She went pale.

“I can’t hear a heartbeat,” she whispered.

The guards exchanged glances, feeling the tension fill the room.

Labor started suddenly, leaving no time for long thoughts. The midwife pressed her lips together and shouted:

“Call a priest immediately! If the baby is born dead, he must not leave in silence, but with a prayer.”

The woman on the bed didn’t utter a word. She just clenched the sheet in her fingers.

And suddenly, the midwife heard a sound again. First faint, like a distant whisper, then a little stronger. The heart… it was beating after all. Weakly, irregularly, but it was beating.

“Alive,” she exhaled. “It’s alive…”

 

The struggle for every minute began. The contractions intensified, the woman screamed, the guards held her by the hands and shoulders, and the midwife did everything possible to save both mother and child. Time seemed to have stopped in that cell.

Finally, after agonizing hours, a faint squeak pierced the air. First barely audible, then louder, stronger. A boy. Weak, tiny, with bluish skin, but alive.

He was quickly brought to oxygen, rubbed until his breathing grew deeper. And then the room was filled with the loud, desperate cry of the newborn.

The midwife closed her eyes, wiping sweat from her forehead.

“Thank you, Lord…”

For the first time, the inmate lifted her eyes and smiled.