Chapter 331: A Little Oreo
Without a second of hesitation, Ren sprinted past the tiger and dove headfirst into the murky, freezing swamp water, desperately chasing after the cub.
The shock of the frigid water hitting her system was instantaneous. It felt as though a thousand tiny ice daggers had just pierced her skin. The swamp was pitch-black, suffocating, and tasted like a million years of decaying frogs and rotting marsh weed.
Ren’s eyes burned as she forced them open underwater, but visibility was less than zero. The pale, fractured moonlight piercing through the canopy above barely penetrated the surface, leaving her in a swirling void of dark sludge.
Panic seized her throat, but she swallowed it down. She kicked her feet frantically, diving deeper into the murky abyss.
Her emerald silk dress ballooned around her legs like a parachute, fighting against her every movement.
She swept her arms blindly through the water, her hands grasping at nothing but slimy algae and suspended clumps of mud. Where was he? He was so tiny, he could have sunken straight to the bottom like a stone.
Suddenly, her left hand brushed against something solid. Ren lunged for it, her fingers closing tightly around a thick, cylindrical shape. She gave it a yank, only to realize with horror that she had just grabbed the tail of a sleeping swamp-eel.
The eel thrashed wildly, slapping her across the cheek with its slimy body before darting away into the darkness.
Ren gagged, releasing a bubble of precious air. She was running out of time. Her chest felt like it was trapped in a vice.
She kicked deeper, sweeping her arms in wide, desperate arcs.
’Come on, come on!’
Just as her vision started to go fuzzy at the edges, her fingers grazed something incredibly soft, a tiny, delicate hand.
Ren surged forward, wrapping both of her arms around the small, limp body of the infant. He was unresponsive.
Planting her feet against a submerged, rotting log, Ren pushed off with every single ounce of strength she possessed. She kicked her legs furiously, fighting against the terrible drag of her dress and the weight of the swamp water. Up, up, up.
She burst through the surface with a dramatic splash, sucking in huge, ragged gasps of the crisp night air.
"I have you!" Ren coughed, treading water as she held the tiny cub securely above the surface. "I have you!"
She looked frantically around the dark expanse of the swamp. In her desperate, blind swim, the underwater currents had dragged her away from the hidden cave’s entrance. The towering obsidian walls of Syris’s fortress were miles away, reduced to a dark smudge against the horizon.
Spotting a small, isolated patch of thick mud protruding from the water a few yards away, Ren swam for it. She dragged herself onto the bank, her feet slipping in the sludge. She ignored the freezing wind whipping across her soaked skin, her focus narrowed on the tiny infant she had just pulled from the depths.
She collapsed onto her knees in the mud and gently laid the newborn flat on the wet earth.
He wasn’t moving.
"Come on," Ren chanted, her voice cracking in terror as she leaned over him. "Come on, little guy. Do not do this to me."
His skin was pale, icy to the touch, and devoid of life. Worse, his tiny neck was bent at an unnatural angle from Vara’s vicious attack.
Tears hot with panic blurred Ren’s vision, but she furiously blinked them away. She placed two fingers gently over the center of his tiny chest.
"One, two, three," Ren counted aloud, applying delicate but firm pressure. She tilted his chin up, trying her best to ignore the horrifying angle of his neck, and blew a tiny puff of air into his mouth.
Nothing happened.
She tried again. Press, press, press. Breathe.
The silence of the swamp was deafening, broken only by her frantic counting and her desperate gasps for air. The minutes dragged on. The cub remained perfectly still. His eyes were closed tight.
"Please," Ren sobbed, her hands trembling as she continued the compressions. "Breathe!"
She pushed. She breathed. She begged whatever deity ruled this crazy world to intervene.
But a cold, hollow dread eventually settled deep into her bones. Her arms grew weak with exhaustion. Her shoulders slumped in defeat. The realization washed over her, chilling her deeper than the swamp water ever could.
He was gone.
Ren pulled her hands away, letting out a devastated sob. She scooped the tiny, lifeless infant into her arms and cradled him tightly against her chest, rocking back and forth in the mud.
"I am so sorry," Ren wept into his soft, half-white, half-black hair. "I am so, so sorry I let her get you."
A sudden cough vibrated against her collarbone.
Ren froze.
The cub’s chest spasmed. He opened his tiny mouth and let out a second, much stronger cough, spitting a mouthful of briny swamp water down the front of her dress.
CRACK. A popping noise echoed in the quiet night. The infant’s broken neck literally snapped itself back into alignment.
Color rushed back into his pale cheeks. The infant took a breath, his tiny hands curling into tight fists. He opened his striking eyes and blinked up at her, looking unbothered by his recent brush with death.
Ren stared down at him, her jaw unhinged.
"You..." Ren gasped, letting out a watery, hysterical laugh. "You are ridiculously durable for a newborn! Oh my goodness, you are alive!"
She squeezed him in a fierce, joyful hug, uncaring about the wet mud soaking her knees. She had done it. She had saved him.
But as the rush of adrenaline slowly began to recede, reality crept back in. Ren finally looked up from the baby and surveyed her bleak surroundings.
She was stranded.
She was sitting on a tiny, precarious mud island barely ten feet wide, surrounded by deep, pitch-black swamp water.
"Okay, this is bad," Ren muttered, her teeth beginning to chatter.