The Baby

Jenny awoke coughing and unable to breathe. She was overcome with heavy smoke--her eyes welled up with tears. Panicked and disoriented, she held her hands out to make her way to the nursery. The baby wasn't there.







She frantically searched for the baby as she tried to recall where she'd left her. Jenny could hear nothing but the crackling of the fire and the sound of her own diminishing ability to breathe. She had to get out or she was going to die. She made it outside, collapsing on the lawn just as the fire engines arrived.







Jenny woke up in the hospital and she tried to remember how she got there.







The last thing she remembered was rocking the baby and humming a lullaby.







But then she remembered everything. A woman lay bleeding on the the floor, a cut in her abdomen. "We're running out of time!" she screamed at her husband, Michael. "Cut the cord!" The woman's husband walked in on them and the two men fought. Jenny threw the knife to Michael, but the man intercepted it and stabbed Michael in the chest. The man stormed toward Jenny with the knife, slipping on his wife's blood. He fell, onto the knife--impaling himself in the heart. "Please don't hurt my baby." the man said with his last breath.



Jenny pulled the knife out of his chest and proceeded to cut the cord, too wound up to fully comprehend what had happened there.







Oh my God, what have I done? "Nurse? There was a baby in my house. Did the baby survive?"







"No, Jenny, I'm sorry. You were the only survivor. I'm very sorry dear."







"Nurse? I have a confession to make ... "







Jenny had caused the deaths of three people to get that baby. She was sentenced to life in prison, without the possibility of parole.



300 Words