Chapter 9.5
Seven hours ago.
Jean slowly opened her sleepy eyes and greeted herself to the windy evening. She was having a nice afternoon nap with her baby sister Jane.
'Mo… Mommy?' she asked. 'Oh yeah, Mommy's away for work. She told me to look after Jane…' The small girl was barely four years old but she seemed to have inherited her mother's intelligence, able to converse her thoughts well in comprehensible Japanese at such a young age.
Jane was still sleeping soundly in her cradle. Her older sister cautiously tiptoed out of the bedroom.
'It's six thirty now…' Jean mused as she stared at the wall clock with her two blurry eyes. 'I'm hungry…' Her stomach growled in response.
She trudged to the kitchen and immediately opened the refrigerator, hoping to look for some food.
Nothing. There was nothing in the fridge at all. Jean frowned in disappointment.
'Oh yeah! That's right!' She suddenly remembered something.
Slowly and creepily, the girl made her way to the cupboard, where her mother placed all her packets of instant noodles. She took out a packet and unwrapped it.
'Is Mommy having all these for her dinner?' she thought. 'Is she having some financial difficulties? Why is she eating all these? She said herself that instant noodles are bad for health.'
'Fire, fire…' she said to herself as she walked over to the stove.
'Remember Jean and Jane, don't play with fire! It's dangerous!'
'I'm not playing with fire anyway,' Jean tried to find an excuse for her. 'I'm just cooking something to fill up my stomach.' She switched the stove open.
'Whoosh!' A gust of wind suddenly blew into the kitchen. Jean tried to close the windows but found out that she was not tall enough to reach them, even as she was standing on the stool. She let out a grudge and returned to retrieve her pot.
Another gust of wind blew. This time, it was much stronger.
The pot had been half-filled with water. Jean closed the running tap and brought it over to the stove.
As she turned her head back, her eyes widened in horror.
There was an inferno on the stove, reaching its claws like a demon towards the surroundings. As the wind blew stronger and stronger, the fire burned fiercer.
Jean couldn't do anything at all. She stared blankly as the monstrous fire started to devour the whole kitchen up.
