Chapter 1 The day after I gave birth to my twins, they were stolen from me. I was consumed by an unbearable grief, pushing my exhausted, broken body to its absolute limits, searching for them for two excruciating years. I never found them. It wasn’t until after I died that I saw the truth. A stranger—a woman I had never met—carrying my babies, marched right up to the gates of the military base where my husband was stationed. She brazenly claimed she was me, telling everyone she was the poor, abandoned wife of the base commander. She stole my name. She enjoyed forty years of the wealth, privilege, and comfort that were rightfully mine. And my children? They spent their entire lives lovingly calling her “Mom.” Then, I opened my eyes. I was back in the hospital, the exact day I was wheeled into the recovery room after giving birth. The patient in the bed next to me smiled warmly and handed over a shiny red apple. “Hey there, honey. You went through a lot today. Eat an apple, get some of your strength back.” I stared at her face, my entire body violently trembling. It was her. The thief who stole my babies in my past life! … “Honey? You finally awake?” A voice drifted over from the side of my bed. I turned my head. The woman from the neighboring bed was sitting cheerfully on the edge of my mattress. She held out a bright red apple. “You went through a lot today. Eat an apple, get some of your strength back.” In that split second, I felt the blood in my veins freeze. This face. The face I had been forced to watch as a ghost for forty agonizing years. She was the one who had stood at the gates of the military base, clutching my son and daughter, claiming her name was Sarah Miller. She cried, saying the babies couldn’t grow up without their father. My husband believed her. My children believed her. Everyone believed her. She wore the clothes meant for me, lived in the house meant for me, and my babies crowded around her, calling her “Mom” for forty years. “Honey?” She pushed the apple closer. My hands, hidden beneath the thin hospital blanket, were shaking so violently I could barely control them. But I forced myself to endure it. “Thank you. But I just had surgery. I can’t stomach anything cold right now.” I didn’t take the apple. Her smile faltered for a fraction of a second. Then, it returned. She stood up and reached for the insulated thermos in the corner. “Well, let me get you some hot water then. I just filled this up, it’s nice and hot.” She poured a massive mug full to the brim and handed it to me with both hands. I didn’t move a muscle. “Ma’am, please don’t trouble yourself.” “Tsk, what trouble?” She forcefully shoved the mug onto my bedside table, then leaned over to tuck in the corner of my blanket. “We’re sharing a room, that’s fate! You just gave birth, and you don’t even have a single person here to help you out. How could I just sit by and do nothing?” While she spoke, her eyes kept darting around, studying my face. “I can manage on my own.” She acted like she didn’t hear me. She dragged a chair over and planted herself right next to my bed. “Honey, having twins! What an incredible blessing!” She leaned in closer, her eyes shifting toward the hospital bassinets. “Why hasn’t anyone from your family come by? Where’s your husband? What about your mother-in-law?” The invisible string in my chest snapped tight. Here it comes. This was exactly how she had pumped me for information in my past life. Back then, I had just been stitched up. The anesthesia hadn’t fully worn off, my brain was complete mush, and I answered every question she asked. I foolishly spilled everything. I even thought she was a genuinely kind person for helping me, feeling a sense of warmth toward her. Thinking back on it now, the old me was an absolute idiot. “They’re busy. They’ll be here in a few days.” “Busy?” She clicked her tongue in disapproval. “What kind of business is more important than a wife giving birth? Honey, you haven’t been duped by some guy, have you?” I didn’t respond. She gave me another assessing look. “Well, what are you going to do tonight? You just had a C-section, your incision is fresh. If the babies cry in the middle of the night, you won’t even be able to pick them up.” She suddenly stood up and took a step toward the bassinets. “Tell you what, I’ll keep an eye on the babies for you tonight, and you can get some solid sleep—” She bent over. Her hands reached toward my children. My heart hammered in my chest. I practically screamed. “Don’t touch my babies!” I grabbed Linda’s wrist, my voice so loud it echoed through the entire ward. The older woman in the bed next to Linda jumped up immediately. “What the hell are you doing?! Linda is just trying to be nice, and you put your hands on her?!” A new mother drinking water nearby turned around, frowning and clicking her tongue in disgust. The mother-in-law sitting with the patient across the room pointed a finger right at me. “Young wives these days are so ungrateful! Does she owe you something?” Linda cradled her wrist, her lips trembling. She let out a long, dramatic sigh. “Honey, even if you don’t appreciate the help, you can’t just accuse people like that. I saw you lying here, all alone after having twins, without a single person to even pour you a glass of