“Inmate number 1462,” replied the nurse. “Labor could start any minute. She was transferred from the east block a month ago. No family, no documents, medical history is empty. She barely speaks.”

“Barely speaks?” raised the midwife an eyebrow. “Not at all?”

“She only nods in monosyllables. Doesn’t look anyone in the eye. As if she’s closed off from the inside.”

The heavy door creaked. In the room, which looked more like a cell, a pregnant woman lay on the narrow metal bed. She held her hands on her huge belly and stared at the floor. Her face was pale, her hair messy. But there was something strange in her stillness: not fear or pain, but a kind of resignation.

The midwife approached.

“Hello,” she said softly. “I’ll stay with you until the baby is born. Let me examine you.”

The woman nodded slightly.

The midwife leaned in to examine her—and suddenly screamed in horror.

Where the steady beating of a tiny heart should have been, there was a frightening emptiness. The doctor changed her angle, pressed harder, held her breath… but nothing.