Chapter 1: Rainy Night
“Bang bang! Bang bang bang!”
A series of violent knocks on the door jolted Everly awake from a sweet sleep.
She blinked in confusion. Through the transparent incubator, she stared at the all-white ceiling. Her sluggish brain lagged behind by half a beat before slowly forming a single question: Why would anyone be banging on the door of a newborn ward?
Yes, a newborn ward.
Everly—perhaps she had another name in her previous life, but when she woke again, born into this world, most of her past had already faded. She simply decided to go by the name people around her called her—Everly. She was a premature baby, born from a tragic traffic accident. Her mother, a strong and determined young woman, struggled to give birth to her in the wreckage of a car, but could not survive until the rescuers arrived and lost her life.
All this information she had pieced together from the occasional idle chatter of the medical staff caring for her.
Because she was born over a month early, Everly was physically weak. For as long as she could remember, she had always lain in a newborn incubator.
Except during visiting hours for the infants’ parents, the ward was almost always quiet. Even when babies cried, the sound was soft, barely louder than a mosquito’s hum. After all, most of the children lying here had various health issues.
And now, the long-held silence of the newborn ward was shattered by urgent, aggressive pounding on the door.