Ann collapsed to the cold tiled floor the moment her legs could no longer carry her weight. It was not a graceful fall. It was not dramatic. It was the kind of collapse that came when the body finally accepted what the mind had been screaming against since the first second. Oliver barely caught her in time, his arms wrapping around her as her knees buckled beneath her. "Ann...Ann, please" his voice cracked as he lowered her slowly, carefully, as though she were made of glass. But she was already gone. Gone into a place where the world no longer made sense. The morgue lights were too bright. Too cruel. They revealed too much. The stainless steel tables. The smell, sharp, sterile, unforgiving. And there, lying still, impossibly still, was her son. Her baby. Her Davis. "No… no… no…" Ann whispered, her voice barely sound, her lips trembling violently. "That's not him. That's not my son. My son is alive. My son is waiting for me."
She tried to crawl forward, dragging herself across the floor, her fingers clawing weakly at the tiles. "Ann," Oliver sobbed quietly, holding her back. "Please. Please don't"
She screamed. It tore out of her chest like something feral, something broken beyond repair. "My baby!" she wailed. "My baby is dead! Do you hear me? He's dead!" Her voice echoed through the morgue, bouncing off the walls, off the metal drawers, off the indifferent silence of death itself. Staff members froze where they stood. A nurse wiped tears from her eyes. Another looked away. Oliver tightened his grip on Ann as her body convulsed with grief. "Let me go!" Ann screamed, thrashing weakly. "Let me touch him! Let me hold him one last time!"
"They've already" Oliver swallowed hard. "They've already prepared him, Ann."
She let out a broken laugh, hysterical and hollow. "Prepared him for what? For the grave? For the ground?" She shook her head violently. "No. No. No. My son doesn't belong in the ground. He belongs in my arms." Her sobs grew louder, rougher, until her throat burned and her chest ached. Oliver finally lifted her, cradling her like a child as she continued to cry, her fists pounding weakly against his chest.
"I should have protected him," she whispered, her voice suddenly small. "I failed him. I failed my baby." "You didn't," Oliver murmured, tears sliding silently down his cheeks. "You didn't, Ann. This is not your fault." But she didn't hear him. Or maybe she did, and the words simply meant nothing anymore. By the time Oliver carried her out of the morgue, Ann was barely conscious. Her eyes were open, staring at nothing, her lips still moving as if she were speaking to someone only she could see. "Davis," she whispered over and over. "Mama is here. Mama is here." Oliver placed her gently on a bench outside and turned to the staff, his face wet with tears but composed in a way only a man taught to swallow pain could manage. "Please," he said hoarsely. "She doesn't want to be disturbed. She needs to be alone." The nurse hesitated. "Sir, she hasn't eaten since" "She doesn't want food," Oliver said firmly. "Or water. Or company. Please. Just… give her space." Ann nodded faintly, her gaze unfocused. "I want to be alone," she murmured. "Please. Just leave me alone." Oliver knelt in front of her, cupping her face gently. "I'll be right outside," he said softly. "I'm not leaving." She didn't respond. When he stepped away, Ann finally broke completely. She curled into herself, her arms wrapped tightly around her chest as though she could hold her heart together by force alone. The memories came flooding in too fast, too vivid, too cruel. Davis laughing as she chased him around the living room. Davis tugging at her dress, asking endless questions. Davis sleeping against her chest, his tiny fingers gripping her shirt like she might disappear. "Why him?" she cried out suddenly, her voice hoarse and raw. "What did he do? What crime did my baby commit?" Her words dissolved into sobs.
"Whoever did this," she screamed into the empty hallway, "come and kill me too! Come and finish it! There is nothing left to take!"
Her body shook violently as she cried, her tears soaking into her clothes, blurring her vision until the world became nothing but shadows and pain. "My parents," she whispered brokenly. "And now my son. All of them… gone." She pressed her forehead to the floor, gasping for air. "I don't understand. I don't understand. They were good people. We were good people." Her chest burned with every breath. "This world is wicked," Ann sobbed. "So wicked. So cruel."
Time passed, but it meant nothing. Minutes blurred into hours. Her throat felt torn apart from crying, yet the tears refused to stop. Even when her body grew weak, the pain remained sharp, alive, merciless.
Oliver stood at a distance, watching helplessly, his fists clenched at his sides. Tears slid silently down his face, but he made no sound. He had learned long ago that men were not supposed to wail. Not supposed to break. So he swallowed it.
He watched his wife unravel before his eyes and could do nothing but stand there.
Ann eventually lay still, her eyes open, staring at the ceiling. "My life is over," she whispered flatly. "It ended today."
Her lips trembled. "This world took everything from me." The lights above flickered softly. And somewhere deep inside Ann, something fragile cracked completely, quietly, permanently marking the moment her old life truly died.