The silence in the room felt like a noose tightening slowly around my throat—thick, invisible, and cruelly patient. I couldn't hear the hum of machines anymore, just the steady beat of my own heart, thudding like a war drum in my chest, over and over again, as if it were begging me not to collapse. But I could feel it—the emptiness. The sterile hollowness that followed grief like a shadow.
I blinked at the white walls, my eyes blurry but dry. Tears had stopped making sense.
There, in the center of the room, the incubator stood open.
Cold.
Lifeless.
The blue blanket folded too neatly.
And my baby—my baby was gone.
I moved one foot forward. Then another. I didn't recognize the strength it took to move because I no longer knew what strength meant. My palm touched the edge of the incubator. It was cold. Too cold. Like the hands that had stolen her. Like the silence that answered every scream I'd let loose when the nurse came in and whispered words I refused to believe.
