Prologue

Cassidy Hawthorne lay where she had been for the better part of the last three years, in a hospital bed. She stared up at the white-washed ceiling letting her mind wander as the ever-constant chirps and chimes of the various monitors connected to her person bled into background. Her nose and throat had long since gotten used to being dry and uncomfortable in the surgically clean air of the terminal wing. She never bothered to learn the names of the hospitals she stayed at, they were all the same to her. Check in, become a science experiment with no results, check out.

She sighed to herself as her eyes swept over the drab “faux-homely” interior of her room. She remembered vaguely she was somewhere in Rochester, Minnesota. Her last hope had been a clinical trial done by the Mayo Clinic. After weeks of being poked, prodded, stuck, and injected, Cassidy had finally had enough. The trial did little to rid her of her aggressive Leukemia. Radiation had failed way-back-when in Houston. A bone marrow replacement almost killed her in Vancouver, and she didn’t even remember what happened in New York or L.A., only that there had been some sort of new trial drug on the fast track for FDA approval, and that turned out to be a complete scam that put her in dialysis for months.

Cassidy was in pain. She was pain. Her body was literally destroying itself and there was no more hope. With every drop from the sedative-painkiller cocktail, a pleasant numbness suffused her body. With brief waves of blissful relief it almost made her forget it was an hour glass attached to her by a tube. Each drop kept her somewhere in the range of bearable but each drop also was just one more small piece of her reaming hope, a speck of time falling to the bottom of the glass.

She had a dream the other night. She didn’t remember it, not really, but she had woken with bizarre sense of serenity. Despite the pain, she no longer felt the anxiety of waiting to die. There wasn’t really anything left for her to do now but wait. It didn’t take more than a week before the doctors came in with grave expressions and informed her that her body was in the final stages of shutting down. She had but weeks to live, if that.

Maybe that was what her dream showed her and had helped prepare her for. She wasn’t long for the final peace of death. The doctors had called her family and told them the news. They were all on their way, planning on staying with her until the end. Cassidy felt her heart tighten and her eyes burn.

The pain she felt now was not for herself, but for her parents and her best friend, Shawn. She couldn’t help but smile when she thought of him. They had been friends since they were infants. They learned to walk together, went through school and puberty, the trials and tribulations of being an angsty teen.

Her eyes trailed down to linger on the inside of her forearm. Just above her left wrist was half of a Celtic knot, an inked woven band that encircled half her left forearm with the other half on Shawn’s right. She felt a tear slide down her cheek as she remembered the day when they had gotten it together on a trip they took to Seattle on her eighteenth birthday. She had been in one of her good periods where she was allowed out and about, the treatment she was on at the time seemed to be working.

It had been Cassidy’s idea to get the tattoo. Something stupid they did on impulse. That was the first day he promised her that he would be with her forever and always, which inspired her with the idea of the Celtic knot. Man, her parents freaked when she got home. Cassidy couldn’t help but chuckle softly to herself. The whole thing seemed like a life time ago.

Her twenty-fourth birthday had come and gone in the earlier part of the year. What month was it now? August? November? She couldn’t remember and couldn’t be bothered to check her phone. Everyone would be arriving in a few hours as their planes landed and cabs were taken. She leaned over her bed, the needles in her arms making it more difficult than it needed to be. She picked up the tattered copy of Elminster -- The Making of a Mage from where it had fallen when she fell asleep the previous night.

Three years is a long time to be stuck in one place. She didn’t have much else to do except drown herself in books, video games, and television. She found out she had a real sweet spot for fantasy during one of her first extended stays in the hospital. Shawn had brought her an armful of books from the local library with random titles he thought sounded interesting. She hadn’t been much of a reader then.

She had shifted through the pile of books, and had been amused to find an old Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual. She spent the majority of her time gazing at the depiction of fantastical creatures and horrifying monsters colorfully rendered on each page. It turned out that it was only just the tip of the iceberg. She devoured books almost faster than Shawn could bring them to her. Anything that could transport her to a new place away from her pain and monotonous boredom, she tore into with a ravenous hunger.

The next thing Shawn brought her was her first-ever video game console and his collection of games. He stayed with her for a week over Spring Break of their senior year in high school to show her the ways of the virtual world, which also expanded into online gaming. By the time she was legally an adult, Cassidy was officially a geek. Shawn started to grow away from the geekdom once he met his current girlfriend of five years in college. Now he was all about actual adventure and exploration instead of the virtual sort.

Cassidy didn’t mind. He would always bring her back cool things from his travels. Oddly-shaped crystalline rocks, white-washed warped drift wood carved into a gnarled walking stick, and other oddities that brought her such delight. She wasn’t allowed to keep all of those things with her at the hospital, but she did insist on keeping the fist-sized purple and blue geode that was her latest addition from his forays into spelunking.

