The fluorescent lights above flickered faintly, buzzing under Elara Quinn’s skin. She lay on the hospital bed, limbs trembling, drenched in sweat, her chest heaving with breaths so shallow they barely stirred the air. Labor had stripped her bare—muscles useless, nerves frayed, her mind teetering on the edge of consciousness. Every part of her ached, yet the deepest pain was not physical. It was inside her chest, gnawing, hollow, endless.
She reached feebly toward the tiny form she had carried for months.
The cradle beside her was empty.
Her fingers twitched uselessly, grasping at air, at absence. A cold dread gripped her chest like iron.
“I… I can’t hear her,” she whispered, her voice raw, almost nonexistent. “She… she’s here. Where is she?”
The doctor stepped closer, careful and precise, clipboard in hand. Her face was pale, tight, professional—but behind the mask of calm there was a faint quiver, a trace of something human.
“Dr. Quinn,” she began softly, “I know this is difficult. Your daughter—there were complications immediately after birth. Her lungs—”
Breathless.
The word cut through Elara like a blade.
