Chapter 5

On day twenty-eight, I started doing something in secret.

With my fingernails, I began carving a name for the child, letter by letter, into the deepest crack in the corner of the wall.

I still hadn't decided what to call it.

But I knew it needed a name.

At the very least, its existence deserved to be recorded.

At the very least, someone in this world had shed tears for it.

*****

On day thirty, when Sebastian came to draw my blood, I asked him, "If the child is born, how will you treat it?"

He paused as he pulled…