People talk about if today was your last day or what if you only had such amount of time left, what would you do?

Personally even being faced with that realization, I honestly don't know or maybe I don't care.

I'd like to be able to say I know what to do to make it all better, but as I lay here with pain rippling thru my body my greatest fear begins to take hold.

What scares me isn't how short life is, no, it's the pain, all the pain. I don't understand why there has to be any pain.

If I'm going to die…if I have to die why does there have to be pain, be it mental or physical. But the problem is that its not just my own suffers and anguish… but it falls to anyone and everyone that has been touched by my existence.

Lying here looking out on the night's sky, there are no stars no moon it makes the city so strange and foreign. Maybe it was a bad idea to run. I know my dear Rose will be worried sick about me as she always is, but it not her I fear, it's him. Why does he torment me so? What does he want from me? Who is he? …Hell… what is he?

Then again it really doesn't matter now does it? I'll be gone before I'm found. Its better this way no one will have to suffer with me. Its funny when you think about it, I still remember the day all those years ago, the day I learned I was sick. Of course just my luck that would happen on my 13th birthday

My best friend Jamie along with my mother had gone above and beyond to make my birthday that much more special. I had been very ill the week before and both of them couldn't help but fuss over me. You could say fate has a funny sense of timing, the call came right when I was to blow out the candles, in that one moment "my life" ended.

For the next several months I was to go thru repeated treatments, honestly it felt like the cure was worse then the disease. Everything changed I became a prisoner of my own body, I wanted to die, I wished for it, for nothing could be as bad as what I was going thru, on that day I became truly selfish.

It was later that I learned my action had consequences; I can still clearly picture that day. I had woken from a drug-induced sleep to find a red eyed Jamie sitting beside me. They was still a heavy haze over my mind, but even that couldn't prevent me from seeing the pure angry on her face, but not her eyes it never reached them. No instead there was a great pain and sadness in there depths. Her body was trebling, fists clenched, but as she spoke, her voice still held it softness "Why" that one word conveyed more emotion then I had felt in my young life, even to this day looking back it still sends chills down my spine.

I could say nothing, every answer seemed to die on my lips, and I wanted to turn away, to run and hide from the accusing word.

Breaking from my thoughts I looked down at the palm of hand that still held the scar from all the years ago, a promise between friends.

That night Jamie had bound our blood together "if you die, I die" she had said as she held tightly to our intertwined hands, and for the life of me, I don't know why but I believed her. The guilty washed over me in wave after wave, I couldn't give up not now not ever, and I could not let her died because of me.

And for years, I did I lived for her, fearing the moment my heart would stop hers would as well. I watched as she went to college, meet her true love, married, and started her family. Time moved swiftly for us, and the promise seemed forgotten.

Thing started repeating themselves, I became very ill again. My body had already been severally weakened from before and this time I knew the end was coming. But through it all I said nothing just continued on as if everything was normal.

Maybe that was my mistake and so the universe decided to punish me, by making me meet him now. Him, the reason I had run so far and long, but no matter where I went he always finds me and brings me back. I don't know why where drawn together, when it feels that we should be two apposing forces. Its funny even now he's trying to find me, but he'll be to late, he won't bring me back this time. My only hope is that when I get where I'm going, I'll be able to find away to send him some peace, to take his pain away, the pain that should be mine alone to bear.

But it doesn't stop, there are others so many, which will suffer because of me, and I could do nothing to stop it. Over the years I have learned to stay away, to hide my true self, to be detached. Even with all my efforts there have been those who have broken my bearers and would follow after me into the cold darkness.

Lying here, the part of me that is selfish is cry out that I should be grateful that it would all end soon and to welcome the coming blissfulness of nothingness. My vision is growing dark now, as my body relaxes into the mattress.

"I'm sorry I couldn't keep our promise"

My body feels very light now, almost as if I'm being lifted up, but there is no coldness I feel only warmth and safety as if I was a child being cradled to my mothers chest. The sterile alcohol smell of the hospital room, has been replaced with instead a rich spicy musk woody and clean. I smile to myself…so I guess my version of heaven was right.

"Josef……."