Morning rose like a hesitant witness, its light spilling over a city that had forgotten how to breathe. The sun climbed the horizon, gazing upon the remnants of chaos, upon horror and silence, and it dared to shine upon the still body of Jordan. He lay beneath a blue hospital blanket, the fabric drawn high, concealing all but one hand that had slipped free—a final gesture of resistance against oblivion.
The room was void of life: the untouched tray resting on the nightstand, the television silenced as though ashamed of its flickering noise. Behind the closed door, Kimberly collapsed into Paula's embrace, her sobs carving through the sterile quiet.
"I couldn't see him... I couldn't be there... I promised him I would be there," she wept, her voice cracking against the certainty of loss.
"Shh... Sometimes promises cannot be kept," Paula whispered, her tone gentle but trembling with youth. Yet Kimberly rejected the words with a shake of her head, the truth too bitter to swallow.
Moments later, Martha arrived, clipboard in hand, her expression carved into a professional mask. She did not acknowledge Kimberly, nor her grief, but her lips curved into a faint smile directed at Paula—as if to assure her she was doing well in the role of comforter. Without hesitation, Martha entered the room.
The air was heavy, laden with absence. She approached the bed, hesitated for a fraction of a heartbeat, and then drew back the blanket with one hand. Jordan's face stared upward, pale and drained, his eyes still open, reflecting nothing but the void. Martha exhaled slowly, as if releasing the weight of a secret. Then, with the same calm hand, she lowered his eyelids, closing the final window to his world.
"Now you'll see nothing but black, Mr. Jordan," she murmured. Her voice carried neither cruelty nor warmth—only inevitability.
She scribbled something quickly on the clipboard, the pen scratching like a nervous insect, before replacing the cover over Jordan's face. She turned once more toward the door, her gaze lingering briefly at the empty tray on the bedside, then left, the silence broken only by the soft click of the door and the faint, desperate cries of Kimberly down the hall.
As she passed, Martha leaned close to Paula, who was still whispering words of comfort into Kimberly's hair. "Next time, close the patient's eyes," she instructed flatly, before walking away toward her office.
"Doctor Martha..." Kimberly's voice stopped her just before she turned the corner.
"Yes, Mrs. Kimberly?"
"You're Edwards's sister, aren't you?"
"That's right."
"Please... ask him to come. I want him to tell Iris about Jordan. I can't do it myself."
Martha studied her for a second, then nodded with measured calm. "Very well. I'll let him know."
She gave Paula a subtle wink, a conspiratorial gesture meant to steady the younger nurse. Kimberly, exhausted, began to quiet, her sobs dissolving into shivers.
Martha returned to her office, setting the clipboard down with a sharp tap upon the desk. Alone now, the composure fractured. A sudden tremor of weakness ran through her chest, and she clutched at it, whispering under her breath:
"Damn it... this anemia is killing me."
Her hand fumbled for the familiar bottle of iron pills. She shook a few into her palm and swallowed them dry, her throat tight with fatigue. The bitter aftertaste lingered, heavy and metallic, like blood.
Her eyes fell upon the windowsill, where a small photograph leaned against the glass: a baby, smiling, untouched by the burdens of hospitals and graves. Martha stared at it for a long while, her green eyes dimming.
"Why is it so hard to save anyone...?" she whispered, the words breaking apart as they left her.
Then, slowly, her gaze shifted to the phone on her desk. It sat there like an accusation, like a burden waiting to be lifted. For several seconds she merely watched it, her breath uneven.
Finally, with a hand that trembled almost imperceptibly, Martha picked it up.
Then, Edwards stepped out of his apartment with hurried steps, his phone already buried deep in his pocket. The streets were emptier than usual, yet heavier, as though the air itself carried the burden of unsaid farewells. Every corner, every crack in the pavement, whispered fatigue.
On a bench by the roadside sat a hooded figure, the brim of his garment shadowing most of his face, a newspaper trembling faintly in his hands. As Edwards passed, the man lifted his eyes just enough to catch him from the corner of his gaze. Across the street, walking in the opposite direction, was Martha. For a moment, the memory of their last encounter stirred—but this time their eyes did not meet. The gravity of the hour demanded distance; it demanded silence.
