A Final Breath

Chapter 1

My name is Estella, Estella Rovilda. 

I'm sixteen years-old this year, but unlike most sixteen year-old's, I am dying. I was diagnosed with stage-3 heart cancer about a few months ago and my condition had only worsened by leaps and bounds, the doctor said I only have about 6 months or a year, if i'm really really lucky. 

Yes, i'm scared, very scared but I can't give up.

 I want to go to university, get a boyfriend maybe even finally publish one of my un-finished books. But I guess it's too late for all that dreaming. I have to prepare for the worst... and I'm NOT going to like it. My friends have to bring me my homework from school although i'm not sure why I need it, I'm a goner anyway... next, I have to stay in the stinking hospital, with tubes attached to me...

My friends always encourage me but despite their hard and compassionate efforts, I still feel down and extremely discouraged, I always say i'm fine but i'm not... the only people who can actually  understand me are my closest friends, Jacob, with stage-3 leukemia, Vera, with stage-2 lung cancer and Jamie, with stage-3 skin cancer.

 Our common interest?

 We all like to pretend we don't have cancer. All of us share the same room although  Vera was offered her own suite because one, her parents were super rich and two, her condition isn't as serious as the rest of us although she still has to be monitored rather closely but it was really nice of her to decide to stay with us. She always said that we had to encourage one another, she was like the sunshine in our lives, but she could be a little mischievous sometimes...

It's really boring staying in the hospital for an immensely long time so we came up with a prank chart, those of us who are bed-ridden get to plan the pranks, while Vera performs them. We've succeeded in so much mischief that the nurses have a name for us, The 4 CJ's, which stands for the four Carefree Joker's. Because of our situation the nurses are quite lenient on us and mostly they wave of the pranks like they were nothing. 

But there was that one time a few months ago when Vera put a water balloon inside the washing machine and it just EXPLODED!! The nurses, especially nurse Carmen were furious, they made us were the same robes for an entire week, so that we became stinky and dirty.

 Of course that didn't stop us and Vera from continuing to prank the nurses, well up until a few months later when we recieved deadly news...

 " Vera's gone," Jacob woke me up, frightened. 

"Jacob it's four in the morning, are you sure you didn't dream it?" I asked, rubbing my eyes, my arburn brown hair rolled down my shoulders as I sat up.

"You see for yourself, her bed is empty..." That was all Jacob had to say, my eyes darted to her bed and sure enough, Vera Mausakiy was gone...