Chapter 2 - The Crimson Stain
“Mom?” I gasped, lunging forward and pushing the door wide open.
My mother froze. She didn't look up immediately. She kept her hands pressed flat against the carpet, her head bowed as ragged, shallow breaths rattled in her chest. The gray dress was stained a dull, metallic brown across the lower back—dried blood mixed with sweat.
“Laura,” Mark said sharply, stepping past me. He knelt down beside her, his expression instantly shifting from anger to deep, panicked concern. “Elena, look at me. What is this?”
Slowly, agonizingly, my mother lifted her head. Her face was the color of skim milk, translucent and slick with cold sweat. Her lips were cracked and bled slightly where she had bitten them to keep from crying out.
“I’m… I’m fine, Mark,” she whispered, her voice fluttering like a dying moth. “Just… packing a few things. Didn't want to be in the way.”
“In the way?” I choked out, dropping to my knees beside her on the other side. My fingers brushed her arm, and I recoiled as if I’d touched a hot stove—she was freezing cold, burning up with a fever yet shivering uncontrollably. “Mom, what is that on your dress? What is happening to you?”
She looked down at her abdomen, where the round, firm protrusion beneath her clothes seemed terrifyingly unnatural now that I knew it wasn't a baby. It looked heavy, rigid, fixed in place like a hidden stone.
“It’s nothing,” she murmured, trying to pull her arm away. “A small… complication. I told Rosa it would wait.”
“Who is Rosa?” I demanded, the name she had whispered in the kitchen earlier flashing back into my mind. “Mom, who is Rosa? You keep saying that name. Is that a doctor? A friend?”
My mother’s eyes flickered—a brief, hunted flash of terror that vanished as quickly as it came, replaced by an impenetrable, exhausted wall.
“It doesn't matter,” she whispered, swaying slightly.
Before Mark or I could catch her, her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed sideways onto the carpet, a soft, pathetic sigh escaping her lips as she lost consciousness.
May you like
“Call 911!” Mark shouted, already sliding his arms beneath her back and knees to lift her. “Laura, get the phone, now!”
I didn't move for a terrifying second, paralyzed by the sight of her frail body cradled against Mark’s chest, so light she felt like hollow glass. Then panic seized me, and I snatched my phone from my pocket, my trembling fingers fumbling with the screen as I dialed three numbers that suddenly felt entirely inadequate to save her life.