The hooded man observed them both, then folded his paper with a slow, deliberate gesture. Rising from the bench, he drifted toward a nearby alleyway. The world seemed to grow darker as he moved, as though the walls themselves recoiled from his presence. At the end of the alley, he pried open a rusted conduit, slipping down the iron steps until the shadows swallowed him whole.
Below, the tunnels of the old sewer stretched like veins beneath the city. There, gathered around a table scarred by years of use, a group awaited. The hooded man bowed his head.
"I've found him, sir," he said.
From the dim light, a face emerged—Richardson's. His eyes burned with a feverish hunger.
"You know your task," Richardson growled, his fist striking the table with a thunder that echoed through the stone chambers. "I want my daughter back."
The men around him rose without a word, the scrape of their chairs a grim chorus. One by one, they melted into the tunnels, their silhouettes consumed by the dark.
Meanwhile, Edwards pressed forward, each step toward the hospital carrying the weight of choices he could not undo. The corridors swallowed him in their sterile whiteness, the smell of antiseptic clawing at his memory. He caught sight of Kimberly in the waiting room, slouched in a chair, tears streaming down her face. She looked up just enough to see him walk past. He did not approach her. He couldn't. But she saw him—saw him and wept harder, as though his absence at her side confirmed her loneliness.
Edwards entered Iris's room. She lay submerged in her ocean of unconsciousness, adrift where no hand could reach her. The steady rhythm of the monitors filled the silence like a heartbeat borrowed from a machine. He pulled up a chair and sat beside her.
"How are you?" he whispered, his voice hoarse with fatigue. "I heard you had another attack... That's all right. Sometimes doubt is the only thing that keeps us alive."
He inhaled deeply, searching for words among the ashes of truth.
"I don't know if you felt it, if you sensed it where you are... but your father is gone. And you weren't there to see him."
His hand reached for hers, the contact fragile, almost reverent.
"Do you remember, back when Sarah was still inside you? You said you had dreams... told your father that maybe one day you'd take her to watch the stars. He loved the stars, didn't he? Knew them like old friends."
He withdrew his hand slowly, standing with effort.
"I'll take your daughter to her first day of school. That was meant to be your moment... but now my sister will do it instead. She'll treat her well, I promise. Strange, isn't it? How she behaves so well in a house that isn't her own. Who would have imagined that?"
His eyes wandered to the beeping machine, its green lines tracing the fragile insistence of life.
"Hold on if you can... for your mother's sake. She's unraveling, Iris. You can see it in her eyes—she thinks she's being abandoned. She thinks she's a burden to you, to everyone."
He bent closer, his tone softening, as if speaking to a child.
"But I swear this: I'll protect Sarah with everything I have. I'll shield her from this... this ugliness. She won't see the world as it really is—not until she's old enough to bear it. And when that time comes... you'll be there with her. As for me... who knows where I'll be."
A shadow passed through his expression, a secret bleeding through his words.
"I want to leave this business I'm trapped in. But walking away would mark me. They don't let you go free... and leaving is its own kind of death. Still, I know you hear me. That's enough."
His voice faltered, then steadied again.
"Your mother may not come. She's too deep in her grief to speak to you. She thinks you're turning from her on purpose. She thinks she's in the way."
Edwards exhaled, as though emptying the weight of confession.
"So I'll talk to her. I'll try to calm her down."
He glanced at her one last time, her stillness like the surface of a lake at midnight.
"Sleep well, Iris," he whispered.
Then, with the quiet determination of a man who had learned to live with ghosts, Edwards turned and left the room.
Edwards pushed open the door to the waiting room, where Kimberly still sat, waiting for nothing but the echo of absence. The light above hummed faintly, a sterile white that seemed to mock the emptiness inside her. He crossed the room without a word, plucked a folded sheet of paper from the box on the center table, and sat down beside her. Without looking at him, Kimberly took the paper.
"Thank you..." she murmured, her voice trembling, the paper trembling with it as she lifted it to her tear-stained eyes.
