A/N: Hi, everyone, how've you been? This is my first time writing fanfiction, so I hope you all like this. Please let me know what you think of this and what I could do to improve my writing, because I'd love to hear your opinion. (And if there's anything you'd like me to write about, please let me know as well)

Just so you all know, I cried writing the dream sequence that ended up taking up most of this chapter, so...

Enjoy!

Chapter 1: Awakening (Eliza)

"Stay with me," I told my eldest son in as calm a voice as I could muster as I held him in my arms—which, despite my every effort, sounded far more panicked than not.

"I…I'll do my best to," Philip replied before descending into another coughing fit—his fifth one since the incident (or at least, his fifth since I had arrived to find him here, in a small bedroom at the back of my older sister's home, after it occurred) the afternoon before, and his worst so far—yet another indication of what was to come (but this can't be happening, not now, not like this). At least his mind was clearer now than it had been an hour earlier, when he had been in a state of feverish delirium. A slight glimmer of hope, perhaps.

Even as I tried to find something, anything, to cling to as proof that Philip would recover from his injuries, I somehow received the impression that that endeavor was futile (but it can't be anywhere close to that).

I looked up at my husband, who was cradling Philip on his other side. I couldn't take another moment of seeing my son, our son, our firstborn, the child we had both had our highest hopes for, in the state he was in—wounded in three places by a single bullet, his bandages and clothing and the bed he was lying on stained red and brown from the blood he'd lost, his condition worsening by the hour with no lasting improvement despite Dr. Hosack's efforts—Philip was only nineteen, he would be turning twenty in January, only a couple months from now—it's too soon, far too soon for his time to run out (and it can't be, not in this manner, not at this time and place).

If I had looked to Alexander in the hopes of any sort of consolation, I would find none—and I did find none. I only found terror and anguish matching my own—perhaps even surpassing it—etched in the lines on his face and practically burned into his violet-blue eyes.

My gaze shifted to the window behind him, which let in no light at all since daybreak still had yet to come. A phrase crossed my mind then, of the night being darkest just before the dawn. If I could only know the dawn would come, that my son would eventually recover from this, then the phrase would fit perfectly to the situation. Alas, the opposite appeared to be the case, as we had been told hours before that unless some miracle occurred, my son would not live to see another sunrise (but that couldn't be true…could it?).

As Philip's coughs began to subside, I tore my gaze from the window to look back at him, his forehead damp with sweat, his ashen face contrasting sharply with his messy dark hair, his dark eyes revealing his pain. "Philip," I began, "I need you to follow along with me, like we would do together when you were younger. Do you remember?"

"Like…" My son paused for a moment, coughing, the sound of it far too loud, far too harsh. "Like when I was learning to count?"

"Yes, exactly like that."

He nodded, one sudden, jerky movement.

I took a deep breath and began to count. "Un, deux, troix, cuatre, cinq,..."

Before I completed the sequence, Philip jumped in starting from the beginning, just like he would do when he was younger.

"Good," I responded when he completed the sequence from one to nine, despite the fact the voice that normally carried so well was growing softer by the second.

Again, I started the sequence, and again, Philip jumped in before I finished: "Un, deux, troix..."

"..., six, sept, huit, neuf."

As I completed the sequence myself, I noticed Philip had fallen silent, had stopped following along.

"Sept, huit, neuf."

I noticed my son had gone limp, no longer tense from the pain.

"Sept, huit..."

I looked into my son's open eyes, so much like my own. The light in them, once burning so brightly, was gone. Snuffed out like a half-used candle.

No...

All of a sudden, early afternoon sunlight came flooding in through the window, blinding me for a moment or two. As my eyes adjusted to the change, I heard a voice ask, seemingly on the verge of tears, "Is he...?"

The voice came from where my husband had been, yet it was not his own voice, but the voice of my older sister, who had been standing in the doorway to the room before the sunlight filled it to the brim.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the figure standing at the head of the bed—the doctor, presumably—nod yes, slowly, as if he had no desire to answer in the affirmative, yet also had no choice but to do so.

As the doctor moved to close the eyes of the man lying before him, I took one last look at the latter's face. I have no idea what I expected to see, but I do know what I did see.

Alexander—my husband of over twenty years—had taken Philip's place, his graying red hair freed from its ribbon, his blue eyes glassy and lifeless, his body lying limp like a broken doll.

Silence.

Then an anguished scream—closer to the cry of some wounded animal than anything even remotely human—shattered the quiet and filled the room as the scene began to blur before my eyes. A few seconds passed before I realized, once the sound had degenerated into sobs, that I had been its origin.

This can't be right—it can't have ended this way—he still had a long time ahead of him—we still need him here—he can't be...

But he was. And there was no bringing him back.

I shot up in bed, fully awake—and close to tears—the moment I opened my eyes. It had been nearly three years now since that day—the day Philip left this world for the next—and his last moments still haunted me. Perhaps they always will, even to my own dying day.

Breathe, Eliza, I told myself. You're at home, you're alright, it's not happening all over again.

After some time, I had somehow managed to calm myself enough to let my mind come back to the dream itself. It had started off the same—same place, same time, same people—as it had every other time that morning came back to me, but it hadn't ended the same. It had ended in a different place and a different time—a time I knew had not come to pass. So why had it ended this way?

I'll ask Alexander about it when he—

That was when I realized that, save for my own breathing, the room was silent. I heard no soft snoring, no murmurs, nothing except for myself breathing in and out. As far as I could tell, I was alone.

A quick glance around the moonlit space confirmed this.

Quietly, I rose from bed, smoothed down the front of my nightdress, and relit the candle resting on my bedside table before picking it up and walking out of the room. Something was definitely off, I was sure of it.