The hospital reeks—
disinfectant and despair,
plastic tubing snaking like veins
that no longer work.
She is holding him too tight,
pressing her nails into his skin,
as if pain could keep him here,
as if her body could tether his soul.
His breaths are shallow,
each one borrowed,
stolen from a clock
that has almost stopped.
"Mom," he whispers,
his voice cracked,
a sound too brittle to last.
"It's close now.
I can feel it."
She shakes her head violently,
hair falling into her face,
masking the ruin of her.
"You don't know that," she snaps.
But he does.
He always has.
"I can't—" she chokes,
her words breaking apart in her throat.
"I can't lose you.
You are my reason,
my only reason.
If you go,
I go too."
He looks at her,
his face hollow,
eyes sunken like graves
already dug.
"Don't say that," he says.
"Don't make me carry you, too."
Her chest heaves.
She wants to scream,
wants to tear the world apart,
but the world will not give.
It just keeps spinning,
indifferent.
"You don't have to go!" she shouts,
as if volume could change fate.
"You have to fight.
You have to fight for me!"
He smiles,
but it is not a smile—
it is resignation wearing a mask.
"For you, Mom," he says.
"I'll fight."
And she believes him,
because the lie is all she has.
His chest shudders.
Stops.
The machines scream
before she can.
Her knees hit the tile,
hard and unforgiving.
She wails like an animal—
raw, guttural,
a sound no god would dare hear.
And then there is silence.
Nothing but the drip of an IV
and the weight of a world
that is still moving
without him.
