Azariah - God Has Helped

Chapter 9

Kiara sat before the doctor, her heartbeat thundering in her ears.
What is she saying? Is she insane? This can't be real.

The words drifted around her like smoke, choking her, twisting her lungs. She stared blankly, her mind trapped somewhere between disbelief and terror. For a moment, she forgot how to breathe.

It had been a month—one long, agonizing month—of chest pains, pounding heartbeats, and breath that slipped away as if stolen from her. And now this.

Her mind snapped back to the memory she hated most:
Fifteen years old.
A cold morning.
Her mother forcing her to school despite her begging, despite the suffocating feeling crushing her chest.

She remembered standing at the bus stop, weak and trembling, then rushing into a taxi the second it appeared. Her breath had shortened violently, the world spinning, tightening. Then—
Darkness.
A deep, swallowing darkness that consumed everything.

When she awoke, stabbing white lights burned into her eyes. She blinked hard, trying to recognize anything—but nothing was familiar. The walls were cold, grey, empty, staring back at her like a lifeless face.

A sharp pain in her hand forced a gasp from her lips. Only then did she realize—
She was in the hospital.
But how? The last thing she remembered was the world falling away from her.

Her eyes snapped to the doorway as a doctor approached. Kiara's heart thudded so loudly she could hear it echo in her skull. She needed answers—why was she here? What happened?

But before she could speak, the doctor began talking.
She needed further testing—an ECG. Something looked wrong with her heart.

The memory played again: her mother receiving the echocardiogram results, brushing them aside, deciding she wouldn't bother with follow-ups.
As if heart problems were optional.
As if a fifteen-year-old fainting was normal.

Now reality slammed into her chest like a hammer.
She did have heart issues.
Issues she should have known about years ago.
And now she was hearing it for the first time while pregnant.

Her hands trembled.
What will happen to my baby?
What if my heart can't survive labor?
What if I die giving birth?
The thoughts piled on her chest until she could barely inhale.

"Mitral Valve Prolapse??" she whispered inside her mind.
What kind of curse was that?

As if reading her fear, the doctor explained gently:

"This condition means the mitral valve in your heart doesn't close properly. Instead of keeping blood moving forward, it flaps—letting blood leak backward into the heart. This regurgitation can lead to blood clots, heart failure, even stroke."

Kiara felt the entire world fall silent.

Heart failure?
Stroke?
Her?

Her vision blurred. Her eyes stung violently as she tried—desperately—not to cry. But every word sliced into her like glass.

How could this be happening?
How could her own heart betray her?

The doctor cleared her throat, snapping Kiara back into the room.

"I'm prescribing a blood thinner, a heart-failure medication, and a pill to help with the shortness of breath."

Kiara swallowed hard. She hated pills. But now... refusing them felt like refusing life itself.

The thought of dying terrified her in a way she had never known—not because of her own life, but because she wasn't alone anymore. She carried a child. A heartbeat inside her depending on her broken one.