Crossroads

It was one of the darkest nights of the year, silence reeked in the deepest darkest veins of the tunnel which would soon lead to dawn. The hospital was dead, unlike the ones residing in it, for they were holding on to life by a thread, subconsciously hoping it would be stronger. 

And cutting through the silence was the drunken steps of a young girl, one who was just managing to prevent two people from falling, one of the two being herself. Leaning over the reception, she broke the trance of the attendant who was snug in the otherwise cold, greying hall that resembled any other hospital. As for the girl, the beeping of the machines buzzed, their loudness tenfold, adding to the pain she was already in. 

'Baby, here.' She managed to say, before rendering breathless. 

The girl was carried off on a stretcher into the operation theatre in a blink – no forms filled in, no kin called.  

The gynecologist who was  paged had been praying to get out of her house. Tired of the incessant scowls and never ending quarrels about the ungodly hours outside from the person who had promised her togetherness, both in sickness and in health. She served her patients well, for they were the only salvation she could find. 

Under the blinding light, the girl with the red hair couldn't feel anything but pain. It hurt to breath. Maybe, her heart felt the pain as it pumped too. It was all a haze, every rise and fall of her chest became slower as her energy drained out. 

The doctor called for a suction. The mother wasn't pushing hard enough. The baby inside was suffocating; she couldn't let a life end before beginning. 

The cold sensation was gaining in on her as she lay on the metal bed. The warmth fading out, the air running out. She was tired—very, very tired. And then, there was a flash. A flash of everything – her childhood, her friends, the countless sunsets and the never ending stars, and him. Oh, the thought of stargazing with him might have warmed her up but she went ice cold at the next instant where he left.  And the next was her mistake – a despairing night and a faceless man. The lay as life was being ripped away from her fragile body, neither reluctance nor welcome to the departure of life. 

The doctor sighed with relief; the baby was venturing out into the world. The mother's heart rate was slow, but that wasn't unusual.  She was tired, of course. But just as the sound of life filled the room, a continuous sound coexisted. The peaks on the cardiac monitor fell, and the mother's chest fell one last time. 

Life and death had crossed paths.