Right then she downed the rest of the cider. Tears fall down her face in slow streams, and she smiles halfheartedly at the boy before leaving the room. The boy's brown eyes followed the small girl out of the door, and for the first time in a long time, he questioned.

The hallway is just as stuffy as it always is, but instead of feeling it suck the life out of her, she thinks about everything she has experienced here. The tears never stop, but this time she doesn't let a sob escape. She pushes the thought of her future away, instead focusing on finding her way back to the hospital room that she was assigned to.

She turns a corner into the hallway that the room is located in, noticing that her parents no longer stand outside of it with Dr. Fujimoto. She feels so numb, but tries not to show it as she collects herself once more. With one last reassuring breath, she opens the door, stepping inside.

Her mother's eyes are puffy and red, she has been crying too. Yuri hopes that her eyes don't give her away, but she knows that they do. She places the empty glass next to her, smiling at Mahki. Mahki tries to smile back, but it doesn't reach her eyes.

"We have something for you, Yuri." Her voice seems empty, maybe even broken. She grabs a box from behind her, "We already talked it over with your parents." She sets the heavy thing next to Yuri.

"Have you ever heard of the NerveGear?" Fujimoto's voice sounds. His isn't broken like Mahki's, but a small hint of sadness echo's in it. She looks up at her parents, her mouth slightly ajar, purely out of shock.

Hideki...

She stares out of the window, the other cars racing by and she remembers the thought that she had earlier. Looking up at the tall building furnished with tinted glass and steel, she wonders if someone is looking down on them. It is a different experience when you are in the car. Yuri shifts her attention, instead looking at the cube shaped box sitting in her lap. I just decided that I wanted to spend more time in reality, so why did I accept the gift? She already knew the answer. Her parents. When she looked at them, they were finally holding hands, acting like they had before this last year. Yuri knew that this was something that sparked some hope for them, it was something that helped them through this, so while she didn't want to waste any of her last moments playing a video game, she would do it for them, for her family.

They pulled into the driveway, her dad shutting off the car. Her parents got out, and she followed a few silent moments after, taking the box into her arms and opening the door. The crisp autumn air met her immediately, and she listened to the crunch of colored leaves below her feet. This was something that she would miss. She would miss it a lot.

"So, lets hook this up now to make sure there's nothing wrong with it, then you can get started. Although you won't be able to go into the game, you can at least become familiar with the controls, right, little ripple?"

Her dad has called her by that nickname since she could open her eyes. It meant that with her in their lives, it created a ripple in their normally calm, glass like reality. He saw that her eyes were blue, and since then has been comparing her to anything related to water. Ocean on occasion, Waves, Wake, River, Droplet, and of course Ripple. In fact they made her middle name Tide, therefor Making her name mean 'Lilly Tide,' her parents have always considered themselves clever for it.

She smiled, agreeing to set up the device with her dad. She didn't really want to get into it yet, but he didn't know that. To him she was excited, that's how she made it look while they were still in the hospital. That's how she wanted them to see her, accepting and excited for the rest of her short life.

Slowly, she lugged the heavy box into her bedroom. Her dad was already waiting there for her, looking forward to putting everything together with her. Just as they got everything together and ready to start, the sound of the front door slamming interrupted them.

"Yuri, I'm home!" Kyo's voice was louder than usual, their aunt must have given him sugar.

"I'll set up, go have fun!" Her dad was still bent over the instructions and wires that came with the metallic helmet, waving his hand at her dismissively. She nods, saluting him with a serious look on her face. Running out of the room and turning the corner she almost slides into the wall, socks not really allowing friction.

Grabbing Kyo's tiny hand she drags him outside. The plan to tire him out before mom went crazy, what with him bouncing off of the walls.

Together they gather all of the leaves on the ground, bringing them into one big pile. Kyo climbs up the almost leafless tree to the left of their home. Once he is on the branch closest to the ground he stands up on it and jumps. Leaves exploded everywhere due to the impact. Yuri then hopped into the pile as well, landing next to her giggling six year old brother. His dark hair had leaves dancing in it, and she could only guess that her own hair was worse.

As they had gathered them back up for the fifth time, a car pulled into their driveway. Hideki leaps out of it with burst of excitement, jumping into the fresh leaf pile. The three spend what feels like hours throwing leaves into the air, jumping out of the tree and laughing together. She wishes she would have spent more time doing this with them when she wasn't shutting down, because then there would be more moments like this to remember on her deathbed.

By now it was 5:30. Her mother called the three of them inside, it was starting to get cold. They had gotten tired after so much playing, so they went inside to watch cartoons. Kyo had fallen asleep on the floor, so Hideki woke him up before they walked through the doorway to the kitchen.

"Got it all set up," Yuri's dad stated as he took a seat at the table. Their mom had made dinner tonight because their dad was busy with the NerveGear. Her mother was not a very good cook, in fact she could only make one thing without screwing up. That's why their dad did all of the cooking. Yuri and Hideki used to lie when they were younger and tell their mother that it tasted really good, but when Kyo was born they stopped. They found that it was too hard to lie when Kyo would burst out crying at the age of two because it tasted so bad.

"Got what set up?" Hideki's attention was now on dad.

"Yuri got a NerveGear from the hospital. They thought it would work well for therapy."

Hideki slowly turned his head to Yuri, his mouth agape and eyes wide, "What?!"

"Relax, you can use it every once in awhile if you want. You can even use it first!" She was glad that her brother was into that kind of stuff because she didn't want it. Maybe he could use it and she could get enjoyment by watching him get excited about it.

"Reall-"

"No. Yuri needs to use it first, it was a gift from the hospital and I want her to be there for the first launch tomorrow." Her dad interrupted Hideki.

Well, there goes my chance of getting rid of it. She knew that if Hideki were to use it once, that he would never give it up, and that's probably why her dad objected to the idea.

"I'll do the dishes!" Yuri quickly stood up from her seat, walking to the sink and grabbing hold of the sponge. It wasn't long until the sponge was taken away from her by her dad. Yeah, she knew it wouldn't last long. She only wanted to help.

Walking down the hallway and to her bedroom, she grabbed a black t-shirt and headed to the shower. Getting the leaves out of her hair was more of a challenge than she thought it would be, but eventually she was cleaned up. She got out of the shower, drying off and pulling clothes on. She admired the cute, little panda on the front of her pull over before combing through her hair and pulling it into another messy ponytail. She bent over, picking up the damp towel and hanging it on the rack behind her.

It was time. Squatting, she stared at the metal helmet. It stared back.

"Okay..." She was a little nervous, how could she not be?

She stood up, placing the contraption on her head, it was a little heavy, and the wires coming out of the side and connecting to her computer didn't make her anymore comfortable with the experience. She lifted her pointer finger and middle finger, using the two to press the power button. A trailer for the game appeared, and although she was surprised by it at first, she sat and watched. When it was over, a command took its place prompting her to touch various parts of her body in order to calibrate the machine. She thought that it was a little weird but she did as it told her to.

"Link Start." She said after laying down, her voice quiet as she slowly allowed her eyelids to drop. It was so strange, she saw in tunnel vision for a moment, and then colors flashed. When that was done the system did some sort of conformation to make sure that her five senses were in check and connected. Then it asked her to create an account.

"Choose a player name."

A player name?

She came up with one that she thought fit perfectly: Tsunami. It was in relation to the water themed nicknames that her dad called her by, yet it reminded her of the disease living inside of her. One that would cause her to fall apart, and leave behind a desolate life.

Like a Tsunami leaving a city,

She would retreat back into the Ocean,

Back into non existence;

A cloud of destruction, left behind, to remember her by.