Hi!

So this chapter is dedicated to Musicandbeats! Such a lovely lovely lovely kiddo she is. I annoy her so much by my laziness in sending her chapters to edit but she has still been such a sweetheart to me. Thank you for putting up with me and just being the amazing little star you are. You rock!! *throws sparkles at you for being your awesome self, 'cause that's just how I roll* =P

Also, a huge shout out to mncobbs1! I realized how I never thanked you for being an amazing support to this book. Being the overly endearing person I can be at times, I wish I could come up to hug you right now as you read this *in a totally non creepy way though =p*. You are totally getting the epilogue dedicated to you. *if I decide to write one though* Hehehe. On a serious note, thaaank you. =)

Now you can read. 

Enjoy ♥

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Daniel's pov - 

Life has its own ways.

Life has its way of building us. Life has its ways of demolishing us. Life has its ways of healing us. Life has its ways of hurting us.

It's ever changing, like the hands of time, never waiting for anyone. You can either hop on the wagon or get left behind, forgotten.

Another thing about life, it doesn't come with a 'go back' option.

No matter how much you scream inside, gnaw at the wall of your own soul to undo just that one thing, life won't let you. It will watch you from far, relishing in your suffering.

Life is cruel.

Life is unfair.

So there's no use of crying. You have to move along with it. You have to choose it, one way or another for it's the only choice there is.

It was snowing today. The sky was like how it would look on a typical winter afternoon, dark and gloomy.

The last time we had talked, she had said she liked the color of sky when it's about to snow.

Why?

How could anyone like it?

It was depressing as shit.

I also remembered the day before that when we talked about what she wanted to do on her birthday.

With a shy smile, she had shrugged her shoulder saying that she didn't know. She didn't exactly look forward for her birthday anymore. I had simply nodded, understanding that it couldn't be easy on anyone who had lost a twin. But just as we were about to drop the subject, she had suddenly uttered something. "I just wish it snows that day, like continuously without stopping," she had said with a faraway smile, wrapped up in some warm, old memory. "Emma loved it when it snowed."

Looked like both of them got their wish fulfilled. Today was their birthday, seventeenth of December, and it was snowing almost a freaking blizzard, only neither of them was able to see it.

The snow and pebbles crunched under my heavy shoes as I shifted my weight on my right leg.

Even with the gloves on, I could feel the bitter frost of the snow as I brushed some away from the headstone.

I tried not to look at the words inscribed in it.

"Happy birthday," I said, my voice being carried away in the howling wind and then getting lost in it.

I placed the flowers in the new urn which had been installed recently.

Guess this was the only way for the parents for getting their kids a present after they have left this world.

Cemetery decorations.

The pale blue lilies and roses looked like a part of the winter around, like this was their ultimate fate from the very start, to end up here.

I heaved a sigh, getting up.

Not a single person was around as I made my way back to my car, through the entire stretch of the compound.

It was hard not to look around at these tombstones, some looking as if they are still being cared for, some forgotten, some on the verge of crumbling down altogether, but every single one of them hoping to be forever remembered in their deaths.

As I passed a huge oak tree, my eyes fell to a weeping angel statue arched over a small grave, holding a marble baby in her arms.

It would have scared her. Those angel statues always did.

I sighed again.

I couldn't help but let my mind link everything to her. Everything reminded me of her.

I could pinpoint the place in my chest where I could feel it, feel the ache that every thought of her brought with itself.

Without letting my mind wander farther, I rushed towards my car, the only one in the empty parkway.

Who else would want to be here in this biting cold weather?

The drive back to Cassell took less than half an hour, a very silent half an hour.

Silent, just like the last two weeks had been.

Classes were almost wrapped up by the time my car entered the school ground.

I silently walked to my locker, taking long strides, ignoring the looks I still got, even after these two weeks, whenever I showed up in school hallway.

It wasn't just the school hallways though. I got the same looks in the streets from complete strangers, from my neighbours whenever I made the mistake of leaving my house, and even from my own family.

The look coated with thick pity.

Acting oblivious to the whispers around me, I pulled out my Calculus book from my locker and shoved it in my bag.

I kept repeating in my mind not to turn left, where her locker was, knowing it would just enrage me even more. There was no point. But it was like my brain just had to defy me and I decided to steal a glance.

Flowers, candles, photos and messages strewn all around it.

They called it a prayer, for her and her loved ones.

I called it bullshit.

It was just so all of them could feel a part of this 'tragedy' which had struck an innocent family. For a sleepy town like Cassell, this was a huge deal and people felt the need to talk about it, again and again and again, as if by discussing it over their family dinner they were doing their part as a community.

