Episode 1

Chapter 1

One last chance.

The cold slipped under the skin like knives. The operating room, white and sterile, smelled of disinfectant and hopelessness. The overhead lights turned on one by one, casting an implacable clarity on the metal stretcher.

There, surrounded by doctors with faces hidden behind surgical masks, lay the fragile body of Issabelle Mancini.

Her face still retained some of that classic Italian beauty she had inherited from her mother, but now it was devoid of makeup, covered in an almost ghostly pallor.

Her cold, sweaty hands, tied to the monitor cables, trembled imperceptibly. Her body, weakened by months of pain and silent deterioration, barely reacted to stimuli.

Her cheekbones were sunken and her belly barely hinted at the presence of a small being struggling to exist alongside her.

A soft but firm voice broke through the hum of the machines.

How was it possible that her mind was still conscious when her entire body was anesthetized?

"We begin the intervention. Left parietal tumor. We proceed with temporal incision."

The scalpel cut the skin with clinical precision. The room remained in a contained silence, barely broken by the constant beeping of the heart monitor.

Each of the doctors around her knew their role: one opened the skull with a calculated turn, another aspirated the cerebrospinal fluid that was accumulating, while the team leader, Dr. Moretti, leaned in to locate the cancerous tumor.

That dark mass, barely visible between the folds of the brain, had grown stealthily for months, robbing Issabelle of energy, the memory of happy days with her parents, the hope of a future with Enzo and the baby that was just beginning to form in her womb.

"Blood pressure stable... for now," the anesthesiologist murmured, watching the monitor with a furrowed brow.

Every second was a dance between life and death. The surgeons knew they were on the edge of the impossible. That there were more shadows than certainties. But Issabelle had asked to fight. Until the end.

"Incision complete," announced Dr. Moretti in a voice that tried to remain firm. "Let's go to the origin of the tumor."

That same morning, Issabelle signed the pre-hospitalization papers with trembling hands, without witnesses, without family.

Without a loving husband promising to wait for the outcome of the operation on the verge of despair on the other side of the door.

Because there was simply no one around her who cared about her life... or even her death.

Enzo Milani, the man she married, never set foot in the house again. He always had an excuse for her, he was always tired or had work to do, but soon Issabelle realized that there was someone else in the middle of their marriage like a shadow that did not allow her to reach the heart of her beloved husband.

"Intracranial pressure rising... careful with the edema..."

A strange sound interrupted the concentration of those present. A different beep. A high-pitched one. Fast.

"We're losing pressure! She's bleeding more than expected!"

The chief surgeon's eyes widened in alarm as he watched the blood flow with unexpected violence. An uncontrollable hemorrhage.

The scalpel moved forward carefully.

For an instant, everything seemed to slow down: the murmur of the machines, the slight dripping of blood, the contained sigh of the surgeons. And then, a silent burst: a blood vessel broke.

The blood gushed with the violence of an underground spring, staining the whiteness of the surgical field red.

"Hemorrhage!" shouted one of the residents. "We're losing control!"

Issabelle's breathing began to fail. The anesthesiologist pressed the buttons on the table, trying to stabilize her, while another surgeon shouted:

"We need O positive blood, now!"

One of the doctors ran to the internal phone.

"We need O positive blood urgently in operating room 3! Now!"

The assistant on the other end of the line hesitated.

"I-I must confirm it... there seems to have been a mistake... the blood bank... is empty."

"How empty?" he shouted desperately.

"It disappeared. The entire batch of O positive. We don't know how..."

The surgeon cast a desperate look at the team. He knew what that meant. Without an immediate transfusion, they would lose the patient.

A cold, misplaced silence settled in the operating room. Not even the insistent beeping of the monitor could be heard now. The medical team looked at each other, aware that the gap in the blood reserves was a death sentence.

"Try to stabilize her. Quick!" Dr. Moretti shouted with contained fury.

But the color in the woman's face was already fading. The machine that monitored her heartbeat began to mark irregularities. The beeping became intermittent, then slower.

The hemorrhage was expanding. Issabelle's eyes, half-open under sedation, filled with involuntary tears. Her mind, barely conscious, clung to the last thoughts.

Is this how it all ends? Alone... without love... without redemption?

She felt the warmth of the blood escaping, but also, in the midst of the chaos, the memory brought back images she refused to forget: Enzo waiting for her at the altar. The church organ playing as she walked towards him. Their hands intertwined. The promise of eternal love.

"In sickness and in health," he had said. And in five years of marriage, he never kept his promise.

"If I could go back... if only I could..."

The beeping stopped. Everything went silent.

The monitor showed a straight line. White. Immovable.

The sound of death.

"Time of death, 15:47," announced one of the doctors, with a muted voice.

The chief surgeon stepped back with his gloves stained with blood and a devastated expression.

No one in the room spoke a word. You could feel the weight of failure, but more than that, the tragedy of a life extinguished without anyone waiting for her in the adjoining room.

No hugs. No flowers. No tears, and in that last instant of consciousness, when life was escaping like sand through her fingers, Issabelle Mancini wished with all her being for a second chance.

She wanted revenge, but more than that, she longed to turn back time and love herself so much that she could not allow anyone else to humiliate her as they had done.

"If I were granted one last chance, I would like to go back to the day I married Enzo, and this time I would make sure to change my destiny," she thought.

And then darkness enveloped her. Not as an end, but as a portal.

There her life ended. And yet, it was also where everything began.

That promise became a silent contract: Issabelle Mancini would not accept her destiny. Not Enzo's betrayal, she would no longer endure Eva's humiliations.

She would be reborn to rewrite her story. To reclaim her dignity. But above all, to love without fear.

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