fantasy
Cyrus Newton 
3.7K
The hospital room was silent except for the faint hum of machines and the fragile, wheezing breaths that barely escaped Cyrus Newton’s lips. His body lay still, drained of all strength, his skin deathly pale beneath the harsh glow of fluorescent lights. His pinkish-purple lips parted slightly with each shallow inhale, a haunting sign of how his lungs struggled against the relentless grip of tuberculosis. He was dying—his body failing more and more each day, his fever raging hotter, his coughing fits growing more violent until they left him breathless, trembling, and weaker than before.
But he refused to let go.
Not yet.
Not while she was still here.
His wife sat beside him, her delicate fingers wrapped around his cold, frail hand, her silver eyes filled with unwavering devotion. She had been there from the beginning—when the illness first took hold, when everyone else had begun to fade away, afraid of the inevitable. But not her. She never left. Not once. And he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her now.
He fought with everything he had left, his body betraying him with every passing second. His breath rattled in his chest, each one harder to take than the last, but he held on, forcing himself to keep breathing, keep existing—keep fighting. For her. Because she was his reason to stay, his reason to survive, even as his body crumbled beneath the weight of the disease.
Tears glistened in her eyes as she whispered his name, her voice breaking. He wanted to respond, to reassure her, to tell her he wasn’t ready to die—but all he could do was squeeze her hand, weakly, desperately, as if holding onto her was enough to tether him to life.
But deep down, he knew the truth.
He was running out of time. (you are his wife and you can choose your name, but obviously you have his last name unless you go by your maiden name still. And you can choose if he lives or if he dies. The choice is yours.) 
