Part One: "Sarah"

Issue 1- The Carefree Life

Sarah Townshend sits in her small bed, staring at her yellowish ceiling, counting the small holes on the surface. She is a young girl of fourteen, normally the age of vibrancy and energy, but Sarah is confined to her bed, stricken with a debilitating disease in her kidneys she has had since childhood. It was a disease that took her mother in the prime of life, leaving her dead on the kitchen floor among shattered dishes and spilled milk. Unfortunately, the six-year-old Sarah took up the difficult task of finding her mother's body, and it is an event that has strongly affected her. It is not uncommon for Sarah to drift into sleep only to encounter visions of her mother's corpse, hoarsely screaming at her for not saving her; for not being there in time.

These visions of the past that never occurred are unreasonable, of course, but Sarah cannot seem to push them from her mind. The nightmares leave her with little sleep to replenish her slowly dying body. A kidney transplant was preformed two years ago, and although that seemed to wipe out the spread of the virus, Sarah's body has begun to reject the transplanted kidney. A couple of years ago, a good day would be Sarah sitting outside with her father, drawing the plants and flowers in the park down the street; now, a good day was a vomit-free one. Unfortunately for Sarah, this wasn't a good day. Passing the time came slower and slower as the days went on, and if Sarah didn't start over every time she counted the holes on the ceiling, she had no doubt she would have a definite estimate of how many there actually were.

Michael Townshend slowly climbed the stairs to the second floor of his house, balancing the load of laundry he had just done on his knee. A towel on the top fell off and hit the stairs, floating down a few steps. Michael paused, staring behind him at the fallen towel, and decided it wasn't worth it. "Ah, I'll get it later," he said with a frustrated tone.

Frustration wasn't anything new in the life of Michael Townshend; if you asked him, he would say that his life was really a bunch of frustrations bunched together with a handful of peaceful moments. It wasn't always like this, of course; in fact, up until eight years ago, he couldn't find anything wrong with his life. A beautiful wife, a wonderful, vibrant child, and a fantastic job; everything a man could want. Now, he had trouble remembering the face of his beautiful wife (which is why he kept so many pictures of her around the house), he hadn't had his fantastic job in six years, and his daughter wouldn't be alive for much longer (not to mention she wasn't vibrant anymore). Life sucked, to put it simply.

He made his way up the rest of the stairs and placed the laundry on a cabinet to the right of the stairs. Michael knocked and pushed open the faded blue door of his daughter's room, moving in and sitting on a rocking chair (a chair that his wife, Danielle, had rocked Sarah to sleep when she was a baby); he looked at his daughter and tried his best forced smile.

"How are you today, sweetheart? Any better from this morning?"

"I'm fine, Dad. I've actually just came in from a 2K run." She smiled, and Michael laughed softly. It was hard for him not to cry when he saw her as she always was- trying to be as bright as possible in such a bad situation- it broke his heart every time. He looked at his daughter for a moment, and then realized that the television was not on. "What's this! My daughter not watching the Mets game! I'm stunned!"

Sarah gave that pale smile again. "They were rained out. Florida is having a huge storm or something."

"Ahh, I'm glad. I was starting to worry that you were sick or..." Michael paused, realizing what he had just said. "I'm sorry, sweetheart... that was stupid of me."

"It's fine Dad, I know what you meant. I'm probably gonna go to sleep in a while anyway... I'm kinda tired."

"Ok. I'll get out of your hair then." Michael got up and kissed his daughter on the head, flinching a bit at how cold her skin felt at his touch. He went around the bed and took a quick look to make sure that all of the equipment that monitored her was functioning properly. Confident that it was, he made his way back around the bed and looked at his daughter again before he left. "Sleep tight, Sarah."

"Night dad."

Michael shut the door behind him and went to put away the stack of laundry.

Michael ate his turkey and cheese sandwich, not really tasting it. The glass of whiskey next to his plate, on the other hand, he could taste quite clearly. Michael didn't drink on very many occasions, but when he did, he went all out. All he cared about was getting as drunk as he possibly could; he wanted nothing more than to get the image of his sickly daughter out of his head. He just couldn't stand seeing her that way, a fraction of what she once was. Memories of Danielle flooded back to him, none more prominent than the image of his six-year-old daughter kneeling in a puddle of milk next to his wife's lifeless corpse.

Michael began to cry softly, but he quickly wiped his tears away and finished what was left in his glass. He poured another sizable portion of the whiskey, and was about to take a large gulp when a shrill alarm rang out from upstairs. Michael looked around for a second, not quite sure what the noise was, when it finally hit him. Sarah!

He dropped the glass to the floor and pushed his chair away from the table hard. It clattered to the floor and he took off towards the stairs, taking two at a time as he ran up them. Michael ran and threw his shoulder against the door (not bothering with using the knob) shattering the frame. The door slammed open, and he ran over to his daughter. She was convulsing heavily, and he quickly took of his belt and placed it in her mouth, just in case she might accidentally bite her tongue.

Michael looked over at the gaggle of machines and noticed that Sarah's heartbeat was pulsing wildly. Moving fast, he ran to the telephone and called 911, frantically telling the woman who answered the situation and their address before hanging up and again moving to his daughter's side. He gripped her shaking hand tightly and spoke to her in a pleading tone. "Don't leave me Sarah! Please, God, don't take her away from me!"

The heartbeat monitor began to flash quickly, indicating that her heartbeat was going up drastically. Michael stared at it, unbelieving, not understanding how this all could be happening. "Come on Sarah, fight it dammit! You can make it! Don't let this thing beat you!".

Tears flooded down his face as Sarah flapped and struggled in her bed. Her eyes were rolled back into her head, and her breathing became very sharp, taking quick, long breaths. Michael looked desperately around the room, not knowing what exactly he should do; he looked at the monitor again and noticed her heartbeat was incredibly fast.

Sarah suddenly stopped convulsing, and the room fell eerily silent. Michael looked at the monitor, his heart freezing in his chest when he noticed the thin line running across the screen. Frightened, completely unaware what to do, he tried CPR, pushing down on her chest, trying to get some sort of a reaction. Michael wouldn't remember how long exactly he preformed this act when the paramedics arrived, but in fact, Michael spent seven-and-a-half minutes futilely trying to revive his daughter.

At the end of this, he slumped to the floor, horrified, as if he had just seen a murder. He wasn't that far off. In fact, he had just witnessed a death.

To be continued in Issue 2- Cured