water. I just felt bad for you.” The older woman chimed in immediately. “Exactly! Linda has been up since this morning, pouring your water, tucking you in, and you don’t even say thank you before pushing her? Were you raised in a barn?” Linda waved her hands dismissively. “Forget it, forget it. Let it go. She just gave birth, she’s anxious. What mother isn’t protective of her cubs?” It sounded like she was defending me, but every single word was carefully designed to paint me as the crazy one. The new mother nearby muttered, “Being anxious means you get to hit people? We’re all mothers here.” The mother-in-law across the room scoffed. “She’s probably just terrified the kids won’t bond with her. I’ve seen her type before.” I ignored them all. Linda retreated to her bed, rubbing her wrist, muttering about how “no good deed goes unpunished.” The older woman cursed at me through the privacy curtain a few more times, but when I didn’t engage, she lost interest, rolled over, and went to sleep. I didn’t sleep. I dragged both bassinets right up against my bed, practically touching my pillow. Close enough that I could reach them instantly. Two wrinkled little faces peeked out from the swaddles, breathing softly, up and down, like tiny kittens. I didn’t close my eyes for a single second that night. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. I was too terrified. Every time my eyelids began to droop, the sound of footsteps in the hallway would jolt me awake. My hands would fly into the bassinets, only relaxing when I felt two warm little bodies. Around midnight, Linda got up to use the restroom. As she passed my bed, she paused. I didn’t make a sound. I just lay there, my eyes wide open, staring dead at her in the dark. She seemed startled by my glare, muttered “psycho” under her breath, and hurried away. The next day, she kept her distance. But on the third night, she walked over holding a bowl of millet porridge. “Honey, I’m not holding a grudge over yesterday. You had a C-section, you need to drink some hot broth so your milk comes in—” “No thank you.” “Look at you, your lips are completely cracked—” “I said, no thank you.” She stood there for a long moment, then set the bowl down with a tight smile. “Fine. It’s here if you want it.” She turned and walked away. I stared at the bowl of porridge. Once the ward was asleep, I quietly picked it up and dumped the entire thing into the trash can. By the end of the third day, I was breaking down. I had barely slept for two nights. My incision throbbed constantly, my milk supply was low, and the twins took turns crying. When I held one to feed, the other would wail in the bassinet, loud enough for the entire floor to hear. A nurse came in to check my vitals. My systolic blood pressure was 160. “You can’t keep doing this! Where is your family? You need to call them and tell them to get down here!” Linda, ever present, chimed in with a sympathetic smile. “She’s right, honey. Look at how exhausted you are. You really need to get someone here to help.” I was so tired, my body felt like it was made of lead. The fierce desire to protect my babies warred constantly with the suffocating terror of losing them. My stubbornness finally broke. I gritted my teeth, wondering if I should call my absent, ghost of a husband. The nurse was still pressing for an answer. I opened my mouth, offering a weak brush-off. “There’s no one.” “No one? What about your mother-in-law? Your husband?” I stayed silent. The nurse gave me a long look, sighed, and didn’t push further. She packed up the blood pressure cuff, poured me a fresh cup of water, and her voice softened. “Your incision isn’t healing well. If you keep pushing yourself like this, you’re going to end up with a serious infection. You have to get someone here.” She paused, then added, “If you really don’t want to call family, at least hire a private aide.” I leaned back against the pillows, my vision swimming with black spots. Could an aide watch Linda for me? Could an aide stop those hands from reaching into the bassinets in the three seconds my eyes were closed? I shut my eyes, and my mind was flooded with memories from my past life. Arthur and I did not have a loving marriage. Years ago, his parents had been forced to move to the countryside due to political profiling and ended up in my village. I grew up without a father to protect me or a mother to love me. They took pity on me, and in return, I treated them like my own family. The year the massive mudslide hit the village, I risked my life to drag them both out of the freezing mud. His mother held me and cried, swearing that from that day forward, I was her daughter. Later, when they were cleared to return to the city, they couldn’t bear to leave me behind. They practically forced Arthur to marry me. I was young and naive, and didn’t really object. But Arthur was always incredibly distant. The number of times we actually saw each other could be counted on one hand. My in-laws treated me beautifully, loving me like their own flesh and blood. But they both passed away within the last two years. The house suddenly felt completely empty. Arthur was permanently stationed at the military base, rarely coming home even once a year. The last time he returned, I had drank a little too much wine. I