IRYNA
The first time I coughed blood, I told myself it was nothing. Stress. Fatigue. Lack of sleep. Something temporary. Something fixable.
I had never been particularly strong. I was always the sick one — the girl with constant headaches, the sharp, unexplainable pain in my chest. It felt like something inside me didn't belong there. Something fighting for space with my heart.
My mother hated it.
She dragged me from hospital to hospital, demanding tests, scans, explanations. But the results were always the same. Nothing.
"It's stress," the doctors said. "She overworks herself."
And they weren't entirely wrong.
After my father ran away when I was born, leaving my mother with nothing but debts and a newborn, she carried everything alone. I watched her struggle. I watched her sacrifice. When I finally graduated, I promised myself she would never suffer like that again. So I worked. Too much. Too hard.
I let my boss pile assignments on my desk. I ignored the whispers about how pale I looked, how fragile I seemed. Weakness was a choice — and I refused to choose it. But as I stared in the restroom mirror at the thin smear of red at the corner of my lips, I didn't look strong. I looked terrified. I wiped the blood away, trembling. This wasn't stress. This wasn't exhaustion. Something was hollowing me out from the inside.
I had taken another test yesterday. I hadn't checked the results with the doctor yet. Part of me feared what I would find. A sharp pain pierced my chest. Deeper this time. Stronger. I grabbed the edge of the sink, gasping.
For a fleeting moment, I thought I felt it move. Not illness. Not pain. Something alive. Like something inside me shifted. I rinsed my mouth, forced my fingers to stop trembling, and returned to my desk. The office was silent. Every other desk empty. I was the last one left.
Of course I was.
I packed my things slowly, my chest still aching, then stepped into the cool evening air. The cab ride to the hospital was a blur. My heart pounded with each bump in the road. The results would be the same. Pills to dull the pain. Drugs that never worked. Whatever was inside me wasn't normal. It felt like something feeding on me.
The nurse at the front desk recognized me immediately. My stomach twisted.
"Please wait for the doctor," she said.
My phone buzzed. Ciara.
> Ciara: Have you gone to collect your results yet? Did you see the doctor?
I exhaled shakily.
> Me: I'm already here. Waiting.
> Ciara: Don't be scared. There's nothing wrong with you. Just stress, like always.
I wished I believed that.
"Iryna Grey."
My name echoed through the hallway. My throat tightened. I stood and walked into the doctor's office. I sat across from him, hands clasped tightly. He gave me a smile — gentle, encouraging… pitying.
I didn't like it.
"Doctor," I said, voice shaking. "Please, just tell me. What's wrong?"
He sighed, eyes drifting to the screen before returning to mine.
"Iryna… the results show severe end-stage cardiomyopathy," he said.
The words sounded foreign.
"Your heart muscle is deteriorating," he continued. "It's decaying at an abnormal rate. From the scans, it appears the tissue has been progressively breaking down."
Decaying. My heart.
"That's not possible," I whispered.
He leaned closer, pointing to the screen. I stared, though I didn't understand what I was seeing.
"Based on the progression," he said carefully, "you have no more than a month. A transplant isn't viable at this stage. Therapy and pain management are the only options."
The room felt distant. Muted. Like I was underwater.
"I've tested at multiple hospitals," I said, lips trembling. "Again and again. Nothing was ever wrong. How… how can this appear now?"
He sighed. "It's unusual. We've double-checked everything. If you want, we can repeat the scans."
"There has to be a mistake," I said. "It can't be real."
He nodded. "We'll redo everything. Prepare yourself… and we'll try to manage your symptoms. Sometimes… patients get more time than expected."
I swallowed the tears behind my eyes. "Redo the tests," I whispered.
The nurse led me to the scanning room. As I lay beneath the cold machine, staring at the white ceiling, the sharp pain returned — deeper, stronger. And for a split second, I felt it...move.
The machine hummed above. "Stay still," said the technician. I nodded.
The probe moved slowly over my chest. I wasn't trying to look at the screen. But I did. Shadows, grey shapes, movement. Nothing made sense. Then the technician stopped. Her hand frozen. The gel cold against my skin. Her eyes wide.
"Is… something wrong?" I asked.
She didn't answer. The silence stretched. My stomach twisted.
"Just relax. I just need to call in the cardiologist," she said quietly.
Moments later, the doctor walked in. He stared at the screen. His jaw tightened. He muttered under his breath, "This progression… it's not consistent with normal cardiac disease."
My voice caught. "It… it got worse?"
"Cardiac tissue doesn't deteriorate at this rate without a triggering event," he said. "And there's no evidence of one."
I wished he hadn't said anything at all. Because if there was no cause… then what was killing me?
After a few more tests, I decided to agree with the results. There was no need to continue with more scans and tests when the truth was lying in front of me. I could even get worse answers the more I tried.
We began speaking again. He explained they would place me under intensive special care — extra monitoring, stronger pain management, everything possible to give me more time. His voice was calm, methodical, filled with hope. He kept on talking about what I should do and what I should not. What I should eat, drink and what I shouldn't. I barely heard a word. My mind had already drifted. My mother… she would be alone. I hadn't even lived. Twenty-four years, and what had I done? Nothing. Most of my life had been spent just trying to keep up with it — with everything. And now… now this? It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all.
I stood suddenly, ignoring the doctor's calls. I walked through the hospital corridor like a ghost. My tears didn't fall. My body hadn't even registered what was happening. My phone rang in my hand, but I didn't look. I just kept walking.
And then I stumbled.
A hand shot out and caught me before I hit the floor. My eyes slowly traveled to the figure. He was dressed all in black, a cap pulled low, face covered. Something… strange. Something alive thrummed off him, a weight I couldn't place. Even after I passed him, the sensation lingered, crawling under my skin, unshakable.
Recognition. My body felt it, though my mind insisted I had never seen him before. I shook my head. My illness must be finally making me lose it.