Warning:

I want to leave this note before you read on. This chapter has strong content because it is highly sensitive due to it's intense emotional scene. In this chapter I wrote about Anabella's last memory with her dying mother, who as you know if you've read the previous chapters, died of cancer. If you feel that this subject is too strong for you please scroll all the way down where I will leave a brief summary in an Author's Note with a brief summary. My intention isn't to hurt anyone and this is a fictitious work. Any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental. Thank you.

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I gazed upon the room and although it seemed fresh and clean it was empty to me. I approached the sheetless bed and I sat there for a moment. My mind drifted back into the memory of my father being dragged away from me by Rox. Tears streamed down my face. The last shadow of Brian lingered in my thoughts. He lay quiet on the grass. His eyelids were closed, his pale face motionless and his short dark hair in place. I remembered bending down and checking his pulse. He was alive back then. Twenty two thousand years ago he was alive. More silent tears that broke me still streamed down my cheeks. I had felt him alive a few hours ago. How could he be gone now and how could now be twenty two thousand years later? It didn't make sense to me, yet this was my reality.

Maybe I deserved this and everything that had happened to me after my mother's death, I thought. Memories of my dying mother came to haunt me as I laid on the sheetless bed. I closed my eyes as tears streamed down my face.

"Anabella, please come here. I need to talk to you," she said. I approached the hospital bed where she lay with her hospital gown that covered her bony body. I was so annoyed with what was going on, but at the same time so scared that I approached the bed. My mom grabbed my hand and smiled a weak smile for me. I didn't know it at the time, but years later I realized how much courage and strength it really took for her to do that. Her smile wasn't meant to save herself, but to save me. I still remember that moment like yesterday and there is nothing that can ever take that memory away from me. I remembered that her hands were pale, more than usual and her lips cracked. Her bald head shone like a shield because there she was battling to continue to be my mother, even though the battle was almost lost.

"Anabella, my sweet Anabella," she said and kissed my hand. Heavy tears streamed down my face. My mother shook her pale face as best as she could because that day she barely had any strength left. Her movements were slow and her voice was raspy and low. My mother shook her head.

"Oh no honey. This is not goodbye. This is see you later. I'm not going to leave you ever. I will always be a part of you and one day..." she told me with deep gasps. More silent tears streamed down my face. I wiped them with the back of my hand and snuffled. I just didn't want to accept that she was leaving me. It was just an anomaly for me and I could not understand why my mother would leave me when I needed her so much.

"Mom, please don't go," I said making things very difficult for her. She however, had been a true champion.

"Listen to me Anabella. I don't want to go, but it's my time. I will go because it's my duty to go, but one day we will see each other again and when we meet again I want you to talk to me and tell me everything you've done because I'm sure that you'll do so many things that I'll need to catch up with you," she said to me and I couldn't take it anymore.

"Anabella, please don't cry, please. I will always be here."

"But you won't mom! You won't be here. You'll be... I don't want this. I don't want this!" I shouted desperate as a child would do. If I could turn back the clock I would have reacted differently. I would have told her how good she was to me and how much I loved her and that I would always love her and miss her, but that didn't happen.

"Neither do I Anabella, but it's not in my hands anymore."

"Can't the doctors do something?" I complained annoyed.

"No they can't. They have done everything they can."

"Then why don't you get better?"

"Because I can't Anabella. I've done everything I can and I just can't."

"Then you're not doing enough!"

"I did everything Anabella. I'm sorry," she replied

"I hate you! I hate you so much!"

"Don't say that. I know that's not true," my mom said with red eyes. I didn't know then, but she held her tears in for me.

"It's true! If you leave me I will always hate you! You're being so selfish! Then why don't you just leave then already," I shouted from the top of my lungs and trotted out of the hospital room angered with red hot cheeks and crying.

"Anabella I will never believe that, do you hear me? I will never believe that you hate me, never because I know you're lying! I love you," I heard her shout, but I ignored her and left. I was filled with an uncontrollable rage and I couldn't face her again. Then that evening my father went to the hospital, visited her and on April 29, she had died. I was devastated and completely destroyed with the news. I remember I had thrown up in the bathroom and screamed to the point that I had a nervous breakdown. I was unable to attend the funeral due to my nerves and I had to go to therapy. After a year I had more or less forgave myself and accepted the fact that I was going through a denial phase, but I could never forgive myself completely and what I had said would haunt me forever. I never should have said that to her. I should have told her the truth. She left this world having that last memory of me and there was nothing I could do to wipe that sin away from me. I would always carry with me that heavy load. She had died and instead of telling her how much I really loved her and that I would miss her forever I lashed out and left a huge scar that was way too deep. I wept as my mind ran in circles with the words running through my mind; mom I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I loved her so much, I loved her still, right now in this very room and that same feeling of impotency I had felt back then had entered the very fibers of my being in this moment of hopelessness. I shivered all over.

"Mom! I need you so much! Please," I mumbled in my bed feeling the lethargy of my situation. I thought that if I was in another planet far away from Earth then maybe she was closer and could hear me call her. I cried and cried until I couldn't bare the pain anymore. I fell asleep with tears in my eyelids.

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I was walking towards an empty park and saw a swing rocking by itself. I thought it was strange, because it wasn't windy. Trees were nearly everywhere and the very gentle breeze smelled good, like honey. I walked towards the swing and sat down on it and swung myself for a while. My legs went straight up as I played in the swing and the wind ruffled my hair and the sun was warm and it brushed my face and I liked it.

"I wish somebody could push me," I remarked.

"Sure, I'll push," I heard. I sprinted up from the swing, turned around and I saw my mother. She was beautiful and she wore a white printed dress with blue flowers. Her lips were red, her cheeks chubby and rosy and her hair was long and healthy. I could barely believe it.

"Mom?"

"Yes girlie, that's me. Now are you going to let me push or not?" She asked. I sat back on the swing and she pushed me from behind.

"I love you mom," I told her.

"I know Anabella. Believe me, I know."