Note: Wow I didn't realize that within minutes I would get requests for the next chapter. So I'm going to finish it tonight. Hope you like it!
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"Helga?" said a voice. "Helga? You have to wake up. I can't believe I let myself get so attached to you. Don't you at least want to know what happened?"
Helga opened her eyes to see Brainy's face peering down at her worriedly. She was no longer in the school yard listening to the cruel taunts directed to her best friend Pheobe. She was on a sidewalk. Trying to figure out where she was she looked past Brainy's face and let her eyes rest on a sign. No Kids, Pets OK. At first she lit up excited to be outside of the Sunset Arms. Then she remembered that her love no longer resided within it's walls. Her beloved was dead.
"Brainy...I...how? I mean I just saw him a few hours ago....how could he be....gone?" she was searching for words. It was all just so horrible.
"I'm going to tell you everything Helga, simple and straightforward. Nothing but the facts."
"First of all let me say that his death was quick and painless. He died trying to help someone. You know his nature. Someone had tried to committ suicide and Arnold walked in before it happened but in trying to intervene he himself was killed. It was all very sad. It was in the newspapers for months afterwards."
"What I need to know is what it has to do with me having never existed? I mean I realize that Miriam and Pheobe were affected because of me not being around. How could it affect Arnold?"
Ding-Dong-Ding-Dong
"It's twelve o'clock Helga. A year to the day that Arnold's life ended. You see it was Mr. Hyunh who tried to commit suicide. With a gun. Arnold walked in on him and tried to grab the gun out of his hand and well....you know the rest."
"But why would Mr. Hyunh try to kill himself? On Christmas Day? He had a daughter, a job, friends. He even had a country western singing career under his belt. He was so happy."
"Wrong Helga. He didn't have a daughter. Don't you remember what happened last Christmas?"
Arnold. A Christmas wish. Her Nancy Spumoni snow boots. She gave them up so that a government worker would find Mr. Hyunh's daughter. So that Arnold could give Mr. Hyunh the one gift he'd ever wanted. He had been so depressed that Christmas without his daughter...
And she realized what had happened. She had never existed so she was never able to give her snow boots away to make Arnold and Mr. Hyunh's Christmas wish come true.
"I understand now Brainy. And without having any family that Christmas he became so depressed. It must have been building up for so many years. Without a loving family around him the holiday was just too depressing so he wished he never existed." Just like me, Helga thought to herself, just like me.
"Wait a minute! I understand everything now! Mr. Hyunh did exactly what I had done. I felt unloved by my family....to some degree I didn't even HAVE a family. And just like him I had wished I wasn't alive only instead of shooting myself I-" Helga gasped and continued in a quiet voice. "I wished that I had never been born."
"Helga I knew you were smart. Do you understand now what a selfish act it is to wish yourself away? Whether it be how you affected your mother, your friend, even Arnold. You did the same thing Mr. Hyunh did. And instead of feeling free of pain he now sits in a jail cell knowing that he'll have to live 30 years or more with the knowledge of what he's done."
"But it's different with me right Brainy? I mean I can change everything now...I can make it alright. You wouldn't show me all of this and then let me go with the knowledge of all the pain I caused by one mindless wish. You'll let me redeem myself. You have to! Please! You have to let me live!" she was becoming hysterical with tears. "You have to let me fix everything!"
"Calm down Helga. Your getting hysterical" Brainy said as he started to shake her.
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Now I promise you that I will finish this tonight but I still have another chapter to work on because I feel the need to redo it. So you guys get to have a fun 30-40 minute cliffhanger. Come on, you know cliffhangers are fun for the sake of suspense and you already have my word that I'll finish it tonight so don't worry ok? Good, now let me go finish the last chapter.
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