𝐃𝐮𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐲

"Polly!" The shouting voice of Miss Allen was heard from the entrance of the hospital.

"Evelyn..." Polly released a shaky sigh. Her face glistening against the reflection of the moon due to the unleashed tears.

As soon as they met, they embraced. Polly pulled Evelyn closer to her, wrapping her frail arms around her. Her embrace was warm, despite her shaking arms and trembling hands.

"Where are they? Where is he?"

As Polly was about to reply the sounds of shouting was heard. There on a small bed was Michael Gray being wheeled along the corridor of the hospital.

Michael was dilirious. Yet his senses sharpened with adrenaline. He held his breath, straining to hear with every ounce of his concentration through the pain. He could make out a voice, someone calling his name in the distance. However, everything was hazy as if underwater. Sounds faded into nothing. As someone stroked his hair his breathing slowed. It was calming...peaceful even. He clenched his fist as if trying to ease the pain...until he felt a delicate hand with soft skin enclose around his own. Now his tears had stopped, leaving only their tell-tale wet tracks down his face.

She could soothe him like no-one else, even as her own breaths were deep and uneven. Then as his eyelids became heavy and drooped she began to fret.

"Michael" he could hear a voice, it sounded so similar to hers. Above him he could see a blur of curled brown hair and scarlet red lips moving but not in time with the words he heard.

It was her.

She came back.

"Michael stay awake..." He heard her voice echoing.

"Stay awake," he could hear the voice of young Evelyn Allen within the flashbacks, "we only have a couple of minutes left." Evie had commanded ten year old Michael to wake up early to watch the sunrise with her. And her wish was granted as the sunrise brought scarlett hues into the morning skies. It was all the colours she had been yearning for, mellow blues and pinks blurred together in a silver mist to create another gorgeous scene. "Look Henry I told you it would be worth it."

"Don't let go, hold on..." Her voice continued to stay hazy.

"Promise me you won't let go!" A fourteen year old Evie giggled to a young Michael.

"I promise I won't." He replied, watching as her hair softly reflected the light of the sun; each strand moving freely in the summers breeze. "Michael what if I fall?" She questioned, as she stood on the narrow wall of Smith's Bridge. The river underneath travelling wide and opaque. "You wont, I'm holding your hand I won't let you go...I won't let you fall." And it was then as their hands first intertwined that Michael began to realise how deeply he was beginning to feel for his best friend Evie Allen.

"Don't leave me Michael..." Her voice continued to echo to his ears.

"Don't leave me Michael..." She sniffed. "Promise you won't leave me" Evie and her mother had received a telegram that morning. Her father had died in action back in France. She didn't break quietly, it was like every atom of her being screamed in unison, traumatized that she should exist without him. When the wracking sobs passed she cried in such a desolate way that no-one could bare to listen for long. She had gone from gregarious to hanging by a thread, a transformation no-one knew how to reverse. She only sought comfort in Henry. "I promise I won't. I'll always be here...always."

Evelyn watched as they opened the doors and wheeled Michael inside as his blood was still leaving his rapidly paling flesh, and his pulse was becoming slower, weaker. Like millions of red flowers blooming, the droplets of blood fell to the floor and created a path. A path no one dared to follow.

"O God..."Evelyn raised a shaky hand to cover her mouth.

"Mummy?" The colour drained from Evelyns face as she turned to face her daughter...and the rest of the Shelby family.

The dread crept over her like an icy chill, numbing her brain. In this frozen state her mind offered her only one thought.

There was no avoiding it.