That night, Samuel and Sarah were sleeping blissfully in their room with all lights switched off and curtains closed. Their son was also sleeping peacefully in his swing with not a single thing to disturb him.

After Mike and Grace departed from their home, both Samuel and Sarah had begun setting their household in order after leaving to the hospital in a hurry. This included the dishes needing cleaning, clothes lying everywhere in the bathroom, and rearranging their bedroom.

“Man! This is a lot of work!” Samuel commented, wiping the sweat off his forehead as they changed the bedsheets of their mattress.

“Yes, but it feels nice working together, doesn't it?” Sarah asked him, smiling energetically.

He nodded at his wife in agreement, but a slight concern came over him, and he asked her, “But, is it alright for you to exert yourself like this so soon after coming home?”

“Probably not,” she admitted with a laugh, “but I don't want to lie around either. It'll be boring.”

“Good point,” agreed her husband with a smile.

While taking breaks, they ate the small snacks they always kept at home at all times. On that day, it became the main course meal for lunch and dinner. For their child, Sarah provided the necessary food that only a mother can.

By the end of the day, they had completely washed all the dishes in the kitchen and cleaned the living room. They decided they would tackle the bathroom and the cleaning upstairs on the next day. So, they had baths and went to bed early on that day from exhaustion right after putting their son to sleep.

It was a few hours after they slept that there was loud knocking on their house’s front door. It seemed to be urgent because the knocking continued nonstop.

Samuel was the first to get up, and he headed toward the door while grumbling, “Who's it at this time of night?”

When he opened the door, he was startled to find Mike standing there looking distraught. He was clearly wearing his pajamas and appeared to have come running here from his out of breath state.

“Mike? What're you—?” Samuel began, when Mike hurried to speak.

“Sam! It's urgent! Quick! Please help! I… I don't know what to do!” Mike said, panicking wildly.

“Woah! Woah! Calm down!” Samuel said sharply, shocked to see his friend in such a panicked state. “What happened? Is it Grace?”

“She's not waking up!” Mike said finally, tears pouring down his face.

His friend's eyes widened with shock before he became determined and said, “Let's go and check on her!”

“Yeah! Yeah!” Mike said repeatedly, and the two friends quickly ran towards Mike's house.

The door was ajar from Mike bolting out of the house in a hurry to get help. The two entered through the main door and went straight to the bedroom, where Grace was lying peacefully in her nightgown.

Samuel quickly sat on the edge of the bed on her side and checked her pulse. His friend hung in the background, watching apprehensively as he awaited for the verdict of his friend.

“She's alive, but her heart rate is slow,” said Samuel, leaning back and looking at her with worry.

“Oh no…!” Mike said with worry.

While he was slowly falling apart, his friend thought quickly and shouted at him, “She needs a doctor immediately! Go to the hospital! Quickly!”

He literally bellowed his words at his friend, which he did not like doing, but he knew it was the only way to snap Mike out of his state of depression.

Mike was startled by his friend shouting at him, but with instructions to follow, his mind cleared, and he nodded at his friend wordlessly. He moved forward and scooped his wife in his arms before exiting through the door while his friend followed behind him.

“Get there fast! I'll be right behind you!” Samuel said, to which Mike nodded his head in understanding with his back to his friend.

He watched Mike flap his wings and soar into the air before flying towards the nearest hospital, which was the one that Sarah was admitted to previously. As soon as Mike left, Samuel locked his friend's home and headed into his own house, where Sarah was already up and waiting for him.

“Sam!” She said, surprised to see him looking so serious. “What happened? Where did you go?”

“I think Grace's gone into labour,” he responded to his wife, telling her what he believed was the cause of her not responding, “but there seemed to be a complication.”

Sarah brought her hands up together with a shocked expression on her face. Samuel walked past her and into their room to change into more appropriate clothes. Once ready, he walked out again to find his wife standing there looking worried.

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“I'm going to the hospital. You stay here, okay?”

She nodded at him and said with concern, “I hope she is alright.”

“Let's hope for the best,” he replied, and he kissed her before taking this leave from the house.

She watched her husband leave before putting her hands together and closed her eyes while praying, “Please, god. Let Grace be safe and have a safe delivery.”

For the rest of the night, she did not sleep and simply sat on her bedroom. She silently swung the swing of her baby gently back and forth while glancing sideways at the entrance to her room as if expecting her husband to return with good news. At the same time, she was also feeling impatient and thought the time was flowing extra slowly for some reason, not knowing her heightened worry was causing her to look constantly out of the window to see whether the sky had brightened or not.

