While Ruminating on the Past

There was no time to hesitate.

If I delayed, I had no idea what Lazie, that mad monster, might do to the child.

My house, which I reached at the fastest speed I could manage, was a wreck.

It was inevitable, considering I hadn't maintained it at all in the meantime and had even smashed down the door myself.

'If I'd been in my right mind…. If I hadn't even gone so far as to break down the door….'

Guilt began to creep up on me, but I shook my head to brush it off and stood before the entrance.

'The smell of blood.'

The first thing to greet me as I descended from the sky was an overpowering stench of blood strong enough to make my nose curl.

Having smelled it so often during that time that I was sick of it, I recognized it immediately.

This was the smell of human blood, not a monster's...