December 26, 2006 1:05AM

I woke up to a phone call, right on Christmas day.

"Hello?" I answered the phone groggily, I had been up late, it was Christmas. But I wasn't up late celebrating. I was finishing packing. A sob from the other end of the phone woke me up a little quicker. "Who is this?"

"Sorry, hey Sora, it's Tai," I sat upright abruptly, fully awake now. It was almost impossible to hear what Tai was saying through the tears. "-Just got back from the hospital, she's sick Sora, she's really sick-"

"What? What's going on Tai?"

"She's dying," he was almost calm now. " Hikari's dying. She has pneumonia. Her lungs, they-they're filling up with fluid..even as we speak."

"Oh, Tai I-"

"If she's lucky, she'll make it past next week."

I couldn't sleep the rest of the night.