woke up aching, and when I looked over, his side of the bed was empty. He had already gone back to the base. So, I never told him I was pregnant. I stubbornly decided I was going to have these babies all by myself. I never expected that decision to lead me into a trap that would destroy my entire life. Arthur didn’t know I had given birth. But after I died, I watched as he became an incredible father to those two kids. When our daughter ran a high fever, he never left her side, taking three days off work just to care for her. When she refused to take her bitter medicine, he crushed the pills into sugar water and fed it to her drop by drop with a tiny spoon. When she became delirious in the middle of the night, he held her and paced the room until the sun came up. He never once complained. Our son was a rambunctious boy. During the harsh winters, Arthur would go out in the freezing cold to build snowmen with him, tossing him high into the air until he shrieked with laughter. He never missed a single parent-teacher conference, and he always read them bedtime stories. I blinked hard, fighting back the tears. “Nurse.” She was turning to leave, but stopped. “Nurse.” I clenched my jaw. “I need to go make a phone call. Could you… could you please watch my babies for a minute? Just for a minute. Please, do not let anyone touch them.” She looked surprised, but nodded. “Sure. Make it quick.” I had to make the call. I gripped the edge of the bed and forced myself to stand. Every step felt like I was walking on shattered glass. By the time I managed the few dozen steps to the nurses’ station, my hospital gown was soaked in cold sweat. The nurse at the desk helped me dial the military base switchboard. The line clicked and hummed for what felt like an eternity before someone finally answered. “Hello, I am a family member of Commander Arthur Sterling, 14th Division. I’m at the Clear Creek County Hospital. It’s an emergency. Please patch me through to him.” After another agonizing wait, a deep, resonant voice came through the receiver. “This is Sterling.” I opened my mouth, completely unsure of where to even begin. “Arthur… it’s me, Sarah. I’m at Clear Creek County Hospital, I…” As I was trying to find the words, a movement at the end of the hallway caught the corner of my eye. The nurse—the one I had explicitly begged not to leave my babies’ side—was supporting a frail, white-haired old man, walking him toward the restrooms. The door to my ward was wide open. A deafening roar erupted in my ears. The heavy phone receiver slipped from my fingers, slamming against the edge of the desk and spinning by its cord. Arthur’s voice echoed distantly from the earpiece. “Sarah? What’s going on? Hello? Sarah!” I was already running. It felt like someone was tearing my C-section incision open from the inside out, but I didn’t dare stop. “Ma’am! Ma’am! No running in the halls! You’re going to hurt yourself!” Nurses yelled warnings at me, but I didn’t care. I don’t remember how I crossed that hallway. The ward was empty. The window was wide open, the wind whipping the privacy curtains around violently. The bassinets were empty. Only two tiny, depressed indentations remained on the soft mattresses. My babies had been stolen. My vision went completely black. This was exactly how it happened in my past life. In my past life, I drank the water Linda gave me, and when I woke up, the bassinets were just as empty as they were right now. I leaned against the wall and stumbled out of the room, the blinding pain from my incision making the world spin. They weren’t in the hallway. They weren’t in the hot water room. They weren’t in the restrooms. They weren’t in the stairwells. I ripped open every door, tore back every curtain, shoved past every person in my way. People yelled that I was crazy. Some shoved me back. I didn’t hear a thing. When I finally staggered back to the door of my ward, the nurse who had been helping the old man came running down the hall, looking panicked. “Ma’am! Why are you out of bed?! If your stitches tear—” I grabbed her by the collar of her scrubs. “I told you to watch my babies. Where did you go?!” All the color drained from the nurse’s face. “There was an elderly patient… he said he was dizzy and couldn’t stand. I just helped him to the restroom. It was only two minutes—” “Two minutes?!” I felt my lips trembling, all the blood in my body rushing to my head. “My babies are gone! Both of them are gone!” Doors began opening down the hallway. A doctor jogged over, followed closely by the head of the maternity ward. Soon, a crowd formed around us. A patient grabbed my arm, saying, “Calm down, your stitches are going to rip,” but I violently shoved him away and pointed directly at the Head of Maternity. “My babies were stolen. Just minutes ago. Lock down the building. If you lock the doors right now, we can still catch them.” The Head of Maternity froze for a second, then roared at the nurses beside him. “Call Security! Lock the main entrance, the side doors, the back exits! Do not let a single person leave the building—” “It was her,” I interrupted, my voice so cold I barely recognized it as my own. “The woman in the bed next to mine. Linda Hayes. The second I woke up from surgery, she kept hovering, asking questions about