Saturday morning. 4:00 am.
the hour of the wolf. the darkest part of the night before the dawn surrendered.
shubham was awake.
the laptop hummed on the desk, a low-frequency drone that felt like it was drilling into his teeth. the screen was a wall of code—braces, functions, api calls—swimming before his tired eyes. the client had sent three angry emails in the last hour demanding an update on the backend schema.
but his brain wasn't on code.
his brain was stuck on bite. on pickle. on new.
he turned in his chair, the plastic mesh creaking loudly in the silence.
glanced at the bed.
reshma was sleeping. but it wasn't a peaceful sleep. she was restless, kicking at the sheets. murmuring.
the moonlight caught the curve of her cheek. her hand—fingers thin, nails cut short—was curled protectively over her stomach. tight. a claw of protection.
he stopped typing. the silence of the room rushed in to fill the gap.
he watched her.
"so tiny," she whispered in her sleep. the voice was soft, dreamy. a voice he'd never heard before. "we'll paint walls blue... no... yellow... sunshine yellow..."
she was dreaming. planning. unconsciously building a nursery in her mind. painting walls in a rented flat they might lose. building a world that didn't exist yet.
he felt a lump form in his throat. hard. painful. terrifying hope warring with cold logic.
then—the shift.
it happened in a second.
her face crumpled. the smile dissolved into a grimace of pure pain. still asleep. or half-awake, entering the nightmare.
"i'm sorry," she whimpered. the sound was small, broken.
he froze. his hands hovered over the keyboard.
"i'm sorry... i can't..." her voice broke, shattering. sobbing now. deep, chest-heaving sobs. "i can't give you to your wonderful world... i don't have time... i don't have time..."
tears leaked from her closed eyes. silver tracks in the moonlight. soaking the pillowcase.
"reshma?" he whispered. heart hammering against his ribs like a fist.
she woke up. abruptly. gasping. sucking in air as if she had been drowning. she sat up, clutching her stomach with both hands. staring at nothing. staring at everything.
the room was cold, but she was sweating.
then a wail ripped out of her.
it wasn't a cry. it was a sound of primal grief. a sound that belongs to funerals.
"i'm sorry! i'm sorry!"
shubham was across the room in a second. he knocked over the chair. he fell onto his knees beside the bed.
"hey. hey. shhh." speechless. terrified. "what happened? nightmare? pain?"
she looked at him. eyes wide. huge. drowning in fluid.
"it's here," she choked out. her hands pressed hard against her belly, knitting the fabric of her t-shirt. "it's here shubham. i know it. and i'm... i'm going to kill it. or it kills me."
a fresh sob wrecked her body. violent. shaking the bed.
"i want to give it the world. i want to... but i can't... i don't have time..."
hysterics. pure, undiluted grief.
"hey please don't cry," he stammered. gripping her hands. they were cold, clammy. he was useless. helpless. "please. i am here. i am here."
"you can't fix this!" she screamed. she pushed him away. hard. then pulled him back immediately, clutching his shirt. "you can't debug this! there's no patch for this! there's no time!"
she cried harder. louder. the raw sound of a mother mourning a child she hadn't even lost yet. mourning herself. mourning the timeline that was cutting them both into pieces.
shubham didn't know what to do. logic failed. code failed. google failed.
so he just held her.
he scrunched himself on the floor, resting his head on her knees. wrapping his arms around her trembling legs. anchoring her to the bed, to the room, to the now.
he let her storm rain down on him. let her scream. let her wail into the uncaring night.
"i'm here," he repeated. over and over. a mantra. the only code that still ran without errors. "i'm here. we're here. i've got you."
minutes passed. hours maybe.
the morning sun began to creep in through the window. grey turning to pink. illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air. illuminating the wet patches on the sheets.
the invisible third person in the room.
it wasn't a secret anymore.
it was a tragedy. and a miracle.
warring for the same body. occupying the same space.
she finally quieted down to hiccups. exhausted. spent. she stroked his hair, her hand trembling.
"shubham," she whispered. broken.
"yeah."
"what do we do?"
he looked up at her. eyes red. face ravaged.
he didn't have an answer. for the first time in his life, he didn't even have a plan.
(Speaker: and there it is. the joy turned to terror in 30 seconds. because logic knows what the heart wishes to ignore: life sometimes costs life. the universe gives with one hand and takes with the other. excuse me while i go scream in a pillow.)