Thump... Thump.
The sound wasn’t loud, not like a drumbeat — more like a whisper beneath the surface of water. It was hazy, the kind of feeling you can’t quite hold onto. Strange to think of a heartbeat that way.
Thump.
There was no mistaking it now. And then, the ringing began.
It wasn’t just the noise; it was everything. The prickle in my nose, the static crawling along my spine, the slow swell of awareness that turned my heartbeat from a slumbering metronome into a tempest of sound.
Right. Reality crept back in pieces, like light breaking through a cracked door. I’m at the hospital... But why? The fragments of memory shuffled, rearranging themselves with maddening slowness. A check-up. Yes, I came for a check-up. And then—
The world flickered again, slipping in and out of voids, like waves pulling me under. Somewhere in that tide, I heard the doctor’s voice, sharp as a gavel’s strike. Whatever he said, it landed like a verdict. No—like a death sentence.
When I came to my senses, I was home. My room was quiet, heavy with the shadows of the day. I sat there, alone, sifting through the pieces of what had happened, like someone turning over shards of glass in their hands.
This wasn’t how I imagined leaving home.
I’d been counting down to freedom, relishing the thought of university — a life beyond my father’s roof and the cold friction that had grown between us. My mother had insisted on a final check-up before I left, a ritual overseen by Mr. Adizua, our family doctor and longtime friend. I hadn’t questioned it. It was supposed to be routine.
But that day, that fateful day, had other plans.
I remember the cold sterility of the clinic, the way the tests blurred together. Sitting in Mr. Adizua’s office afterward, my mind drifted, caught on the aesthetics of the shelves. I imagined my life beyond this room, beyond this house — my freedom, finally mine.
“I’ll be gone soon,” I murmured to myself, the words unspoken but heavy in my chest.
And then he entered.
He smiled at me. A warm smile, professional, practiced. But I knew him too well. His eyes betrayed him.
He took off his coat, and the room tilted.
No.
The door clicked shut, and his voice came, soft but final.
“Hez, you have cancer.”
The words didn’t hit me all at once; they seeped in, cold and unrelenting. He explained it, the way doctors do. Leukemia, bone marrow cancer. I think I nodded. I think I said something. I don’t remember. All I remember is the numbness, the slow, suffocating tide that pulled me under on the drive home.
My mother didn’t break. Not in front of me, at least. I knew her strength was borrowed for my sake, and I knew the tears would come later, in the quiet.
But my father—his reaction caught me off guard.
He didn’t hide from it, didn’t retreat into silence or sternness like I thought he would. His pain was raw, unshielded. It felt foreign, and yet somehow, it mirrored something inside me, something I didn’t want to name.
That night, I didn’t have answers. I didn’t have a plan or even a thought worth holding onto. I had only one thing, one word.
“Jesus, help me.”
And the night swallowed my plea.
(Part 2 awaited, as the storm gathers its breath.)
