Disclaimer: I don't own the show or characters. All I own is the writing and story.
Warning: This story contains dark and mature themes. Read at your own risk.
Author's Note: I have no excuse as to why I haven't updated or written any new works in over a year. I've just been busy with life and dealing with personal matters. I am, however, a homeowner now. Anyway, this story idea has been brewing for a while and I finally got to work on it. I do have more written but I wanted to post this prologue first. This story is faintly based on my own experience (losing my grandma) over the past year and is dedicated in memory of my amazing, beautiful, grandma - who passed away from stage four liver cancer on August 9th, 2020. I still can't believe it. Therefore this story is dedicated to my wonderful and amazing grandma, who will forever be in my heart. Two years later and I still can't believe it. Anyway, on with the story.
The Shadow in the Dark - Prologue
Death was inevitable for everyone. People died every single day. And each day, those who survived, were only one day closer to their demise. However, none of that prepared Lorna Morello for the tragic news of her mother's death. In only a matter of months, Stansie Morello went from one of the healthiest - marathon running - person Lorna knew to a frail woman dying of stage four liver cancer. Nothing hurt more than to see how fast her mother deteriorated. How she went from an upbeat, healthy, active mother to a pale and frail—barely able to get out of bed—woman. It tore so deeply at young Lorna's heart to watch it all unfold. Especially all the while only being in her ninth grade of high school. Her mother would never get to see her graduate like she had for Mikey and Franny. Never help her apply for colleges. This wasn't anything how she imagined her life to go. She never imagined she'd lose her mother at the ripe age of fourteen.
"Mom has cancer, Lorn." It was Francine Morello, Lorna's seventeen-year-old sister, who first broke the news to her just a few months after her twelfth birthday.
The curly brunette scrunched her nose up in disbelief. She set aside her schoolwork and glanced up from the kitchen table to see the older girl standing in the doorway with a somber expression. "No," she muttered, placing her pencil back in the backpack. "Mom just got the flu, she said so herself Franny."
If only that was all it was, the older sister thought to herself. She swallowed thickly, her head shaking as her blue eyes pierced heavily across the room at Lorna. "Lorna, we just heard from dad and he said the doctor did some tests…mom has stage four liver cancer. And it's bad, real bad." Saying it hurt even more than hearing it, she distastefully thought. However, what hurt worse was knowing her younger sister would lose out on so much with their mother's grim diagnoses.
Lorna gulped uncomfortably as she slowly walked into the sterile and freezing hospital room. Hospitals always gave her chills. She sucked in a deep breath and made her way cautiously over to her mother's bedside. The woman who lay in that bed, she realized, was not the same woman who she would see scrambling around the kitchen every evening she arrived home from school. Who lain in that bed was an extremely ill and weak woman, one that Lorna hardly recognized.
"Lorna? Is that you?"
That voice didn't sound like the Stansie Morello that Lorna remembered yelling her name each morning to wake up. No, it sounded strained and barely louder than a whisper. Nothing even remotely similar to her boisterous Italian mother. She sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed, turning her heard gradually to stare up at her mom. What her eyes landed on was hard for her mind to process and comprehend.
"How grown ya look, my beautiful Lorna," Stansie quivered out, reaching her shaky hands out to frame around her youngest daughter's face. She used her thumb to softly caress against Lorna's forehead.
Those hands, albeit shaky, still had that comforting sensation that Lorna yearned for from her mother. She sucked in a deep breath as she caught a clear sight of the older woman's face. Bubbly brown eyes were now filled with exhaustion and pain, dark bags sat beneath them which gave a sunken appearance. It hurt to see how sickly her mother had become.
Lorna tried to put on a smile, which proved to be difficult. She couldn't smile seeing how sickly her mother appeared lying in that hospital bed. How weak and broken her voice sounded. All she wanted to do was to weep but instead, she finally forced a miserable smile on her face. Her mom had enough to deal with, she knew, so she had to be strong for her. She had to; she just had to.
"Hi, mom," she finally spoke, a solemn yet high-pitched tone. Her fingers gently combed through the thin dark curls that sat on her mother's frail head. "When-when are you coming home?"