CHAPTER SIX — THE MOMENT TIME STOOD STILL

Nora’s Point of View

I needed normal.

After everything that had happened, the dream, the Death card, the voice that wasn’t my imagination, I needed something that grounded me. Something human.

For me, that was the children’s wing of St. Helena’s Hospital.

Every Tuesday morning, I volunteered to read stories to the kids. Picture books. Adventure books. Anything that made a sterile room feel less like a battleground. Even on the hardest days, their smiles loosened something in my chest.

I kept my tarot deck in my bag, like always.

Just in case someone was led to me.

Just in case whatever force had changed Eli’s life decided someone else needed help too.

I stepped inside the wing and felt the usual mix of hope and heartbreak. Cartoon murals smiled down from the walls. Soft hums filled the air. Machines beeped in steady rhythm.

But beneath it all, the air felt different.

Heavier.

Like someone else was here.

Someone not human.

My breath paused. It wasn’t fear.

It was recognition.

Death was nearby.

I didn’t know how I knew, only that the atmosphere had shifted. Like gravity thickened for a heartbeat. Like the room itself leaned in to listen.

I pushed the feeling aside and entered my usual room.

Three kids today. Two toddlers and a five-year-old with a bright green blanket and a grin that tried to be bigger than the tubes taped to his arm.

“I brought three books,” I said. “You get to choose.”

The toddlers pointed at pictures.

The five-year-old chose the longest story, proud of himself.

I laughed and settled onto the carpet as they crowded around me, pressing close, fingers brushing the pages.

For a moment, everything felt normal again.

Until it didn’t.

The world stopped.

The fluorescent lights froze mid-flicker.

A doctor in the hallway stood motionless, a clipboard suspended in midair.

A rolling toy car halted halfway across the floor, its wheels lifted slightly as if time itself had locked around it.

And the children beside me.

Their laughter cut off mid-breath.

One toddler’s hand hovered inches from the page, fingers curved in place.

The five-year-old’s smile stayed frozen, too still to belong to the living moment we had shared seconds ago.

Silence settled everywhere except for one thing.

A cry.

Soft. Sharp. Coming from somewhere down the hall.

My heart thudded.

I rose slowly, barely breathing, and stepped past the frozen children into the hallway.

Another faint cry.

Then nothing.

Then a soft giggle.

A sound that did not belong in a moment like this.

I followed it.

The rest of the hospital remained suspended in place. A nurse stood mid-step, her foot hovering inches above the ground. A man held a phone to his ear but did not blink or speak.

The giggle came again, light and warm.

I reached the room at the end of the hall.

And saw him.

Death.

Not cloaked.

Not shadowed.

Not the figure from my dream.

He stood beside a crib, surrounded by a soft white glow that did not come from any bulb in the hospital. His hood was gone. His hair was blonde, falling just past his jaw, catching the unmoving light. His eyes, impossibly blue, were fixed on the child before him with a tenderness that did not belong to fear.

He did not see me.

He saw only the baby.

A tiny girl no older than eight months lay still in the crib, her chest unmoving. A faint shimmer, like a second outline, rose gently from her body.

Her soul.

Death lifted her with a grace that felt sacred. There was no violence. No coldness.

Only reverence.

He held her as if she were something priceless. Something beloved.

The baby laughed.

A light, weightless sound of pure joy.

Death smiled.

It was barely there, but it softened him completely. He looked almost holy in that moment. Less shadow than light. Less ending than passage.

The child’s soul pressed against him, her tiny hand brushing his chest.

The glow brightened.

And they vanished.

For a breath, the space beside the crib was empty.

The light collapsed in on itself, gone so completely it felt as if it had never existed at all. The room held nothing but stillness.

Then the air darkened.

Shadows gathered where the glow had been, folding inward, thickening, reshaping. The warmth drained away, replaced by a familiar gravity that pressed softly against my lungs.

Death was there again.

Cloaked now.

Hood drawn.

The figure I had always known.

Then time snapped back.

The lights hummed. A monitor beeped. Somewhere down the hall, a voice called out.

The baby was gone, but the room already knew what had been taken.

Death did not move.

Invisible now, unseen by the living, he lingered.

He watched the mother enter.

Watched her smile falter.

Watched confusion fracture into terror.

When her cry finally broke free, it shattered the air.

Death flinched.

Not visibly.

Not the way a human would.

But something in him tightened. His jaw set. His hands curled slowly at his sides.

He did not interfere.

I wondered if that was the hardest part.

Whatever his role was, it did not allow mercy for the living.

He stayed.

Long enough to hear every scream.

Long enough to see every collapse.

Long enough to remember what love costs the living.

Only when grief fully took root did the pressure in the air finally ease.

Only then did he go.

Doctors rushed in. Machines beeped in protest. A nurse called for help.

The mother collapsed beside the crib, her cry breaking something open in the room.

“No. Please. Not my baby. Please.”

They did not see what I saw.

To them, Death had taken something.

But I knew the truth.

He carried her.

Gently.

Tenderly.

Like she was being brought somewhere safe.

Tears burned my eyes as I stepped away, giving the family space to grieve. The elevator doors closed around me, and only then did my knees weaken.

I pressed a hand to my chest, breath shaking.

Death had touched a soul with kindness.

And for the first time, I was not afraid of him.

I did not know if that made me brave

or dangerously unprepared

for what I had seen, and what still remained hidden.