Part 1: The First CryIt was raining the night she was born.Not the gentle kind that whispered on rooftops, a storm that roared like an old wound torn open. Thunder cracked the sky into shreds. The town’s power had gone out twenty minutes before Claire’s contractions grew unbearable. In the dim emergency lights of St. Julian’s Hospital, she screamed — not just in pain, but in something deeper.Fear.Not for the life entering the world, but for the one she had lived until this point.A nurse wiped her brow. Another held her hand. But the room still felt too cold, ...Read More

Segment 1: Shadows in the MorningClaire sat in her apartment’s tiny kitchen with a lukewarm cup of coffee, her fixed on the baby monitor. Elara was finally asleep after a night of colic screams that seemed to claw at Claire’s nerves until she felt like a thread about to snap.The clock blinked 7:42 a.m.Sleep was a luxury she no longer understood. It was almost cruel how no one truly explained that parenting — especially alone — meant losing not just hours, but pieces of yourself.Elara had been born just six weeks ago, but Claire already felt like she had ...Read More

Part 3: Beneath the Skin of SilenceForgotten Names, Remembered ScarsThe snow had begun to fall that morning. Soft, clean, — the kind of snow that made the world look like it had never held pain.Claire stood at the window, holding Elara against her chest. The baby's warmth was her anchor, her heartbeat the only rhythm Claire trusted anymore. The sky outside was pale gray, like the inside of a shell, and every flake of snow whispered something she didn’t want to hear.Something was coming.Or maybe… something had already begun.Behind her, on the dining table, lay a map — ...Read More

Part 4: All the Names We BuriedThe day after the mirror shattered, Claire began to forget simple things.Where she the car.What she said five minutes ago.The names of street signs she used to pass every day.She told herself it was stress. Exhaustion. Postpartum fog. But deep down, something colder whispered the truth — she was being erased, one fragile memory at a time.Elara, meanwhile, had begun to speak in fragments.At first it was nothing. Baby babble. Gurgles.Then one afternoon, while Claire fed her in silence, Elara looked up and said:“Ashes don’t cry, mama.”Claire dropped the spoon.---The therapist Claire ...Read More