The worst thing Aster Rose thought could happen to her after waking up late that morning was an early death, but as that had been the status quo for months now she figured she had nothing to lose by going back to sleep for a few more hours.

After all, no one expected much of a dying girl.

That was the shittiest part for her. Well, except for the actual dying, but cancer was known for being shitty. She’d never thought her friends would be the same.

Eight months since the diagnosis, five since she’d stopped showing up to classes, four since chemo and radiation ended, and one since anyone had reached out. Well, anyone of importance.

Anyone she wanted.

A few hours later found Aster glaring at the pallid reflection in her mirror. Before the steam from the shower had faded away she could almost convince herself the shape that followed her across the bathroom was a normal, healthy twenty-two year old. Now? Red rimmed, sunken eyes over shallow lips stared daggers back at her. Her curves were all but gone, and her visible ribs rose and fell with every shallow breath.

This was her routine before going out. She’d let the anger burn, feeling it flush her body with a semblance of energy—energy she’d use to get through the day, to push past pitying stares and the pain of seeing a familiar face not recognize her.

She let the fire burn as she pulled on some clothes. The weather was warm and she caught herself reaching for a dress before resigning herself to sweatpants and a pullover. A dark wig sat by a small vanity, collecting dust. Why play pretend? Her hair wasn’t coming back, and she didn’t have the energy to draw on eyebrows.

Steeling herself, she opened the door, wincing behind her sunglasses at the bright light. Aster took a deep breath and opened her eyes wide, stepping outside her apartment on the edge of campus and into the world.

It was a brisk, ten minute walk to the Peach Cafe on Lemon Street that took her nearly half an hour. The magnolia trees were in bloom and she could smell sage on the wind. Smell was the only sense of hers left completely untouched by the cancer and treatments, oddly enough, and it was easy to take joy in the familiar smells of home.

Once there, she seated herself in their outdoor area, ignoring the lunch crowd that always gathered there in the early afternoon. They became background noise as she looked over the menu.

“Good morning!” A too-cheerful voice rang out. “Welcome. Can I get you started with anything to… to drink today?” The bustling blond woman around the age Aster’s mother would have been caught herself, her smile faltering only for a moment as she took in Aster’s appearance.

“Just water, please.” Aster smiled at the reaction. “And the…” She ordered her food, the least-healthy options they had available, plus a to-go bag of their breakfast sandwich and hashbrowns, and sat back to people watch.

She’d never took the time to people watch before her diagnosis. Hell, it hadn’t been until the doctors had told her the treatment was taking longer than they’d expected to really show any effect that she’d even begun to consider her own mortality. Now, she watched the lives of the people around her.

The mom bouncing a toddler on one knee while trying to corral an older child, bags under her eyes from lack of sleep. The waitress who whispered to a barista and nodded in her direction. The student in the corner on his laptop, letting his food get cold.

What would they look like in six months? In six years?

It was a wild thing to consider, that she wouldn’t be there. That her fire would have burnt out before those kids’ would even have a chance to rage. The entire world was in a race to the horizon and she had but a few steps left to her.

“Why is your hair gone?”

Aster blinked. The kid had gotten away from his mom and wandered over to her and was now holding on to the edge of the table, just barely managing to get his chin over the edge.

Aster giggled at the brutal honesty. “Because I’m dying.”

Despite her morbid words, the kid only tilted his head. “My grandma died and her hair didn’t go away.”

It was refreshing to hear someone talk to her this way. Like a person who could have a conversation. She folded her hands and rested her chin on them. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah,” the boy said. “But she was old. Like old old. So maybe that’s why?”

“Yeah,” Aster grin faltered and turned more sad, “Maybe that’s it.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty two.”

The kid grabbed a straw off the table and started playing with it. “That’s not very old.”

“No, it isn’t.” Aster’s smile died.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

They looked at each other for a moment before the kid shrugged. “Okay, bye.”

“Bye,” she waved at the kid as he weaved through the tables. Well, that was fun, she thought, reaching for her water.

“Momma!” She heard the kid yell. “Mom, that girl’s dying!”

Water flew out of her nose as she choked on her laugh.

--

Had she just scarred a mom with a memory that would keep her awake at night for decades for come? Probably. Was this the most she’d laughed in months?

Absolutely.

Her grin stayed with her all the way back to her apartment building, where she entered a code and entered the lobby. The security guard waved at her and she dipped her head at him, grimacing at a sudden spike of pain in her neck. It was past time for her pills.

She hopped in the elevator and got off on the third floor, forcing herself to push through the now dull pain that pulsed in her neck as she reached a specific door and hit a doorbell. Aster sighed after nearly a minute passed and knocked firmly on the door, stopping only when a crotchety old voice sounded from the other side.

“I’m coming, you little shit!”

Aster sighed and slumped against the doorframe as Mr. Lawrence opened the door, grumbling to himself as he pulled it open and rolled his wheelchair back out of the way. “Good afternoon, Mr. Lawrence,” Aster croaked out, squeezing inside and nearly falling onto a little bench to catch her breath. “I brought your favorite.”

