The Quiet Between Breaths

Her hands moved with the precision of someone who had done this too many times —
compress, release, compress —a rhythm not fuelled by hope, but by something colder, steadier: duty. Beneath her palms, the man’s chest lifted and fell, like a tide slipping out of her reach, out of her command. Her breath fogged the inside of her mask, a faint cloud in the harsh, fluorescent light —a ghost of her presence in a room waiting to exhale.

Around her, the ward held its breath — machines blinked, oxygen whispered, and death loomed just beyond the fragile curve of one last breath not taken. No one called her name. She was another healthcare worker faceless in scrubs; a shadow among shadows, buried beneath plastic, fabric, fatigue.

When the flatline came, it didn’t scream — it hummed, long and steady, a sound with no edges. Someone called the time. She didn’t move. Her hands stayed hovering, as if waiting for the air to change, for the story to take a different turn. Eventually, she peeled off her gloves,
feeling her hands return to her — raw, reddened, and human once more. She walked the corridor back to the break room, each step a quiet crossing between the world of the living and the lost. Behind every door she passed, a new battle raged —some she had entered, some she had already surrendered to.

Beyond the hospital walls, the world moved on, unaware of how many names had been swallowed in this place, how many stories had dissolved into the sterile hush. In the break room, the air was thick with stillness, heavier than the filtered oxygen that sustained the building.
A paper cup sat on the table — her tea, untouched and cold. She didn’t drink it. She just watched her reflection flicker across its surface each time the overhead light trembled.

She had come to this country bright-eyed, her suitcase full of purpose, hope and a whispered promise to her mother: I’ll be okay.

She had not come to be a hero or to be brave, not to be broken. She came to begin.
But the beginning had slipped through her fingers, replaced by endless nights and the blur of too many names and too few hours. Her work lived in the silence, in the unmarked sacrifices —
no headlines bore her name, no applause echoed down these halls. Only the quiet, relentless labour of cradling life and death in the same pair of hands.

Now, she measured time by oxygen levels; by heartbeats and halted breaths; by the weight of last words. When her shift finally ended, she walked out quietly, the ridges of her mask still etched into her skin, her shoulders bent beneath what she no longer had strength to carry.

Outside, the sky was a watered-down grey. Light spilled across the pavement like something wasted. The buses came, the windows of houses lit up. The world looked on, untouched by the grief that lived in her bones.

Home greeted her with silence — a folded note on the table, a gesture of love in a world forgetting how to offer it: Sinigang in the fridge. Rest well. 􏰀 She smiled — but it didn’t reach her.
Her throat was sore. Her chest tight. Her limbs ached with a deep, unsettled cold. She told herself it was nothing. Just tiredness. Just one more long night.

She left the soup untouched. Let her coat fall where it landed. And slipped into bed like something easily broken — creased, folded, forgotten.

The fever arrived quietly, like a voice speaking from far away. By the time night fully held her, she was already somewhere else — breath fading, slowing, narrowing to the barest thread.

She didn’t reach for her phone. She didn’t call out. She simply let go — not from weakness, but because there was nothing left to give.

Outside her window, the city rolled on, its back turned to dawn.

Morning arrived the way it always did — soft-footed and unaware. The world didn’t notice what had gone missing in the dark.
A knock at the door.
Then another.

Her flatmate, warm mug in hand, stood in the hallway, the silence inside pressing against her like a warning.

She opened the door.
There she was, curled beneath the duvet — still as porcelain. No breath, no murmur, no movement.

The mug hits the floor. She crossed the room in two strides. Checked for a pulse, a flicker, a sign — but there was only stillness.

She swallowed the panic rising in her throat, called 999 with fingers that trembled, then dropped to her knees, letting instinct take over.

Her hands — trained by long shifts, endless nights — knew what to do.
Compress, release, compress — just like Mel had done for so many.
But this time, the body beneath her gave nothing back. Still, she kept going. Counting. Crying. Breathing through the ache.

Outside, life continued: buses rolled by, sirens called into the distance, birds moved across a pale sky — unaware of what had been lost.

And in that small room, where two women had tried to hold back the dark, only the quiet between breaths remained.

I am a confessed bibliophile and bookstagrammer (@thefilipinabibliophile) with a love for storytelling and community. I have written for Police Digest, the PNP (Philippine National Police) Journal, and the TV program "Police @ Ur Serbis" in the Philippines. Now based in the UK, I contributed to TINIG UK and am also a contributor in The Little Book of Positive Birth Stories (Virago, 2025). I currently facilitate the Filipino Mothers UK Book Club, creating space for connection and shared stories among Filipina mothers in the diaspora.