Time flowed by as she lost herself in the lovely images of mysterious magic and the illusionary ringing of swords in her mind’s eye. Shawn had arrived first. His tall broad frame that had quickly dwarfed her by the age of sixteen, walked into the room. His normally bright smile and twinkling green eyes were now subdued and almost listless. Cassidy felt a sharp pang of sorrow in her gut. The panic began to rise inside of her. She felt the immediate welling of anxiety, she didn’t want to leave him.

The heart rate monitor beeped wildly and warning lights flashing as her vitals went haywire with the strength of her emotions. Shawn dropped his bag on the floor and rushed over to encircle her with his strong arms. Tears flowed freely into his shirt as she breathed in his woody scent. How could she leave him? She couldn’t. She wouldn’t!

“Shh,” Shawn consoled her, pulling her tighter to him. The erratic beeping began to even out.

“I-I d-don’t want to leave!” Cassidy choked into his chest.

“Shh, Cass. Everything is going to be alright,” Shawn’s voice was thick with suppressed emotion. Cassidy could feel hot tears dripping onto her neck.

They sat there together for a long while in complete silence save for the slowly normalizing heart monitor. A concerned nurse had come in to check on her but retreated quickly once she read the mood in the room. Cassidy was still shaking and crying silently when her parents arrived.

“My baby,” Her mother cried out.

Cassidy reluctantly let Shawn pull away to be replaced by her mother’s loving embrace. There was something to be said about the comfort that came from being held by your mom. She was thankful for it. She also couldn’t hide her own sense of guilt knowing that her mother was holding her dying daughter. Children are never supposed to go before their parents. Cassidy could tell how desperate her mother had become these past few years. The tawny hair that they shared, had grown gray prematurely as she was barely into her late forties.

She felt a heavy hand on her shoulder and looked up into the blue eyes of her father, his face a mask of strength and composure betrayed only wetness of withheld tears. He sat down on her opposite side, and she could tell immediately that he hadn’t been sleeping well. None of them have. All three of them had dark bags under the eyes, her mother’s only concealed with the use of heavy makeup.

“Cassy,” Her father croaked. He stroked her hair as her mother held her for dear life. Huh. That expression couldn’t be more appropriate. Cassidy almost could muster a chuckle, but the errant mood quickly left.

There was a knock at the door and her attending doctor, Dr. Hyline, stepped in, “I’m glad you all came on such short notice. Let me say that I am deeply sorry that our trial failed. We had such high hopes.”

“I’m sure you did your best, Doc,” Cassidy managed to say before another series of silent sobs threatened to overtake her.

Dr. Hyline looked at her with sad eyes, “Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne, I asked you all to come here so we could discuss what happens next. You are all aware that Cassidy is barely managing her pain as it is, and we can’t give her anything stronger. I came here to offer an easier ... transition.”

“Transition?” Shawn asked.

“I thought you still had a few weeks left?” Her mother’s voice broke as she looked between them wildly.

“While it’s impossible to say for sure, that is the most recent prediction,” Dr. Hyline frowned, “As I said before, Cassidy is in a tremendous amount of pain. She is in the final stages of the disease and it’s mostly about her quality of life and comfort at this point.”

“What did you have in mind?” Cassidy asked in a hoarse whisper.

“We put you in a medically induced coma until your time runs out. It would mean giving up whatever time you had left to spend with your family, but you wouldn’t be in constant pain. It’s your choice. I thought it best if you know your options,” He looked at the tense expressions before he added, “I’ll give you all some space. Have a nurse page me when you have come to your decision.”

Cassidy watched him leave her room before her gaze rested on Shawn. His tanned skin seemed ashen and his cheeks had taken on a hollow appearance, the falling sensation in her stomach reaffirming her own sense of guilt. She knew it was the most irrational thing, to feel this way when it wasn’t even her fault. She couldn’t be held responsible for all of this ... could she?

As if sensing her internal distress, Shawn stood by her bed and took her hand in his, “Stop.”

“Huh?” She blinked owlishly.

“You’re doing the thing. Stop,” Shawn’s lips twitched reflexively.

“I’m not doing the thing,” She replied indignantly. She was doing the thing. She knew she was doing the thing.

“It isn’t your fault. None of this is. You were dealt a crap hand. We all knew this was coming ... especially this last year,” His voice cracked.

Cassidy felt her mother’s arm release her to cup her face, “Baby, I don’t want you to go. I can’t even begin to describe how much agony my heart has suffered, but I know you live the same every day. We want you to be at peace.”

