The Never Ending Night

The next day, she was the same.

The doctors said they were trying everything they could.

That night, Aaryan and I went to see Bella. Ria couldn’t get to see her again in that state. I picked her up carefully and held her close. I sang to her — softly, the way I always did.

She looked at me.

And then she moved her paw.

Just a little.

But enough.

Enough to make our hearts jump. Enough to make us believe — maybe, just maybe — there was light at the end of this tunnel.

We smiled through tears. We held onto that moment. The three of us went home carrying a fragile kind of hope.

An hour later, the phone rang.

Bella had suffered a neurological stroke.

What we thought was a response… wasn’t.

It was a stroke.

And just like that, the hope we were holding so carefully slipped through our fingers.