Serena
She didn’t cry when she was born. She watched.
I didn’t feel the room anymore.
Just… warmth.
I turned my head.
Mira was placing her in my arms.
My baby.
Her body was tiny, swaddled in soft gray cloth. But her presence filled the room like thunder.
I stared into her strange, knowing eyes.
Eyes wide open. Silent. Still. Not a single sound.
My baby girl stared up at me, her stormy gray eyes unblinking.
She didn’t flinch. She didn’t scream. No sob, no cough, not even a gasp.
Just… silence.
“What are you?” I whispered, stroking a curl of black hair on her forehead.
The baby blinked once.
Then smiled.
And whispered again—
“Alive.”
And this time…
She looked at me like she knew exactly what that meant.
Mira and Kansas had gone still too.
The alarms had stopped. The ligh