my babies. Now she’s gone, and my babies are gone.” A younger doctor standing nearby hesitated. “Ma’am, please don’t jump to conclusions. Maybe the nursery nurses just took them for a routine checkup—” I let out a harsh, furious laugh and opened my mouth to scream at him, when a sudden, blinding pain ripped through my abdomen. I doubled over, unable to stand straight. Two nurses grabbed my arms and half-carried me toward the nurses’ station. Halfway there, a lightning bolt of realization struck my brain. I violently shook off the nurses and lunged at the young receptionist logging charts behind the desk. “The old man! The skinny old man with white hair who just pretended to faint in the hallway!” The young nurse looked totally lost. “What old man?” “She has an accomplice! An old man!” I screamed. “He was the one who lured the nurse away—” The nurse who had helped the old man suddenly slapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with horror. She shoved through the crowd, sprinting toward the patient rooms. A few seconds later, she stumbled back out, her voice cracking in panic. “Bed 4 is empty! But Mr. Henderson with the broken leg never left the room! That old man wasn’t a patient!” It hit everyone at once—the old man had faked an illness to lure the nurse away, giving Linda the exact window she needed to steal the babies. They worked in perfect sync. From the moment Linda left the room to the moment the nurse walked away, the entire operation took less than three minutes. The Head of Maternity deployed everyone. Staff tore through every floor, every corner, the hospital descending into total chaos like boiling water spilling across the floor. Finally, security cornered someone near a second-floor storage closet. Linda. When the security guards dragged her out by her wrists, she was still wearing a face of righteous indignation, looking at everyone like they were the crazy ones. I lunged forward and slapped her across the face with everything I had. SMACK. The force of the blow snapped her head to the side. She stumbled backward, crashing into the wall, clutching her cheek and staring at me in utter disbelief. “You hit me?!” “Where are my babies?!” I grabbed her by the collar of her hospital gown. “Where the hell did you hide my babies?!” Linda clutched her cheek, her eyes welling with tears, playing the ultimate victim. “Your babies are missing, you’re frantic, I get it. I’ll let the slap slide. But what gives you the right to accuse me?! I was just walking with the rounding nurse! Honey, are you going to point the finger at every single person you see?!” Right on cue, the whispers in the crowd began. “She has a point. Just because her kids are missing doesn’t mean she gets to assault people.” I was shaking with so much rage I could barely breathe. Half an hour passed. The babies were not found. Patient rooms, exam rooms, lounges, restrooms. Every conceivable hiding spot was searched, but they had vanished into thin air. The main doors were locked. No one could leave. Patients waiting to be discharged began to riot. The Head of Maternity stood at the doors, begging everyone to wait just a little longer, but no one was listening. A doctor ran up to me, asking if I could just let them open the doors. I stood frozen, my entire body shaking uncontrollably. It was exactly like my past life. I was going to lose my babies all over again. I glared at Linda. She met my eyes and actually smiled. The pain was so blinding I could no longer stand. I leaned heavily against the wall, cold sweat pouring down my face like rain. The memories of my past life violently overlapping with the present made my face drain of all color. I was on the verge of passing out. Just as my knees gave way and I began to slide down the wall, a strong arm caught me. My vision was blurred with white spots. I was pulled against a solid chest. Arthur’s face was dark with terror. He gently cupped my face, his voice desperate. “Sarah? Sarah?! Can you hear me?” I grabbed his wrist with a vice-like grip, the tears finally breaking free and spilling down my cheeks. “Arthur… please, save our babies. Someone stole them, and I can’t find them…” Arthur’s expression instantly changed to something terrifying. He gestured sharply to his lieutenant. Within seconds, the entire hospital was surrounded by heavily armed soldiers from Arthur’s personal guard. The main entrance, the side doors, the rear exits—all locked down. No one in, no one out. Two armed soldiers flanked every exit, standing as rigid and immovable as iron pillars. The civilians waiting to leave in the lobby were stunned into silence, then immediately erupted into outrage. “What the hell is this?! You can’t keep us hostage!” The crowd surged angrily toward the main doors. The lieutenant vaulted over the reception desk in three steps, planting his boots firmly on the countertop. He projected his voice so loudly the entire lobby reverberated. “Listen up! The missing infants are the children of Commander Arthur Sterling of the 14th Division! A pair of newborn twins. They are currently in grave danger! We demand your full cooperation. No one leaves this building!”
🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “522248”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel
Leave a Reply