24 hours earlier...

'Hell yeah!'

Rena almost fell down the stairs she was running so fast. 'Hey! Wait up!'

'Not a chance!' Hiro yelled back to her. He jumped the last few steps and landed sprawling on the grass outside the main school building.

Rena dragged her hand along the wall, gathering up a huge handful of snow. 'Right, this is revenge for last year!' She shouted.

Hiro's eyes widened. 'No! Go AWAY!' He brought his backpack up to cover his face. Flakes of snow had already settled in his hair, reminding Rena of the flour incident just a few weeks prior.

It had been snowing for their past two lessons, but they weren't able to get outside. As soon as the bell rang, Rena had run into Hiro and they raced one another outside. More students were piling out the doors after them, all grinning from ear to ear. It was almost Christmas break - the hall was covered in lights and there was a sweet smell of gingerbread and spices in the air. And the snow was falling thick and fast; the ground was already covered in a couple of inches.

Rena launched the snowball at her brother as she could, grinning from ear to ear. Christmas was her favourite time of the year. 'HA!'

Hiro withdrew from behind his backpack, scowling. 'Right. That's it.' He got to his feet and began making another snowball.

'We're even now!'

'Absolutely not!' Hiro extended his arm back and launched it, but missed.

Fortunately for him though, Wasabi just happened to be walking up to Rena to say hello. The snowball hit him square in the face, sending snow all over his jumper.

'WHY?!' He exclaimed loudly, frantically brushing the flakes from his jumper.

Hiro grinned sheepishly. 'Sorry Wasabi!'

Rena tutted. 'Your aim is terrible.'

'Hey, I can't be good at everything.' Hiro replied.

'I can't believe it's snowing!' Honey Lemon cried, running towards them and crashing into Rena, giving her a bone-crushing hug. 'Look at it! It's beautiful!'

Rena's heart was hammering as she wrapped her arms around her friend, trying to hide her burning red face. 'Y...yeah!'

Honey Lemon untangled herself and held her phone up, doing a peace sign with her hand. 'Rena! Smile!'

'How are you so red already? It's not even that cold.' Gogo said, materialising out of nowhere.

'Well... I-'

'HEADS!' Wasabi cried, diving to the ground.

A huge snowball came flying out of nowhere and smacked Rena square in the chest, sending snow flying everywhere.

'OW! FUCK!' She cursed.

'HA! GOT YOU!' Fred screeched, jumping up and down from afar. He raced over to Hiro and gave him a high five. 'See! Told you I could do it!'

Hiro laughed loudly. 'Good work!'

Rena stared at them. 'Did you plan that?!'

'Yep. To be fair, it was meant to be Tadashi. But I don't know where he is so I told him to go for you. Now, did anyone get a photo?'

'I did.' Gogo said, smirking.

'Were you all in on this?!' Rena exclaimed.

'I wasn't.' Wasabi replied.

'Yeah, cause you were next in line after Rena.' Fred said, shrugging.

'Where is Tadashi anyway?' Honey Lemon asked. 'I want a group photo in the snow!'

Rena pulled out her phone, but there were no texts or anything from her older brother. 'I've no idea. I'll go find him now.'

'I think he's still inside.' Gogo said. 'I passed him on the way outside, he said something about work?'

'I think Baymax needed charging.' Hiro shrugged, 'he's probably in his lab.'

'Got it.' Rena said, turning around and walking back inside. 'I'll be back in a minute!'

She rushed up the stairs and back into the school building, hiding away from the cold. Her footsteps echoed in the empty corridor as she made her way over to Tadashi's lab, humming a Christmas song under her breath.

For the hundredth time, she pulled out her phone and scrolled through the few notifications she had. But nope, none of them were what she was looking for. She stopped humming and sighed quietly, suddenly feeling a lot less festive. It was a stupid idea. She was never going to get a response. But still. Her mind wandered back to Friday night - was it really only a few days ago?

She'd staggered into the garage, the alcohol still in her system. She'd collapsed onto the couch in the corner, burying her face in a pillow to try and stop her head pounding. Tadashi had placed a bowl on the floor next to her and a glass of water on the table. He was curled up in a desk chair, headphones in and watching a TV show. Rena was ignoring him, deciding it was best to leave him alone. She had a suspicion he was only there to keep an eye on her anyway.

Then, Rena had done something that she regretted rather a lot. She'd pulled out her phone and done something that she hadn't done in quite some time.

You: hey clara! it's been a whike, just wondering how you are?

She'd sat there in the dark, watching the little blue line at the top of the screen go along until it sent. She'd made a typo. She'd made a fucking typo.

Then Rena did three things. First of all, she launched her phone as hard as she could at the wall. Then, she'd vomited. And finally, she turned away from Tadashi and cried into a pillow for a very long time.

Rena stopped in the middle of the hallway for a second, the unpleasant memory taking her off guard for a second. Again, she glanced down at her phone. It was cracked now, and when she was scrolling through social media she'd often get a shard of glass in her thumb. Her message to Clara had not yet been read. She'd been left on delivered. Rena would have preferred to be punched in the face again.

She was so far away, she almost crashed straight into Professor Granville on the stairs.

'Miss Hamada! I implore you to be more cautious in the future!'

'Sorry Professor! I was a little distracted.'

'And why aren't you outside with the rest of your peers?'

'Oh, I was. I'm just seeing where Tadashi is.'

'Ahhh, I see.' Granville paused for a second, as though she was deep in thought. 'Is something going on with him?'

'I don't know, Professor. Is there any reason why you're asking?'

'Nothing in particular. Please just remind him that he still owes me a paper from last week.'

'Okay.'

'Thank you, Miss Hamada.'

Granville continued down the stairs, leaving Rena on her own.

She knew exactly why Granville had asked. Tadashi had never, ever, turned a paper in late. He'd always handed everything in on time since Middle School. Was she starting to notice how confused he seemed lately? How exhausted? How... off he seemed?

She sighed. She was probably overthinking it. They couldn't seem to catch a break lately; Rena was just being paranoid. Yeah. That was it.

Just paranoia.

She ran the rest of the way up the stairs and was outside his lab before she knew it. Gently, she rapped her knuckles against the glass door.

'Heyyy,' she called as she opened it, slipping inside and closing the door behind her. 'What you up to?'

Then she looked up. Tadashi was stood staring at her, his face slack and his eyes blank. Baymax was charging in the corner and a pile of papers lay on the desk next to him, only half-written. Clearly he was in the middle of something.

Rena tried not to be too afraid of his scarily blank expression. 'What you working on?'

It was so fast. One minute, he was standing there looking at her. The next, something seemed to click in his brain and he'd swooped forwards, pressing a cloth to her face.

Rena screamed. She desperately tried to pull him off of her, but her mind was becoming foggy. A sharp chemical smell filled her nostrils and she began to panic.

Ether.

She kicked him in the shin as hard as she could, but she was getting weaker by the second. It was hardly enough to make him flinch.

He pulled the cloth away and she took a great, heaving breath before the ether took her under, leaving her limp in her brother's arms. She couldn't muster the strength to say anything as slowly, slowly, the world fell into darkness.