Mr. Lawrence had been a professor at Aster’s school until an accident left him with limited use of his legs. He and Aster had bonded a little over the last few months and she made an effort to bring him food when she could. Having something to do was good for her, and having someone to see was good for him.

“I told you I didn’t want your pity food,” the old man said to her as he wheeled himself over from the kitchen, water in hand.

“Well fuck you then,” Aster worked out as she reached for the water. “I’ll eat it myself.”

“Shhh,” the old man said as he reached for the to-go bag. “Just give it to me before you drop it. You didn’t forget the hot sauce this time, did you?”

They bantered for a few minutes more before he got serious. “Now how are you holding up? That nurse come by to see you yet?”

Aster scowled. “No, and I asked you not to talk to her about me.”

The old man shrugged and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Your beef with your father is yours, not mine. And it’s not that nurse’s, either. You aughta be nicer to her.”

She scoffed. “In a year she won’t remember my name. Why should I care?”

Aster almost withered under his glare. Almost. “Because it’s right, and that’s good enough,” Mr. Lawrence said.

“Bullshit southern manners…” Aster grumbled as she got her stuff together.

“Just try, hmm?” he said as he took her cue and rolled over to open the door for her.

“Mhmm,” she grunted as she stepped through the doorway, instantly regretting the sentiment when she heard a familiar voice.

“Still alive and kicking, I see.” The woman sat in a chair by the elevator, dressed in unassuming jeans and a jacket. An official-looking badge hung from her neck—the proof of her occupation.

Aster gritted her teeth. “Yep. Let me grab my steel-toes and prove it to you.” Something smacked her from behind and she turned to see Mr. Lawrence wagging a finger at her before he closed his door. She turned back to find the nurse scribbling something in a notebook before tucking both it and a manila folder away in her jacket. Hope she tells him exactly how I look.

Did she actually hate the nurse? Actually maybe now because of her persistence, but not at first. She merely hated her dad. The dad that shipped her off to boarding school after her mother died. The dad who’d last seen her when he’d asked her to sign an NDA regarding goings on in his company in exchange for a monthly stipend and staying in his will. She’d never thought to talk about what she’d seen in the first place, so the free money was nice, but that had still been over four years ago.

There wasn’t enough time in the day for her father to swing by and spend time with his dying child, so he’d hired a hospice nurse to care for her.

That had ended with the nurse, whose name she still hadn’t learned, nearly getting beaten with a baseball bat when she walked into Aster’s apartment, with a key to the place, as though she was a known commodity. There was no way in fuck Aster was going to accept this arrangement and she made no effort in hiding it.

“This would be easier if you at least let me get some vitals,” the nurse said, standing up and walking toward the elevator. “I could draw some blood, get a second opinion from some better doctors…”

“Talk to me about second opinions again and I promise you I will draw blood.” Aster pushed past the much taller woman and through the opening elevator doors. Her neck no longer ached like it had before dropping off Mr. Lawrence’s lunch, but she was now even longer overdue for her medication.

She closed her eyes and tried to calm her heart rate. That proved effective for all of five seconds when she heard the nurse’s sigh and realized she was in the elevator with her. Aster embraced the awkward silence, willing it to last. Alas, it did not. The elevator jolted and Aster’s eyes shot open to find the nurse had punched the emergency button. “What the fuck? Why would you do that?”

The nurse reeled on her, reminding Aster that she was very much not in a physical state to back up her anger with violence. Not that she wouldn’t try, mind you. She’d go down with a mouth full of nurse if it came down to it.

“Because I’m on your side,” the nurse said, visibly calming herself.

“Bullshit,” Aster said. “I don’t want anything to do with him, especially now. And all you are is a reminder of everything he is.”

“I don’t know what your relationship is like with your father, but I’m here to help and I think you’ll want to listen to what I have to say.”

“How can I be any more clear?” Aster could feel her body failing her as she began to hyperventilate. “I don’t want your help, so fuck back off to—”

The elevator dropped an inch. And then another. And then six. Aster fell on her ass, biting back a groan of pain while the nurse steadied herself with her hands against two of the walls.

DING!

The sound echoed through the building, coming from nowhere and everywhere and filling the halls and elevator shaft. The nurse began frantically pushing the emergency button again, trying to open the doors. “No, no, nonononono…” she murmured. The elevator dropped another foot, finally knocking the nurse to her knees momentarily before she stood back up and tried to pry the doors open.

Aster, meanwhile, couldn’t stop laughing. A year of agony, of losing friends and facing the yawning maw of eternal darkness, and instead of the cancer killing her she was going to die in a fucking Looney Tunes elevator crash. This day can’t get any better.

DING!

The sound reverberated in her heart with a flash of searing, fiery pain as the nurse yelled something to her about helping, which she chose to ignore. It was an easy choice, considering words had just popped up before her eyes; in her mind.

*Initiation of the 97th Universe confirmed. Introduction and tutorial sequence commencing*