43. Chapter 43

Chapter forty-three

T he rain beats down relentlessly, pounding against the windshield as the wipers work furiously, struggling to clear the deluge. The road stretches ahead, illuminated only by the faint moonlight and car's headlights, with the trees on either side standing like silent sentinels in the darkness. Inside the car, soft music plays in the background, a comforting melody that contrasts sharply with the storm outside. I glance over at Laelia, her face bathed in the soft glow of the dashboard, and my heart swells with love.

Tonight has been a dream come true, a perfect evening that seems to promise a future brimming with joy. I can almost see our lives together; a daughter in princess dresses, teddy bear picnics, and a home filled with unending love and laughter. Even though Laelia insists we might have a boy, my soul feels certain it's a little girl—a precious new star in our lives.

"I love you so much," I say, my voice thick with emotion. Laelia turns to me, her eyes shimmering with a light that makes my heart race, filling me with a love deeper than I ever thought possible.

"We love you, Killian," she replies, her hands tenderly resting on her growing bump.

I reach over, taking one of her hands and pressing a gentle kiss to her knuckles. She blushes, biting her lip, her eyes losing themselves in mine as mine do in hers. How did I get so lucky?

A ping from my phone snaps me back to reality. Before I can even read the message, Laelia's eyes widen in fear.

"Killian!" she screams, her voice filled with terror.

I look up just as a blinding light engulfs us, and everything shatters. Time seems to stretch into a slow-motion nightmare. Glass flies like deadly confetti, and the car spins wildly, my world spinning in a dizzying blur. Pain lances through my body, making me feel as though I'm being torn apart from the inside out. Then, with a sickening thud, everything goes black.

I drift in and out of consciousness, my senses a jumbled mess. My ears ring, my head throbs, and my body feels like it's been shattered.

"Killian," a voice calls, distant and distorted.

"Killian," it comes again, clearer but still muffled.

I want to drift back into sleep, to escape this torment, but a deep, instinctive dread pulls me back to consciousness. Something is terribly wrong, and I need to know what's happening. The light overhead is blinding as I struggle to open my eyes, and there, hovering above me, is a woman with a halo of fluorescent light around her, looking like an angel from another world.

I inhale sharply, pain exploding in my chest like fire. I turn my head to see Laelia slumped, lifeless in her seat. Blood trickles from her temple, her face marred with cuts from the shattered windows. I reach out desperately touching her.

"Laelia! Please, wake up!" My voice cracks, fear and love mingling in a frantic plea. "I love you."

She groans, but her eyes remain closed. Her chest rises and falls, a small comfort in the otherwise unbearable agony.

"Killian," the woman says urgently, pulling my hand away from Laelia. "Someone's coming to help her. Let me help you."

"Laelia first," I demand, my voice breaking with desperation. "She's pregnant."

"Two paramedics are here," she says, and I turn to see them working on Laelia, putting a neck brace around her and carefully preparing to move her.

I ignore the woman's attempts to help me and watch as they lift Laelia onto a stretcher. My heart breaks as I see her being carried away, leaving me behind in a haze of pain and fear.

The woman's voice fades as the intensity of the buzzing in my ears overwhelms me. I try to move but am met with excruciating pain and everything turns black again.

I regain some awareness to the sound of wheels screeching and frantic voices. My body feels like it's being pulled through a nightmare of bright, burning lights. The pain is almost unbearable, particularly in my chest. I struggle to open my eyes, but the light is blinding.

As hands probe my body, a sharp pain in my ribs makes me hiss. Despite the agony, a gnawing dread tells me something far worse might be coming. The sound of a heartbeat fills my ears, a stark contrast to the chaotic shouts around me. I hear a "Code Blue" and the piercing screech of a defibrillator—someone's life is slipping away.

Panicked, I force myself upright, ignoring the pain. I need to see Laelia.

Doctors swarm around me, but I push past them, my focus solely on finding Laelia.

"Sir! Sir!" a nurse calls, trying to stop me.

"Where is she?" I demand, my voice breaking with raw desperation.

The nurse's face pales, and she looks at me with sorrowful eyes. "Everything's going to be okay," she says weakly. "Let's get you checked first, and I'll find her."

"No!" I shout, my fear a frustration overwhelming. "I need to find her now!"

