Wasteland Without Crossing

A drop of purple blood fell from the sky and fell into his body. Karen is a barefoot pauper in a small African town. He can't support his wife and daughter, and he can't live a decent life. Until that drop of liquid that didn't belong to this world penetrated his skin, and he gained the strange ability to ripen all things - dead trees bloomed into spring, and the desert grew food. He thought this was fate finally opening its eyes. Until someone died under his knife, until his little daughter bumped into the woman in black on the way to escape. She was wrapped in black cloth, with only a pair of dark eyes exposed. She didn't get angry at anyone, she just smiled from ear to ear and said in a voice like rusty iron - **"I will come back again."** From that day on, the ability was disappearing and she was getting closer. In the mirror, in the puddles, and in the corner of the rearview mirror, she became clearer and clearer, getting closer and closer. Karen finally understood: that drop of purple blood was not a gift, but a bait. And what she wanted was not him—it was the trembling child in his arms.