Her Last Gift (Short Story)

It was a dark night in Blakely, Georgia. Things were moving pretty slowly, until the sound of sirens pierced through the night air and broke the calm, peaceful silence.

An apartment building was burning; the flames were bright as fireflies. The first floor was almost completely engulfed in flames, but that was only a small part of the drama that was going on that fateful night, for inside the apartment on the third floor, a woman was giving birth to her first child.

\"Come on, Kayla! You can do it! Just keep pushing.\"

\"I can\'t! It\'s too hard!\"

\"Yes, you can! Don\'t give up on me now!\"
Kayla\'s husband, Chris, was trying his hardest to assist his wife in this difficult task. Kayla struggled to push, but every time she pushed, her life would slowly leave her in the form of her own scarlet, warm, sticky blood.
By now, the fire had reached the second floor. Chris\'s arms were stained with his wife\'s blood from his elbows to his hands.
\"Please, Kayla. Don\'t give up now!\"

\"AHHH!\"
With one final scream, Kayla pushed with all her might and gave birth to a healthy, 7-pound baby girl. Chris held the baby in his arms and kissed his dying wife on her forehead.
Kayla took a deep breath, and with the last remaining ounce of her strength, she whispered feebly to her husband,\"I love you.\" Then she slowly closed her eyes, and with her last sigh passed away.
Chris desperately tried to awaken his wife from her deathly sleep by yelling her name into her ears, but it was too late.
Suddenly, Chris heard the window next to the bed break, and a fireman in a cherry-picker yelled out to him,\"Hurry! Climb on before the flames hit this floor!\"
Chris rushed to the window with his daughter in his arms. As he climbed on the cherry-picker, he looked back and saw his wife\'s lifeless body on the floor. When he was lowered to the streets below, he turned around once again and saw that the third floor was completely covered in flames. A paramedic rushed to his side and took the baby into her arms.
\"Be careful,\"Chris called out to the paramedic, \"That\'s my wife\'s last gift to mankind.\"

The End