The nurse's face crumples and she reluctantly points towards a nearby room. I stumble towards it, my heart racing.

As I enter, my life flashes before my eyes because I know what I'm looking at, even before my brain, let alone my heart realises.

Laelia lies on a hospital bed, her dress torn, lifeless with medical pads stuck to her chest. The sight is a cruel mockery of the future we dreamed of.

I sink to my knees, my heart tearing apart as the vibrant future I envisioned with Laelia disintegrates in an instant. The pain is all-consuming, and I can't stop the flood of tears. The love that once filled my life is gone, leaving a void so deep I can't see the light anymore.

"No! No! No! Laelia!" I scream, my voice raw, a broken echo of my soul's despair.

My mother's arms envelop me, a fragile comfort amidst the wreckage of my world. I clutch her desperately, my heart shattered by the loss of Laelia and our unborn child.

The storm outside has become a ghostly echo, a cruel reminder of the night's tragedy. My breaths come in ragged gasps as I clutch my mother, the agony of our loss nearly overwhelming. The hospital room feels cold and sterile, and indifferent background to my personal hell.

The beeping of monitors, the murmur of distant conversations, and the rhythmic clatter of medical equipment are all but background noise. My entire world has collapsed into this one agonising moment, where nothing exist but the emptiness left by Laelia's absence.

In my mind, I replay the night's events, over and over. The blinding light, the screeching of metal, Laelia's desperate scream—each fragment a shard of glass cutting through my soul. The future we had planned, with its dreams of cradling our baby girl, has been stolen from us in a heartbeat.

I want to scream, to rage against the heavens, but my voice is hoarse from the torrent of tears. I kneel beside Laelia's bed, my hands trembling as I reach out and touch her lifeless form. The coldness of her skin is a brutal reminder that she is gone, leaving only a hollow shell where her warmth once was.

I remember the joy in her eyes when we talked about our future, the way she caressed her belly as if holding the world's most precious secret. I remember her laughter, the way it filled our home with light. Now, the silence in the room is a voice that her laughter once filled.

My tears fall freely, each one a testament to the depth of my grief. I clutch at Laelia's cold hand, my fingers interlocking with hers in a desperate, futile attempt to hold on. The monitors from somewhere else sound like a cruel metronome, counting down the moments of my shattered life.

The door to the room opens, and a doctor walks in, his face etched with concern and sadness. I barely notice him as he moves towards Laelia, speaking in a low voice, but the words barely register. All I can focus on is the overwhelming emptiness that has consumed me.

"Killian," my mother's voice breaks through, her tone both soothing and filled with sorrow. "We need to talk to the doctors."

I shake my head, unable to pull my gaze from Laelia. "No," I rasp. "I can't leave her."

The doctor's voice is gentle but firm. "We need to discuss what's happened and what's next. It's important."

I look up at him, my eyes red and swollen. "Next?" I echo, the word feeling foreign, disconnected from the reality of what I've lost. "There's no next. Not without her."

The doctor's expression softens, and he gestures for me to follow him outside. Reluctantly, I rise, my legs weak and unsteady. My mother supports me, her presence a fragile thread connecting me to the world outside this room, while I know the rest of them wait in the waiting room.

In the corridor, the doctors explains the details of the accident, the extent of the injuries, and the medical efforts made. But his words are hollow, mere background noise to the overwhelming grief that has engulfed me. I hear phrases like "trauma" and "complications," but they are meaningless in the face of my personal catastrophe. Each term feels like a cruel mockery of the life that has been torn from me, and I can't make sense of what's happening around me. My heart aches with an unbearable weight, a hollow emptiness where joy and hope once resided.

As the doctor continues speaking, I can't process the details. The pain in my chest is suffocating, and every breath feels like a struggle. I am adrift in a sea of sorrow, my world collapsing in on itself. All I can think about is the future that will never be, the dream that has been shattered. The agony of knowing that Laelia and our baby are gone is an unbearable burden, crushing my spirit and leaving me in an abyss of heartbreak.

My mother's comforting presence is a thin thread connecting me to reality, but even that feels tenuous. The ache in my heart is constant, gnawing torment, and I can't escape the reality that the love of my life is gone. The doctor's words fade into the background, irrelevant against the tidal wave of grief that has engulfed me. All that remains is the crushing emptiness and the profound loss that consumes every part of my being.

Them.