I'll learn to dance in the rain [korrasami]

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TW: this story mentions the progression of a terminal illness that can be upsetting to read.

Korra

The waiting room was still and quiet except for the hypnotic tick of the old plastic clock handing on the wall. It feels like years have passed and I already know when I stand up there's going to be an ass print on this chair.

My parents are looking worried yet when they catch me looking at them they display a smile. It's so badly shown it's obvious they're faking it. I'll be fine, it's just a fluke accident, they happen. A door opens on the other side of the waiting room and a tall man with a beard steps out, clipboard in hand.

"Korra Smith?"

Finally. I get up quicker than my parents do and I'm already being invited inside. The room is cold and the beared man wasn't the only one in the room. Once I settle down with my parents on either side, I watch the beared man clasp his hands together. The woman next to him is older and she's giving me a look that I don't quite understand. What's going on?

"The results have come through." He says.

My father shuffles to the edge of his seat. "And?"

A sheet of paper slides across the desk and I take a look at it. It's a scan of my lungs yet something doesn't seem right. The older woman in the nurse uniform presses a finger to it, pointing out a black blob on the page. "All three lymph nodes are positive."

When my parents gasp I feel my heart sink. That can't be a good thing can it? "What does that mean?" I ask, hoping that they'd finally give me an answer to what the fuck is going on.

"It means you'll have to undergo chemotherapy and radiotherapy."

What?

"It is cancer."

I blink.

Frozen in my seat. My carefully planned and hard-won future no longer existed. It shrivelled right in front of my eyes as the words slipped from the doctors tongue and it hurts. It hurts so much. His words splinter inside me causing more pain than what I have. Possibly Terminal. Hospice. He's telling me that there will be no more walks in the park, no more birthdays, no more running and I won't see another snow season. My life from here on in is four walls and pain medication until I die. I don't want it, not any of it. Perhaps if I scream and scream for pain medication I can get an overdose, slide out on a feather-lined cloud into the arms of the almighty.

"But there's still a possibility and we're going to do everything we can." That was the confident declaration of the woman who I'm guessing will be treating me for whatever stage I have. I stopped listening. They're telling me my treatment plan but I'm not listening, my ears refuse. I refuse. My head is a storm and I'm drowning in the floods.

"Time heals and you'll be okay." That was my mother and there's a grip at my hand and I know it's my father. My head is already linking words together and none of them are good. Terminal. Pain. Death. The clock has already started ticking and I'm beginning to feel weaker already.

Last month I was training, running sprints and pushing myself like I have been for the past years. The Olympics was my dream, running on the brick track for a piece of metal to hang around my neck. That's when it first started. It was a tingling sensation in my left hand, I thought nothing of it at first. But when it went numb and quickly spread to the left side of my body, my smile was lopsided and I felt half of my face drop. I'm not sure what happened but I woke up in hospital and found out I had a stroke. But that wasn't all.

Tests after tests, their faces became more serious the more I had them. The mutterings were unbearable, no matter how much I screamed for them to tell me what's wrong with me, they never spoke a word. Now that I know, I wish curiosity wasn't a thing. I wish I kept my head down and looked the other way. Because now that I know, I can't feel a thing.