A hesitant, faltering rhythm. But a rhythm nonetheless
The boy's pulse returned, and with it, air returned to the room. The pressure that had coiled around every throat like a vice finally eased.
She exhaled softly. Her hands lowered, finally still.
"Stabilize and close," she instructed. "I'll finish the sutures."
No one spoke. They just obeyed. Like they always did when Dr. Singhania took command.
---
When it was over—seven hours after it began—Ruhanika peeled off her gloves slowly. Her fingers were pruned. Her knuckles bruised. Blood clung to her forearms in half-dried streaks, but she barely noticed.
Outside the OR, the emergency wing buzzed on. Stretchers rolled. Phones rang. A child cried somewhere in the corridor. But inside her, it was silent.
The kind of silence that didn't come from peace.
It came from depletion.
She leaned against the cold tiled wall. Closed her eyes. Just for a second. Just to breathe.
But even in that breath, the past came crashing in.
---
Two Years Ago
A memory stitched in scars.
A sterile room.
A screaming infant.
A hollow shell of a woman being wheeled away as nurses whispered behind surgical masks.
"Where's the father?"
"She came in alone."
"Abandoned?"
"Worse. Sold."
Ruhanika had just given birth to her daughter, Rahi—alone, frightened, stitched back together physically but broken beyond recognition.
No visitors.
No flowers.
No name on the father's line.
Just her and this little life curled against her chest, wailing.
She remembered the suffocating smell of betadine. The cold of the delivery room. The nurse who tried not to meet her eyes as she handed over discharge papers.
And yet, she had looked down at her baby—barely the size of her forearm—and whispered, voice raw, "It's just you and me, okay? And I promise...I won't let this world touch you."
And she hadn't.
But the cost of that promise was this:
Being here.
Instead of there.
Saving children she didn't know, while her own waited... sometimes in silence, sometimes in sleep.
---
Present
The phone buzzed in her coat pocket, dragging her back.
She pulled it out. The screen lit up with a familiar name—Mrs. Fernandes, Rahi's daycare manager.
YOU ARE READING
Bound by Ashes
Random"In today's world, we see that love breaks even the strongest. But sometimes, love heals..." This is not just a story about love. This is a story about healing in the ruins of what once was. It's about a woman who was broken, sold by those who were...
Chapter 1 : Ashes of the operating room
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