For several long seconds, silence stretched between them. It wasn't a silence of peace, but of suffocation—the kind that thickens the air and makes every breath feel borrowed. Finally, Kimberly spoke, her voice breaking like glass.
"Sometimes I think everything falls apart around me because God doesn't want me near the ones I love. Because He wants me to be alone. Or worse... because He knows no one loves me, and He doesn't want me to realize it myself."
Edwards leaned back, his eyes steady, unflinching. "God doesn't exist, Kimberly."
She turned her face toward him, anger lighting through the grief. "Don't start with your nonsense, Edwards. If you believe in nothing, then you're not even alive."
"I believe in myself," he said, almost harshly. "That's why I'm still here. You could use a little more of that."
Her eyes, heavy and red, dropped back to the floor. "First Iris and her unconsciousness. Then Sarah with her struggles. And now Jordan and his... his life..."
The word caught in her throat and collapsed. Tears spilled again, heavy, raw, like a dam breaking with no warning. Edwards stared, unable to console her, as though every possible gesture of comfort had already been disqualified by the sheer weight of coincidence.
"All I know," he said finally, "is that it was coincidence. Nothing to do with you."
She shook her head slowly, her voice a whisper of despair. "Do you really think so? Too much coincidence to be coincidence..."
Edwards shifted, sensing her descent into an abyss he couldn't climb down into. He changed the subject abruptly, almost clumsily.
"My sister decided to take Sarah to school. To register her. At Riverside."
Kimberly's laugh was bitter, fractured. "Yes. And it was such a burden for her to be here with Jordan, wasn't it? Easier to run to a school than to call a funeral home."
"There are other doctors besides my sister," Edwards muttered, defensive.
"She's a good person," Kimberly said suddenly, almost contradicting herself, the grief twisting her words. "Does Sarah even know her?"
"Yes," Edwards replied softly. "At least I believe so. She's been adapting well... you'd be surprised."
Kimberly allowed a faint smile, weary and broken. "Maybe better than with me."
Edwards froze. There was no reply that could patch that wound. Finally, he managed only: "Don't say that, woman. Life isn't all roses."
Her eyes flickered up to him, glinting with bitter irony. "And you think I don't know that?"
She laughed then, short, sharp, sarcastic, a laugh with no joy, before standing. Without another word, she walked away, her footsteps echoing down the corridor until Edwards was left alone in the sterile quiet, the paper still trembling in her chair.
In a place far removed from the dim corridors of the hospital and the shadowed alleyways of the city, there rose a school—imposing, vibrant, and green. It was not merely painted green; it seemed to breathe it. The walls glowed with it, the windows reflected it, and even the air seemed tinged with the hue, as if the building itself had borrowed Sarah's own color and let it bloom across every stone.
Martha walked hand in hand with little Sarah, both of them facing the towering doors that opened like a promise of new beginnings.
"You know," Martha said softly, "I came to this school when I was your age."
"Really? That's so cool! Do you think you'll meet someone you know here?"
"Perhaps," Martha chuckled faintly. "But it was nearly twenty years ago. Most of the teachers back then were strict, even frightening—but they knew more than anyone else."
Sarah's eyes widened, bright with curiosity. "And do you think I could know more than them one day? Like Mr. Edwards?"
"If you study," Martha replied, "someday you might be even wiser than Mr. Edwards. But let me give you one piece of advice, Sarah: ignorance is a heavy burden. So never put your faith blindly in anyone... not even in what seems certain."
Sarah smiled, though she did not fully understand. To her, the words were like half-formed stars—beautiful, though their meaning was hidden. Together, they stepped into the school.
Inside, the secretary's office was cavernous, lined with filing cabinets and the faint smell of chalk dust and paper. At the desk sat the headmistress, an older woman with silver hair that fell like threads of frost, her figure slim and austere. Nearby stood the custodian, broader and younger, though still marked by the years.
"Good morning," Martha began. "I would like to register this child... at your school."
"Very well. Names?" the headmistress asked without lifting her pen.
