Hold On I Still Need You

-A Miracle or A Mistake-

Edaline's POV: 

The room is filled with a heavy silence that weighs on my chest, a constant reminder of the grief we are all feeling. Grady is sitting next to me, holding Sophie's hand, his face reflecting the exhaustion and sorrow we all share. It seems like a lifetime has passed since our world was whole, before illness took her from us. I can still feel the echoes of her last breath in the quiet of this sterile room. The doctors had given us the grim news that there was nothing more they could do. They had warned us that she wouldn't last long, and yet here we are, holding on to a sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe, they were mistaken.

Hours have passed since Keefe left, his own grief hanging in the air like a dark cloud. Now, it's just the three of us—me, Grady, and Sophie—me and Grady mourning the loss of Sophie.

And then—beep. A single, weak pulse from the heart monitor. I freeze, barely daring to breathe.

Grady looks at me, his eyes wide with disbelief, and before I can speak, the door bursts open. Dr. Elwin and Dr. Alden step in, their faces serious but with something new—an urgent hope flickering in their eyes.

"Is she—?" Grady starts, but the words fail him.

"No one knows," Dr. Elwin says, stepping closer to Sophie's bed. There's an unfamiliar energy to his voice, one I haven't heard before. "But we're going to find out."

I can't believe what I'm hearing. The words tumble out of Dr. Elwin's mouth, but they don't make sense at first. It feels like my brain can't process them, like they're not meant for me to understand. "Sophie... she's not gone," he says, his voice steady but filled with an unspoken urgency.

I blink at him, as though trying to clear away the fog in my mind. "What do you mean?" I whisper, my throat tight. I'm sure I heard him wrong.

Dr. Alden steps forward, his face as calm as ever, but there's a flicker in his eyes—something I haven't seen before. "Her condition is severe," he begins, his voice measured, "but she hasn't fully passed on. Despite everything we believed, her body is still holding on. There's a faint pulse, a spark of life, no matter how small."

The room feels like it's spinning. Grady's hand tightens around mine, his fingers digging into my skin as though he's trying to ground himself in this impossible reality. He stares at the heart monitor, as if willing it to give us the answers we've been searching for.

"This doesn't make sense," I say, shaking my head. "She was gone. We—we said goodbye."

"I know," Dr. Elwin says softly, "but the body can sometimes hold on longer than we expect, especially in cases like this. There's a chance—slim, but a chance—that we might still be able to act."

Grady's breath catches in his throat. "A chance at what?"

"A treatment. Something experimental. If we move quickly, we might be able to stabilize her. Her body hasn't fully given up yet, and that gives us an opening."

I feel my heart race. Hope flares, but it's tangled with a knot of fear. Could this really be happening? Could Sophie... could our daughter really come back from the edge like this?

I meet Grady's eyes, and for a moment, we just stare at each other, both of us paralyzed by the weight of what's happening. Hope and disbelief swirl inside me. "But what if she doesn't make it?" I ask quietly, the question hanging heavy between us.

"We won't know unless we try," Dr. Alden says. "But this is a chance we can't afford to waste."

I nod slowly, unsure of what to believe or how to feel. A part of me wants to let hope flood in, but another part is terrified to let myself dream of it. Still, it's there—faint, fragile, but it's there. A chance. A miracle, maybe. But I can't let myself get lost in it yet. Not until I know for sure.