Chapter 2 - THE AWAKENING IN BLOOD AND TEARS
Ten agonizing minutes later—minutes that felt like an eternity suspended between life and death—I gasped.
Air ripped violently into my lungs, burning my throat as I violently coughed up water onto hard, unyielding concrete. Someone was pressing frantic, heavy hands against my chest, and a woman’s terrified voice was screaming over and over, "Come on, stay with me! Open your eyes! Breathe, damn it, breathe!"
It was Marissa, a kind-hearted guest who had always looked at my family’s toxic dynamic with quiet pity. She had sprinted across the lawn and hauled my heavy, unconscious body out of the water just as my lungs were about to collapse for good.
My eyes fluttered open, heavy and blurred with tears and chlorinated water. The bright afternoon sun beat down mercilessly, but I felt freezing cold, shivering uncontrollably.
A few yards away, my parents hadn't even bothered to step closer. They were standing near the air-conditioned interior of the house, looking annoyed rather than panicked. Lauren was dabbing her fingernails with a tissue, looking entirely unbothered.
"Maybe now she’ll learn to share," Lauren muttered under her breath, loud enough for the remaining guests to hear.
I looked down, bracing myself against Marissa’s shoulder, and my heart stopped dead in my chest. A dark, ugly purple-and-black bruise was rapidly blooming across my swollen belly, perfectly shaped like my mother’s knuckles. A thick pool of crimson blood streaked the front of my pale dress, soaking into the concrete beneath me in a terrifying puddle.
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"My baby," I whispered, my voice cracking into a dry, agonized sob. "My baby..."
Then, the world shattered into a blinding wave of absolute agony, and I screamed—a sound so raw and primal that it seemed to tear straight from my soul—before plunging back into darkness.
