0 0 1 ━ [ 𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘵𝘰𝘯 ]

𝟏𝟎𝟎𝐊 𝐁𝐎𝐍𝐔𝐒 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑

"Another big push, Mrs. Hopper! You've got this!" the doctor instructed in the buzzing hospital room as several nurses frantically raced about.

Diane Hopper gripped the armrests on the bed and clenched her teeth as another contraction ripped through her body. An ear-curdling scream escaped her throat and traveled down the hallway to the waiting room where Jim Hopper was anxiously awaiting the birth of his child.

Upon hearing his wife's scream, Jim sped over to the main doors of the hospital wing and frantically paced while he waited to catch a nurse or doctor through the window. He couldn't stop running his hands through his slicked-back hair and his fingers were starting to stick together from the copious amounts of hair gel. Did it always take this long? Was Diane okay? Were there complications? This being his first child, Jim was full of questions that he had no answers for.

"Excuse me, miss," Hopper called out to a nurse who had pushed through the doors and started across the waiting room. The nurse paused for a moment and turned to look at Jim expectantly. "My wife, Diane Hopper, she's in room 103, is she doing okay?"

The nurse gave a patient smile before answering, "Your wife is doing fine, Mr. Hopper. It shouldn't be too much longer now."

Jim gave the nurse a nod and watched her finish crossing the waiting room to the other side. Right as she disappeared through the second set of doors, another scream pierced through the space and rung in Jim's ears. This one had been louder than the rest and was accompanied by the flickering of lights across the ceiling.

Jim looked up to watch the fluorescent lights tremor in a strange pattern when they suddenly went out and bathed the waiting room in dark anticipation. As quickly as they had gone out, they trickled back on, and a new scream entered Jim's ears: the scream of a newborn baby.

Despite the multiple signs warning Jim to wait for a doctor or nurse before going past the designated waiting area, Jim pushed through the swinging doors into the hospital wing and took a sharp right into the room Diane was in. The doctor and nurses gave Jim a strange look, but the only thing he could focus on was the scene before him. The barrage of scoldings from the medical staff about entering the wing before he was collected were drowned out by the beating of his heart as he looked upon the tiny bundle in his wife's arms.