"Sarah Hurting," said the girl herself, stepping out shyly from behind Martha's skirts.
The firmness of her own voice surprised Martha, and for an instant she heard her earlier words echoing—don't believe in anyone you don't know. Already, Sarah's mind was sharpening, learning to guard itself.
"And how old are you, dear?" the headmistress asked.
"I'm four years old, but I'll be five very soon!" Sarah answered quickly, stealing the words from Martha's mouth, for Martha had nearly forgotten.
The woman nodded. "And this will be your first time in school?"
"Yes," Martha replied carefully. "In theory, her... guardian was meant to bring her, but he was occupied with matters I cannot share."
Sarah, innocent and unfiltered, cut through the formal veil. "Why didn't Mr. Edwards come? You still haven't said!"
"Sarah," Martha said quickly, glancing at the headmistress. "We'll talk about that later. For now, let the headmistress show you how children learn here."
Sarah approached timidly, and the headmistress bent her voice into a softer tone, explaining the lessons as though weaving a story. Martha watched, but her mind drifted elsewhere, to memories of the hospital, of patients and scars, of a mockingbird that once perched in her wrist. She looked down at that part of her body, where an old scar lay like an unwanted relic. The green of her eyes seemed to fade as her thoughts darkened, and the sound of the headmistress's voice grew distant, as though swallowed by water.
Sarah, sensing it, turned like a compass needle drawn to a magnetic field. Her small voice cut through Martha's haze.
"What do you see, Miss Martha? Do you know her?"
Martha blinked, startled, and glanced nervously from Sarah to the headmistress. "No, Sarah. I don't know her."
The headmistress smiled faintly. "Funny. I've been here since like twenty years ago. I've been teaching since then as well, literature in fact. Though... I don't recall you."
Martha's face stiffened, her voice clipped. "Yes... I heard those stories. I was here too." She did not explain further.
Sensing the heaviness, the headmistress quickly shifted the subject. "Well then, young lady, let me show you the classrooms where children like you will learn. Come along."
"And Martha can't come with me?" Sarah asked, hesitation in her voice.
"No, my dear. This part is just for students and teachers."
Hearing that, Sarah ran back to Martha and threw her arms around her waist. The sudden embrace broke through Martha's dark fog like sunlight piercing storm clouds. Her eyes, once dulled, glowed green again, the very same green as Sarah's. For a moment, the two were bound together in a silence that spoke louder than words.
"Sarah," Martha whispered, stroking her hair, "listen to her. Go on. You'll be safe. I'll be right here watching. Do you trust me?"
Sarah nodded, more resolute now, and turned toward the headmistress, following her with small, hesitant steps.
Left behind, Martha sat back down, a single tear sliding free. From her bag she pulled a familiar vial of iron tablets. One by one she swallowed them, feeling the metal dissolve into her bloodstream, as though reforging her from the inside. And for a brief, fragile moment, calm returned to her.
Hours later, Edwards returned home with the ordinary rhythm of a man who had done this countless times before. He set the grocery bag down on the counter, the quiet of the house echoing around him like the hush of a cathedral long abandoned. From the cupboard above he pulled a glass, filled it with tap water, and drank slowly. Silence had been a constant here, a silence so thick it seemed to have settled into the very walls.
Then the old flip phone on the counter buzzed and rang. Edwards answered without a word.
"We've found them," came a voice, ragged and hurried. "Leave your house now. They're coming for Sarah."
The line went dead.
Edwards froze, the words slashing through him like broken glass. For the first time in years—perhaps for the first time ever—he felt protective of someone other than himself. Sarah. His pulse roared in his ears, rising up his throat.
He moved quickly, eyes darting around the room. Peeking through the curtain, he saw it: a black van pulling up in front of the house. Richardson stepped out, towering and cold, flanked by three armed men. The predator had arrived.
Edwards slipped to the back of the house, pressing himself against walls, avoiding every window. He was calculating his escape when he froze—the sound of a child's sing-song chant drifted from outside. Sarah's voice.
The blood in his veins turned to stone.
