ROTBFTD : Broken & Beautiful

18

Jack pov

The sterile white walls of the hospital room seemed to press in on me, mirroring the emptiness I felt inside. Elsa lay still, her usually vibrant skin now pale and lifeless. The rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor was the only sound in the room, a cruel reminder of the silence that had taken over her.

Three weeks. Three weeks of relentless hope, of constant vigil, of whispers of 'wake up, Elsa' breathed into the stillness. Three weeks that had morphed into a heavy weight on my chest. Three weeks that had culminated in the doctor's blunt words, 'There's no way she'll recover. We can't keep her.'

The waiting room, a place of hushed whispers and anxious glances just moments ago, now felt like a distant echo. People were back to their phones, their lives seemingly untouched by the tragedy unfolding in the room next door. My gaze fixated on the window, seeking a glimmer of hope in the grey world outside, but all I found was the same bleak reflection of my despair.

The doctor's words echoed in my head. 'No way.' The words were cold, devoid of compassion, but they were the truth. A truth that I refused to accept. I wanted to scream, to shake the doctor, to force him to see the flicker of life still within Elsa. But all I could do was whisper, 'Elsa, please, I need you.'

Leaving the room, I encountered Rapunzel. Her eyes were red, swollen, but she managed a weak smile. 'Did he...?' My mom, her own face etched with pain, squeezed my hand. I simply nodded, the single word carrying the weight of a world collapsing.

Anna, her usually bubbly demeanor now subdued, pulled my hand. 'Jack,' she said, her voice surprisingly calm, 'Can you do me a favor?'

'Yeah, anything,' I choked out, willing to do anything, even the impossible, to ease the suffocating pain.

'Can you find Fae?' she asked, her gaze searching mine. 'She's been gone, and she always talks to Elsa. The last call was when she was in school...'

A sudden realization hit me. Fae, had been absent for weeks, ignoring our calls and disappearing from the usual haunts. It dawned on me that Elsa never mentioned Fae being gone. Maybe she knew. Maybe she was trying to protect us.

'Yeah,' I whispered, a new purpose blooming within me. 'I'll find her.'

Finding Fae might not bring Elsa back, but it could be a way to let her know what we were going through, to share our pain, to keep her spirit alive. Maybe, just maybe, Fae could bring some solace to Elsa, even in her absence.

The world outside the hospital's sterile walls seemed vast and confusing. But I had a direction, a reason to move forward. I had to find Fae. For Elsa, for myself, and for the sliver of hope that still flickered in the darkness.