It didn't help that Norah's dad had decided to release the complete case to the press. Local newspapers and TV stations had gone crazy with the amount of interesting twists this story brought for them. Everyday a part of the case came out in some paper, twisted and turned to attract more readers into this very scandalous event of the town.

'All you need to know about the Bishop Twin case'

'The crime that spanned over three ends with another death'

'Police investigation for the Bishop Twin case comes to an end'

Along with Emma's and Norah's names, it was his name plastered everywhere.

His real name.

Colin Jeanes.

I had lost count of how many times his story had been on the front page of the morning newspaper. He had worked as a janitor in a local college, until he had disappeared from the town three years ago. Nobody bothered to follow up, probably because he didn't have anybody whom they could ask anything about him. So that's how it remained, until three months ago when he returned back to town. According to the police investigation, he was keeping track of the pattern of Norah's day. At what time was she usually home, at what time she left for school, everything. He knew when she visited her therapist every week, so he took a job in the same building to make everything easily accessible to him, and then waited. For the perfect moment.

And if it wasn't enough, the media of Coral Hills was now equally involved, like these two incidents had sewn the two town together. Newspapers started referring them as the 'twin towns'.

The more I stared at her locker, the stronger I could feel my headache getting. My pulse rate was starting to get erratic.

"Hey." I turned around to see Anya standing behind me, her hands clutching the pile of books close to her chest, a look of distress on her face, and one with poignancy in her eyes.

"Did you go..." she hesitated."...see her today?"

I nodded. "Yeah." My voice was nothing but a whisper. "I am planning to go again after practice if you wanna come?"

She shook her head. "No, I already did in the morning. Skipped the first period." She thought for a while. "Every time I see her mom's face it's just..."

"Yeah, I know..." I fumbled with the car keys in my hands, looking down at them.

"So, my mom told me her grandparents are holding this prayer thing for her at St. Benno's on Sunday. I was thinking if you wanna go?" She asked apprehensively.

"No, I think I will pass." By now, the hallway was almost empty. "Church gatherings are not my thing exactly. I would probably just stay with her."

"Yeah, I figured," she said as we both walked towards the gymnasium.

For a while, we walked in silence until she spoke again, "Do you ever wonder if things were different if Emma hadn't...you know... I mean all this time we thought it was an accident and it was bad as it was. But knowing she actually offed herself deliberately, that's just..."

I frowned. "Can we not...talk about this?" I said in a sharp tone. "It doesn't matter how many times we go over the points which could have made a difference. There's no use."

"I know," she said with a sigh with an apologetic look. "Look, I am so sorry. I shouldn't have. It's only that I haven't slept in two weeks with this deluge of thoughts clouding my brain. I can't stop thinking about it. It keeps replaying, the last time we talked and if anything could have made a difference."

I sighed internally, feeling guilty for snapping at her. "Don't. Please. Things happen, okay? And as much as we would like to think that we ever have any kind of control over them, we'll just be fooling ourselves. Don't punish yourself with the 'what if' deal. It sucks. Trust me. I would know."

We had already came to a halt while I was speaking. Anya stared at her feet for a while, her eyes getting dewy. "Yeah..." her voice was heavy. She sucked in a shaky breath. "I should let you get to the practice. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Okay"

I watched as she ambled off with heavy steps and then I walked into the gymnasium.

This had been the best year for Cassell High Varsity since the last ten years. Our team had been undefeated throughout the season so far. I was told to that I could lay off a few easy matches if I wanted to.

The pity seemed to follow me everywhere.

Like every day, I was in and out of practice without feeling the need to talk to anyone. I went, did my job and came back out.

I simply went there to keep me from going insane cause for an hour at least I had something to think about other than her.

It couldn't have been more than six in the evening, but the darkness had already fallen all over the town. I sped the car through the busy lanes of the town getting ready for Christmas that was just around the corner. There were cheers, the sound of tinkling bells coming from the shops, the chatter of people.

Clambering out of my car, I broke into a run to get inside the building, crossing two steps at a time and then made my way to the elevator.

"Practice ran late?" Norah's mom asked me as soon as pushed open the wooden door of room no. 325.

I gave her a small smile. "Yeah, it's a big match this week."

With a subtle nod, she stood up from the couch, rubbing her eyes. "I am going to get some coffee. Do you need anything?"

"No, I am good," I answered as she walked past me towards the door, but turned around just for a fraction of second as her eyes take a small glance at the bed lying in the centre of the room.

Once she was out of the room, I settled on the couch.

For a while, I just silently stare at her, at just how still she is. If you weren't looking close enough, you might think she wasn't even breathing.