It felt like forever for her when morning came, but there still was no news on Grace's condition. She felt furious at being in the dark and not knowing what was happening, but she soon shifted her anger towards fate for putting Grace in that predicament.

“What has she ever done to you to deserve this fate?!” She demanded, but no one responded.

It was not until a while later that her son woke up and began crying as he felt hunger. Sarah was in such a daze that she did not immediately register the cries of her baby despite being in the same room. It was not until a sudden gust of wind cause the door to her room to close shut that snapped her out of her reverie and made her pay attention to her baby.

“Oh no! What am I doing?!” She exclaimed sharply, alarmed by the cries of her baby.

She quickly moved to scoop her child out of the swing and laying him on her lap before beginning to feed him her milk.

“I'm really sorry,” she apologised repeatedly, looking very stricken. “I… don't know what came over me. Please forgive this silly mother? I promise I'll take better care of you!”

She asked her baby boy after finishing feeding him, only for him to look at her in wonder. He did not understand a single word that came out of her mouth, but he knew that his mother was trying to apologize to him.

“It's okay, mom,” he thought, trying to move so that his small fingers to touch her hand.

After twitching for a bit, he managed to get his tiny fingers to touch her hand. This movement surprised her, and he looked lovingly at his son. She already had a firm belief that he was a smart baby, but now she began to believe he was something more.

“Oh…! My son!” She exclaimed happily, patting him gently on the forehead while smiling warmly down at him.

Just then, she heard the entrance door open and guessed that her husband had returned. Quickly rising to her feet, she placed her son gently back in the swing before moving it back and forth in a slow motion. She gave her child a quick smile and a wink before walking out of the room.

In the hallway, she did not find anyone there, but she knew better than to look there. She walked forward and looked into the living room to find her husband sitting on a chair with his head bowed.

“It must be from exhaustion,” she assumed as she did not want to think of a single negative thought.

Sarah moved into the room and asked her husband hesitantly, “Sam…?”

“Mmm,” a sound came from his closed mouth.

His wife felt relieved that he was responding, and so she asked him, “Um… How did it go? Is Grace unharmed? Was the delivery a success?”

He sighed when she asked her questions, but did not immediately say anything. He seemed to be thinking about something before finally being prodded by her next question.

“Sam! I need to know!” She demanded him, thinking he was hiding something from her.

Samuel breathed a deep sigh and replied, “The delivery is a success. It's a girl.”

“Oh!” Sarah said excitedly, thrilled to hear such good news, but her husband did not finished speaking yet.

“However, Grace… She… She's passed away.”

As soon as he let those words out, they hung in the air like a balloon floating around. Sarah blinked twice at him and asked back in a disbelieving voice.

“Sam…! D-Don't even joke on things like that.”

However, she could tell without looking at his face that he was being very serious. Her eyes widened, and she covered her mouth with her hand as tears began streaming down her face. The very thought of Grace having to go to the hospital in a critical condition shocked her, but hearing that she passed away made her feel an overwhelming sense of loss, the same sensation she felt when her grandmother passed away.

“No…!” She exclaimed, and she knelt down as her legs no longer felt stable enough to support her standing. “It… can't be…!”

Samuel did not glance at her as he explained in a depressed voice, “The doctor said that Grave must've gone into labour during the night but due to having low blood pressure, she had a complication that put a risk on her life. The doctor… she tried her very best to save them both but…”

He did not finish the sentence as they both know the conclusion of that already. They remained silent, with him sitting there with his head bowed while she kneeled while crying in a small voice. The loss of Grace was a devastating loss to them because they always felt happy, cheerful and full of energy whenever they saw her smile or spoke with her. Now, no longer being able to see her ever again made them feel as if a hole had been cut in their chest.

After several minutes of silence, Sarah finally pulled herself together while trying to wipe away the tears. She was still feeling the loss, but she was not a woman to sit around and cry all day, and she knew Grace would have disapproved of them mourning her loss so continuously.

“W-What about M-Mike?” She croaked, her voice a little weak from the crying.

“Mike…?” Her husband asked slowly, coming to himself at the sudden question. “He… He's…”

He paused, causing her to feel the worst.

“What happened to him?!” She demanded loudly, startling Jim in the process. “What happened to your best friend, Sam?!”

As her shouting finished, she noticed that he was shaking slightly with his head bowed. She knew her husband well, and knew he was a strong willed man that would not show any signs of weakness under any amount of pressure. So, seeing such a man shaking made her feel that somehow things were really bad.

She moved to pat him gently on the head while asking in a quiet voice, “What happened, Sam?”

He finally looked up at her and she could see his tear filled eyes when he said, “Mike's lost his mind.”