Cassidy watched fresh tears stream down from her mother’s big soulful brown eyes, now twisted in grief. It was such a surreal experience that her death was such a foregone conclusion. This was really the end of the line for her. Shawn’s eye mirrored the existential terror that filled her veins with ice water. She began to tremble, her fingers locked around her friend with a death grip.

Thump

She was vaguely aware of her father’s mouth moving. She couldn’t hear him over the sudden inrush of high pitched ringing in her ears.

ThumP

She glanced at the offending monitors she was sure the sound was coming from. The flashing red lights were irritating her.

ThUmP

She knew they meant something, but she really couldn’t care in that moment. Her mother’s face looked scared now. Was the room always so gray?

thuMP

Shawn poked his head out into the hallway. Did he see someone he knew? She felt a flare of jealousy. Was his girlfriend out there? That willowy, raven haired, hot, and nice, where was she going with this? Jenny was a perfectly nice woman. Bitch hogged all of Shawn’s time. He was HER Best Friend! She was dying for crying out loud!

thumP

There was a sharp pain in Cassidy’s arm. When did the nurse get here? Shawn’s face swam into view. He looked stern. Why did he always treat her like a child? He was always looking out for her, doing his utmost to making her happy and comfortable. How dare he? But his eyes ... those piercing green eyes were saying something to her.

Breathe

Cassidy struggled with the concept. Oh. Right. Lungs. She gasped for air as if she had been drowning. Color and sound rushed back into context. The room reverted from its grayed out granular appearance and her head throbbed painfully.

“Cass? Cass?” Shawn tapped her cheek lightly.

“Wha--” She mumbled blearily. Lord, did her head hurt.

“I told you to stop doing that thing, you moron. You gave yourself a panic attack!” Shawn chided softly. She could hear the edge of panic in his voice. There seemed to be a lot of that going on. It was once again, her fault.

Slap

“Fuck, ow!” Cassidy tried to jerk her head away from the assaulting hand, but Shawn held her firm.

“Seriously, Cassidy. I know what you are thinking. If you don’t stop the self-flagellating bullshit, I’m going to leave.” Shawn threatened.

“No! No! Don’t go! Please!” Cassidy immediately clung to him.

She felt his large hands pet her hair and soothing waves seemed to ripple through her body at the contact. She felt her Mother and Father’s hands join his in his comforting. Shawn had once made a joke that she was actually a cat inside a human body. That would be absurd ... she had told him to stop that right meow.

“Why is my brain so weird,” Cassidy whispered to Shawn.

“I take the blame. Giving you all those weird books probably wasn’t good for your mental development.” Shawn grinned, a shadow of a grin, but a grin nonetheless.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The cocktail was wearing off and her bones and muscles were beginning to throb with renewed pain. She was ready to leave. As much as it sucked, for as much pain as her passing would cause her family, Cassidy was tired and ready to move on.

Only a few tears came to her now. All the raging emotions she had been feeling these past few weeks had finally came to a head. All she felt now was an all-encompassing weariness. How could she tell her parents and Shawn that? How can anyone say ‘I’ve had enough, I’m done’?

She looked at Shawn for support. She knew he could feel her dilemma. Their eyes met and a sad smile played across his lips, “You’re ready, aren’t you?”

Cassidy sniffed and nodded.

“It’s alright, baby,” Her mother cooed, still stroking her back.

“It’s okay to let go, Cassy,” Her Father agreed in a resigned tone.

Cassidy felt, in a small way, relieved. She also felt so much more defeated than anything else. The weariness had taken its toll and she began to feel sleepy, the nurse probably injected her with something. This time she felt she didn’t want to wake up. It was, to her, the right time, “I’m so tired. I’m so sorry. I love you all so much.”

Her mother began crying hard into her shoulder, her dad tried to remain stoic, and Shawn seemed relieved. He knew the toll this had taken on her. He was happy for her, in a way. She would finally be a peace. He had made his own with the pain of her impending loss, more so than her parents.

“Take care of each other, Mom, Dad,” Cassidy whispered as her vision began to fade as the sedatives began to take effect. “I wish I had more time, but I just can’t take it anymore. You’ve all sacrificed so much to make me happy, and I’m so grateful to everyone for all that you’ve done. I can’t say ‘I love you’ enough. I don’t want to say--”

Cassidy swallowed hard. This was so much harder than she thought it would be. Months of trying to figure out what to say. Months of trying to prepare herself for everything she was feeling now. Nothing could prepare her to say her final goodbyes. Once more she looked to Shawn for help. Her eyes pleaded to him.

Chapter 1 »