Chapter 2 - THE THREE-DAY SLEEPA doctor with kind eyes and silver temples crouched down beside my chair, gently taking my trembling hands away from the wooden handles of the wheelbarrow. The battered tool had carried the only two people I still believed I could help, and letting go of it felt like giving up the last piece of my armor.
"How long has your mom been asleep, sweetheart?" the doctor asked softly, his voice steady and calm.
"Three days," I explained, tears finally spilling down my cheeks, cutting clean paths through the dirt on my face. "She won’t wake up. And yesterday... the babies stopped crying. They wouldn't take the water I gave them."
That single sentence changed the entire atmosphere of the room. The doctor’s face drained of color. He shouted an urgent code, and within seconds, a team of medical professionals surrounded the portable cribs where Lucas and Lily had been placed. Warm blankets appeared instantly. IV lines, small tubes, and diagnostic equipment rolled through swinging double doors. Nurses moved with terrifying speed, carrying my brother and sister away toward the intensive care unit.
I tried to follow them, stumbling forward on my scraped, bruised feet. "They need me," I cried out, panic clawing at my chest. "I have to stay with them."
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"They’re safe now, Emma," Nurse Clara promised gently, catching me by the shoulders and guiding me down onto a padded bench. "You brought them here. You saved their lives."
Another nurse knelt beside my feet, gently cleaning the dirt and dried blood from my soles with a warm antiseptic wipe, marveling at the sheer impossibility of the distance I had traveled. But my mind wasn't on my own pain. It was locked back at the small house behind the trees, where Mom was lying motionless on the cold living room floor.
