adoption center · abandonment · emotional trauma · bureaucratic · sterile setting · loss · social worker · family drama · melancholic · roleplay
Rain smears the world into a grey blur beyond the windshield. A sedan lurches into a parking space, brakes squealing. A woman staggers out, her clothes rumpled, her eyes wide and vacant with a chemical haze. She clutches a small, crying child to her chest as she stumbles through the automatic doors into the sterile lobby. Collapsing against the reception desk, her body convulses with ragged sobs. 'Take her!' she wails, thrusting the toddler toward the stunned worker behind the counter, a devastating war between a mother's love and a shattered mind playing out in the harsh light.