He slid open the back window—the one that led to Sarah's room—and climbed out as carefully as a thief. Outside, Richardson had already turned toward the sound.
"Sarah..." Richardson's voice slithered across the yard, cracked and false. "My daughter... How are you?"
Sarah recoiled instantly, fear trembling through her small body, and buried herself behind Martha, who had taken her there. Martha stiffened, instinct rising in her chest like it once had when she protected her younger brother. She stepped forward, voice sharp as steel.
"You will not touch Sarah."
Richardson sneered. "And who the hell are you? You can't tell me what to do with my own daughter. She was stolen from me!"
The three soldiers raised their weapons, the metallic click puncturing the air. Sarah was already sobbing, her tiny hands clutching Martha's coat, her mind flashing back to the night her mother, Iris, fell into the coma.
"You dare to call yourself her father?" Martha spat. "You abandoned her. You never even looked at your wife after what happened—and now you come here, claiming Sarah is yours?"
Richardson laughed, a hollow, splintering sound. "You know nothing."
"I know enough," Martha shot back, her eyes burning. "I'm the doctor who's been caring for Iris. I've heard every whisper, every silence. I know exactly who you are."
From the corner of her eye, Martha spotted Edwards crouched behind the wooden fence. Sarah clung tighter. Martha knelt and whispered in her ear.
"Go to the fence. Trust me."
Sarah hesitated. "I'm scared..."
"That means you're alive," Martha murmured fiercely. "Go. Now."
Sarah bolted toward the fence, and Richardson snarled. "She's not escaping!"
Edwards lunged forward, arms out, catching Sarah and pulling her to him just as gunfire cracked through the air. The world shattered into chaos.
Bullets tore into siding and glass. Sarah ducked down, scurrying with Edwards toward the slope that led to the parking lot by the lake. Two men chased, firing relentlessly.
Richardson snapped into his phone. "Send two more units, now!"
Martha sprinted across the parked cars, shots ringing around her. A bullet slammed into a windshield near her, shards exploding, throwing her to the pavement. Her iron tablets spilled from her bag, scattering like useless coins. For a heartbeat, she thought she was dead—but it was only a graze across her ear. Crouching low, using the shattered window as cover, she wrenched open the car door, slid inside, and drove off, bullets chasing her shadow. The pills lay forgotten on the ground.
Meanwhile, Edwards carried Sarah in his arms, vaulting the fence, limping through alleyways until two black cars screeched into the street. Desperation clawed at him. He spotted a drainage duct leading down to the sewers and staggered toward it. A bullet ripped through his leg, but he didn't fall. Sarah clung to his jacket like it was her lifeline, her tiny fingers digging into the fabric.
He pried open the grate and pushed her inside first, then followed. But the pain crippled his movements; he couldn't shut the cover properly. Gunfire rattled against the metal as he descended.
The sewers were a labyrinth of damp stone and echoing darkness. He pushed forward, breath ragged, Sarah pressed tight to his chest. Then, movement. Ahead, at a crossing tunnel, three soldiers appeared and opened fire.
Edwards didn't hesitate. Like a beast protecting its young, he turned his body into a shield. Bullets struck him again and again, six in his back, one tearing his side, two burning into his ribs. He gritted his teeth and staggered on, refusing to let Sarah take even a scratch.
With one final surge of will, he forced open a door leading deeper down. A staircase yawned below, steep and unforgiving. He tried to close the door behind them, but his leg gave way. He fell, tumbling down the steps, yet all the while, he cradled Sarah, taking the blows of each stone edge so she would not.
They landed hard at the bottom. Edwards slumped against the wall, his breath ragged, but alive, for her. Sarah cried, her small body shaking with terror, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Mr. Edwards? Can you hear me? Please... Mr. Edwards!"
His eyes were heavy, closing against his will. Blood trickled down, soaking into the filth of the sewer floor. Above them, the gunfire still roared.
The door burst open. A figure appeared in the dim stairwell, Paulie, descending step by step, his shadow stretching long and ominous.
And finally, in the blackout, Sarah screamed,
"MR. EDWARDS!!!"
TO BE CONTINUED...