Disclaimer: I didn't write 'The Giver.' I had to read it for Mother McAuley's summer reading list and I thought it ended…uhm…let's say badly. I think all it needed was a few more paragraphs. So I threw together this special little blurb and here we are.
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The sled crashed into a snowdrift and for quite a while Jonas just laid there, the shivering Gabe in his arms. The music he thought he heard had faded, and a myriad of snowflakes fell silently and prettily from the gray skies. Jonas searched through his mind for some memory of sun or warmth, but he found none. He had expended it all, and now Gabe was not moving at all. Shallow, ragged breaths were all that came from the small child.
"Sorry, Gabe," Jonas whispered, and he held the child close, trying to provide all the warmth he could while still lying in the snow bank. He tried to get up, to move, but he couldn't. He was tired…so tired… He wished that the Giver was there, he could give him more memories of warmth…but Jonas realized then that he didn't want them, he just wanted to give the memories to Gabe, the motionless child in his arms.
His eyes closed, and Jonas saw images from his past – his perfectly normal past – everything from his earliest memories to right now drift slowly in his mind. His parents and his sister…he hoped she would have a good time with her bicycle, for he knew he would never see her or his parents again. He hoped that the Giver would be able to help the community…he hoped that somehow Gabe would find warmth. Jonas was not even conscious when Gabe's heart gave its last beat. He had succumbed to the cold, and blackness filled his mind.
And so the two died in the snow together.