Purple Sweater

White Lights

Everything just felt less and less real with every hour that passed.

Cedars of Lawndale was a nice hospital that the Morgendorffer family knew very well, and yet this time everything for them was unknown and unfriendly, since they found themselves at a cold, distant and lonely section of the medical facility that they had never visited before.

This was not exactly where the patients recovered from injury and diseases, where cheerful doctors and beaming nurses always gave you excellent news... this was the other place, the dark side, where you would have to go after everything was over.

Daria looked up at those brilliant white lights that glowed in the ceiling, which seemed just as unreal as everything else that had happened that day, the constant sobs and cries seemed like whispers flowing from a distant world and she wondered when all of this would end.

"N-no, Jake! No, this can't be! It c-can't be real!" Helen sobbed and cried as her husband tried to comfort her, and her voice was already broken beyond recognition as she tried her best to deny reality over and over again- "How do we k-know it's even her? There must be a terrible mistake! We c-cannot lose her! I can't lose my Quinn!"

"We'll find her my love, we are going to find her somewhere..."

The Morgendorffer family awaited in that hallway not for a doctor, but for the coroner's report that would shatter everything and change their lives forever. So far it still seemed unreal, and there was at least a little spark, a tiny possibility that perhaps, after all, everything was just a mistake and they would soon pick up Quinn at Woodslack Forest instead.

Jane was sitting alone on a blue plastic chair a certain distance from Daria and her parents, silent and somber, Helen broke down into yet another bout of severe crying and finally the white and gray door was opened somewhere to their left...

It was not the Cedars Coroner, but one of the assistants, a red haired, twenty something woman that seemed pale and cold as ice after everything that she had seen beyond that door.

"We have decided that it's not convenient for you to see the remains" the assistant explained, trying not to look into Jake's broken eyes as she advanced slowly towards them- "We are preparing to carry out the DNA tests. Still, if you could have a look at this..."

The lady then drew something from a white cardboard container, and there it was at last, the final proof that sentenced the family to a life of grief, darkness and pain.

Quinn's beautiful purple sweater looked all torn and bloody inside of a transparent bag, the assistant sighed and the sounds that followed were something that Daria would eventually wish that she had never heard at all.

Helen wailing like a wounded animal, Jake cursing everything in the world, Jane sobbing somewhere in the distance...

Quinn was dead, Quinn was gone and there was nothing that they could do to change it.

Daria covered her face with her hands, and yet she could not cry, this could not be real at all...