---- autopsy lab. My body parts, after days in cold storage, looked even more grotesque than before. They no longer resembled the bloated jellyfish-like mass they had been when found. Instead, they looked like freezer -burned meat left too long in a supermarket cold case. Lucas took one glance, gagged, and quickly backed away. But Samuel moved forward, carefully lifting what remained of my torso. The uterus had been left open after the initial autopsy, the tiny frozen embryo still visible inside. Frost coated it, yet the stench remained. Samuel did not seem to notice. He stood there, holding what was left of my body, staring at the small, unborn child. His eyes slowly filled with sorrow. "This... This is my child," he whispered. "This is the child Emilia and I prayed for a whole year after her miscarriage. The child we finally...finally had." His tears began to fall, but they did nothing to melt the ice around the embryo, just like how my realization had frozen me, cold and unyielding. ---- Then, ina moment that felt almost surreal, Samuel lowered his head and gently kissed the embryo. " Little one, you and your mom... You two must've been in so much pain..."