Chapter 2 - The Crawl Through the Abyss
The heavy front door clicked shut, the sound echoing like a gunshot through the silent, sunlit hallway.
I was alone.
The silence that followed was suffocating, broken only by the piercing, frantic wails of eight-day-old Ethan from his crib. Every fiber of my being screamed to stay still, to curl into a ball and surrender to the dark, pulsing abyss pulling at my consciousness. The pool of blood beneath me was warm, sticky, and expanding. My vision tunneled into a pinpoint of gray light.
I cannot die here, I told myself, my thoughts slurring like a drunkard's. Not when my baby needs me.
With a whimper that tore from my throat, I dragged myself forward. My legs were useless, heavy as lead anchors, so I relied entirely on my trembling arms. Each movement felt like dragging my body across broken glass. The cream-colored rug was ruined, soaked through with my life force, but I didn't care about the rug. I cared about the phone I had left on the kitchen counter just past the living room.
Five feet.
Ethan’s cries grew hoarser, vibrating with a panic that mirrored my own.
Ten feet.
My hands left crimson smears on the polished hardwood floor as I transitioned out of the nursery. The pain in my lower abdomen was a white-hot iron pressing into my flesh—postpartum hemorrhage, a nightmare complication I had read about in textbooks but never imagined would happen to me, letような to someone whose husband sneered at her pain.
I reached the island in the kitchen. With a final, desperate heave, I hoisted myself up, using the cabinet handles for leverage. My fingers knocked against a glass of water, shattering it on the tile, but my hand found what it was desperately seeking: Ryan’s old landline-connected desk phone that we kept plugged in for emergencies, resting right next to his car keys.
My fingers, slick with blood, struggled to press the buttons.
9... 1... 1...
"911, what is your emergency?" a calm, professional female voice crackled through the speaker.
"Help..." I gasped, my voice barely a whisper. "Postpartum hemorrhage... I'm... I'm passing out... Scottsdale... address..."
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"Ma'am, stay with me. What is your address? Can you hear me?"
I rattled off our address, my vision completely fading to black as my knees buckled. The last thing I heard before the phone slipped from my limp fingers and clattered against the floor was the wailing siren of an approaching ambulance cutting through the quiet Arizona afternoon.
