I'm dying.
I'm dying and I don't care.
About anything and everything.
Who would have thought that I would die like this.
Warm and safe in a hospital bed.
Not in a back alley as I always imagined.
Not in a crazy drunken fiasco as everyone else imagined.
My red hair is gone, chopped off mercilessly.
My blue suit is gone, discarded long ago.
My gleaming cerulean eyes are gone, torn away by my agony.
All I am left with is my stubbly red hair, crisp hospital gown and empty eyes.
That's not all though, My friends are here.
Rude, Elena, Yuffie.
Each of them watching me struggle to breathe.
Watch me fight to keep my eyes open.
Watch me try to work up the courage to say goodbye.
Damn, I hate this disease.
It probably came from living in the slums.
The contaminated water and noxious atmosphere.
The drinking wouldn't have helped any either.
I knew I was ill for a while.
It doesn't take a Hypochondriac to know that throwing up blood is bad.
Or that the stomach cramps are wrong.
But I didn't tell anyone.
I carried on with my life as normal.
Not that my life is normal.
But I didn't want them to worry.
It was only a few weeks ago that they found out.
It was a particularly bad cramp and it hurt so much.
Elena found me passed out in the kitchen.
I woke up on a hospital bed.
I paid the doctor to release me.
But not until they found out how ill I was.
Everything changed.
No more drinking.
No more smoking.
No more anything.
Who's to blame me for trying to break all those rules.
"Do you want to die?" Yuffie yelled.
Of course I don't.
But I didn't have much time left and I wanted to make the most of it.
Rude understood.
Rude always understood.
The medication made my hair fall out.
Left clumps and bald spots.
Frustrated, I shaved it all off.
Yuffie almost didn't recognize me when I came home.
I collapsed again yesterday.
I know I worried them so much.
One minute I was fine.
I excused myself to go to the toilet.
A crash and I find myself writhing on the floor.
My stomach trying to rip itself apart.
The table I fell on in pieces next to me.
Yuffie and Elena sobbing next to me.
Rude kneeling next to me.
I wake up in the hospital bed again.
This time there's no paying the doctor to let me go.
Since the only way I'm leaving this hospital now.
Is in a body bag.
I'm hooked up to so many wires.
Monitoring my heart, my stress levels and everything else.
It hurts to breathe.
I'm so doped up on pain relievers it's silly.
But I can still feel the pain.
I hate being weak.
But there's nothing I can do about it now.
There's nothing I can do now.
"Rude, Elena, Yuffie." I gasp.
They all look to me.
Each girl has one of my hands in hers.
Rude is stood at the side.
I can feel myself slipping.
"Cheer up, you all look as if someone died."
It wasn't funny.
Elena burst into tears.
Yuffie is gripping my hand so tightly.
Rude visibly flinches.
"...Sorry," I mumble.
"Oh, Reno." Elena sobs.
I can feel myself falling.
"I love you guys, you know that, right?" I say to them.
Yuffie's crying now.
The heartbeat machine is beeping less consistently.
"Don't go." Elena cries.
"You know that, right?" I repeat, with a little more effort.
"Oh god, we love you Reno." Yuffie sobs.
I can't feel my body.
It's like I'm floating, yet falling at the same time.
It's not an uncomfortable feeling.
"See you in a long time." I smile.
My eyes are closing of their own accord.
I can't feel anything now.
I do care now.
I care that my friends will find happiness still.
I can still hear them.
I can still hear the heart monitor.
It's beeping very slowly now.
Rude remains silent.
Yuffie and Elena are wailing.
I'm weightless.
I'm flying.
I can see green.
"Welcome Reno."
Bad Shakai! I really should be doing my coursework! Except I'm just too lazy. I apologize about not updating anything for a while. My grades are slipping in this last stretch at high school and I really need to keep up. I even asked my dad to turn my Internet off so i could do my Geog coursework. Of course now that he has, I'm looking for other ways to procrastinate. Thus this piece came into existence.