible and hungry.

The landlord’s son rushes in, sees the lighter, sees the gas cylinder, and his face goes pale.
He grabs a thick towel from the counter, wraps it around his hand, and in a single brave motion, twists the gas knob shut.
The hiss dies slowly, like a snake finally losing breath.
Fresh air pours through windows as doors are thrown open, and the world starts moving again.

Outside, sirens grow louder.
Not one, but two: fire service and police, the sound of consequences arriving.
Chidera tries to run, but Mrs. Adeyemi snatches her sleeve with surprising strength for an older woman.
The landlord’s son blocks the doorway.
And suddenly the maid who acted like a queen in your home looks small and cornered.

You sink onto a chair, holding Junior so tight you’re afraid you’ll crush him.
He coughs less now, breathing in clean air, blinking like he can’t believe he’s still here.
Your tears return, but softer, relieved, furious, exhausted.
You press your lips to his temple and whisper, “You stayed. You stayed with me.”

The police arrive and take over the room like the house finally has order.
You can barely answer questions because your throat is raw and your head is pounding.
But you say the important parts, broken and shaking, while Mrs. Adeyemi fills in what she saw.
The freezer. The locked door. The lighter. The gas. The truth.

Chidera screams, denies, cries, tries to become a victim in front of uniforms.
But there are marks on the freezer lid, scratches on the inside, and the neighbors heard enough.
The landlord’s son points to the lighter on the floor like it’s a verdict.
And Junior, still trembling, whispers into your shoulder, “She said you were coming to beat me.”

Those words turn the room colder than any deep freezer ever could.
You look at your son, at his small face, at the way he trusts you even after what she did.
You realize the real miracle wasn’t only that he breathed again.
It’s that the truth surfaced before it could be buried.

Weeks later, your kitchen is repaired.
The cylinder is replaced, the ventilation improved, the back door lock changed, the freezer moved, the house rearranged like a body healing after trauma.
You still flinch at hissing sounds.
You still wake up at night and check Junior’s breathing like your heart doesn’t believe peace can last.

But life comes back in pieces.
Junior laughs again, slowly at first, then fully, the way children do when they decide the world is still worth trusting.
You put his drawings on the fridge, bright paper suns and stick-figure families that refuse darkness.
Mrs. Adeyemi visits more often, not out of pity, but out of a fierce new loyalty.

And you change too.
You stop apologizing for taking space in your own home.
You stop ignoring the small strange signs just because you don’t want to seem paranoid.
You learn that motherhood is not only tenderness.
Sometimes it’s war.

On a quiet evening, when the house smells like real food and not fear, Junior climbs into your lap and touches your cheek.
“Mummy,” he says softly, “you saved me.”
You kiss his fingers and answer the only true thing you know.
“No, baby. We saved each other.”

THE END