I took her hand mine. They were cold. I held onto them tighter, hoping to warm them up.

"Happy birthday again," I whispered. "Sorry, I couldn't stay for long in the morning."

The room was dimly lit, leaving just a soft glow on her face as I kept my eyes on it, wishfully hoping for a reply. But of course, it didn't come.

She just lied there, her head and skull securely covered in layers and layers of bandages.

I was there when the Paramedics were taking her away to the hospital that night. Her face all covered in her own blood, hair matted to her forehead.

And as I had looked down at my hands, soaked in her blood, I understood a whole new level of fear. For a second, the paramedics were sure that her heartbeat had completely stopped, and for that one second, I felt every part of me going away with her too.

What would have been the point in living?

I remembered running after them, as the doctors rushed towards the OR, categorizing her case as acute subdural haematoma. That was all I remembered.

I didn't remember who was trying to talk to me after that. Someone was there, almost yelling at me to come out of my trance, but I didn't remember any of it.

I just remembered the door to the operation theatre and my hands covered in all blood.

The doctors had to literally slice open her skull to perform the craniotomy surgery. They weren't left with any other option.

Of course, the surgery came with the risk of hundreds of complication. The chief surgeon informed us that she might lose her motor skills, her ability to speak, that she might suffer from headache, seizures for a long period of time, and that she might slip into a comatose state after the surgery.

And that's what happened.

It was her fourteenth day today like this. The doctors had seen no sign of any progress in her condition, in fact as each day passed, her GCS levels were slipping even lower.

I could tell by the way they spoke that they were losing hope. Everyone else was too. My dad, mom, Sharon, Liam, Anya, everyone. The flowers near her locker, the prayers being held for her, they were more like a premature funeral for her.

I could see it in her Dad's eyes too. There was just a realization of being completely defeated in them.

I couldn't do that.

Hope is all I had now. So I held onto it. Like my life depended on it, and maybe it really did in literal terms. I was afraid of thinking about a world where I didn't have that hope, where I didn't have her anymore.

It never failed to run a shiver to run through my bones.

So now it was just me and Norah's mom who had any last bit of hope left in us. She was afraid to let go of it too.

She stayed by her side all the time, leaving just for the while I wanted to be here.

All she cared about was her. She didn't care that no one else was expecting for Norah to ever wake up again. She didn't care about the trials that were going on about the case. She didn't care about the possible medical complications that Norah might suffer if she were to wake up.

She just stayed there by her daughter's side, praying for a miracle.

It was painful to look into her eyes. They were so weak and vulnerable.

Of all the things that happened that night, except the doors and my hands, I also do remember her as she came running through the doors. It was after seeing her, I felt that she was even more scared than I was.

The loss of a child must be harrowing. Her fear was going through that once again.

After that day, she refused to leave the room until it was absolutely necessary. The only time, she willingly left was after two days of that night, to go see Colin, for the first and last time. His condition was even more fragile than Norah's when they had brought him in, so it didn't come as a surprise when the doctors announced after forty hours that he had stopped responding completely.

I couldn't have felt more relieved than the moment he died.

It was way less than what he deserved.

The door of the room opened slightly, and Norah's mom walked in, holding a coffee cup in one hand and a sandwich in the other.

"Here." She held out the sandwich for me. "Something tells me you haven't eaten all day."

I shook my head. "But..." I trailed off seeing her stern expression, like how a mom would look at their 4 year old kid for not finishing his vegetables.

Without any further argument, I took the sandwich from her hands. With a tiny smile, she settled on her earlier position on the couch.

"I just talked to Nathan's mom, said she still couldn't get a hold of him." She took a sip of coffee. "It's like the kid disappeared completely."

I gulped down a lump in my throat.

As much as that guy had irked me earlier, I still wanted him to be there, 'cause I knew Norah would want him to be there and I was sure he would too if he knew about this.

"Hmm." That was all I had to add to the conversation before it died down.

And then as the world outside prepared itself for the Christmas joy coming, the two of us just sat in the silence except for the heart monitor that beeped every now and then, just praying and hoping, for it to never stop.

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So we're so close to the end. Just the epilogue now. However I was thinking if anyone wants me to leave it at just this? It could be like an open ending. What's say? I mean would be left to your imagination if you want her to live or not. Because I personally get kind of disappointed in a perfectly 'all is well, the rainbows and flowers, etc etc etc' type of happy ending. So even if I do decide on write the epilogue and letting her live, please don't expect anything like that.  Please don't hate me. =P

But I don't know. I just might. You never know it with me. =P

Anyway, how did you like the chapter? Please tell me in the comments below.

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