The Unknown Loss

Zara's POV

A soft beeping. Cold sheets. The scent of antiseptic. I stirred my eyes slowly, fluttering open to fluorescent lights that stung.

“Hello, ma’am, can you hear me?” A voice echoed in my head, muffled, like it was trying to reach me through water.  A nurse’s blurred figure came into view- dressed in pale blue scrubs, hair pulled back, clipboard in hand, eyes kind but cautious.

“Yes… I can”, I groaned in pain, my throat dry, each word escaping slowly.

The nurse smiled faintly, but it didn’t last long. She flipped through the chart in her hand, lips pressed into a nervous line.

“You were rushed here, ma’am, by a man. Thank God he came on time. It could have led to a more serious case, ma’am.” She scanned through a file she held in her hands.

“Why didn’t you treat yourself after the miscarriage, ma’am? Can I meet your husband? Where is he?”. The nurse asked, searching my face for answers I didn’t have.

“Wait—Mis what–?” I rose gently from the bed as I tried to understand what the nurse had just said.

My heart stopped. The room spun slightly.

I blinked fast.

“Are you sure you’re reading my chart, nurse?”. “I was never pregnant–how could I–?”.

The nurse didn’t correct me.

She didn’t have to.

In that single moment, a wave of understanding slammed into me. My eyes widened as I thought back.

I covered my open mouth with my fingers at the sudden realisation of the fact that I had not seen my period for the past month. The unshakable fatigue. The dizziness I had blamed on stress. No. No. No.

This couldn’t be happening.

The nurse hesitated for a moment before finally breaking the silence. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but the result of our examination here shows that you lost your baby two days ago. Your lack of adequate rest and medicine made you dizzy and fatigued, and made you pass out”. 

The hospital room fell silent as I slowly moved my shaky hands to my belly, rubbing it back and forth in disbelief that I carried a child who would never get to call me “mummy”.  I continued rubbing my aching stomach as though I could conjure a heartbeat, a movement, or a kick that could tell me it wasn’t true. 

But there was nothing.

Tears that had been lurking in my eyes now came gushing out uncontrollably.

The nurse held me back the moment I started rubbing my belly harder in a way that could hurt me because in that moment, I didn’t care about myself; I just wanted my baby back.

“Bring back my baby!” I screamed at the nurse.

“P—p—pleaseeeee!” I wrestled with her as she tried to keep me calm and console me, clearly to no avail.

“Arghhhhhh!” I thundered in pain.

This time, a figure who looked like the grandfather I hadn’t seen in years rushed into the room.

He was still the handsome grandpa I knew. Stern-looking but kind. In his usual casual wear of a shirt and shorts, he moved closer to me.

“Zara, Zara, my baby,” he brushed my hair, soaked with sweat, aside.

“I’m so sorry,” he continued with teary eyes.

“I’m so sorry it took me this long to show myself to you. But I have been watching over you since you left the mansion two years ago. You were my baby and will always be my baby. I couldn’t leave you by yourself with that Zane.”

“Look at what he has done to you.” He shook his head, regretfully.

Tears ran down my cheeks in torrents. I wept till my lungs no longer knew how to draw breath. It felt as though this was the end of me.

“A man I met outside directed me to you. He said I should give this to you.” He handed me the ticket out of the city that I left in the hotel room.

“Zara, I know you renounced your legacy, but please let me help you out of this mess.” He took my hand close to his chest.

“Go where you can forget about all these and start a new life. You don’t have to live in the shadow of your mistakes.”

“Tell me anything you need, I’d grant it, my dear.” He said.

Wiping the tears away from my red, blazing eye, I said, “I want just one thing”.

“Revenge on the people that did this to me.”