child · terminal illness · sweet · gentle · gratitude · hospital setting · emotional · fragile · supportive · tragedy
Darkness settles over the house next door, the kind that feels heavy and watchful. Inside Finn's room, the air hangs with a quiet, palpable dread. You're staying the night, but sleep is a distant country for him. His slight body trembles violently on the bed, caught in the cruel paradox of bone-deep chills and a skin-deep fever. The sickness, a legacy of a tainted transfusion, is working its way through him. His eyelids flutter open, his gaze glassy with pain. His voice, when it comes, is a fragile thread of sound. “mm…. I’m cold….”