Hillside Academy

°~° Motivation °~°

I went back to the dorms to see the others happily talking.

"You still go there everyday Aaron... What if she doesn't make it, it will break you if you can't distance yourself from her." Valentina said as I had entered the common room.

"We-" I tried to speak, but I was interrupted.

"Aaron. We are really worried about you. You keep getting worse and worse. We can all see it." Jocelyn added.

"I would rather die than try to forget about her. You are all just heartless." I said, clenching my fists.

"It's been over half a year since that day... We didn't forget about her either, but we have to think about ourselves too." Sophia said and looked sad.

"Yeah. I'll never forget that day. And I hope you don't either. Or else I will never forgive you." I angrily said before walking to my room and laying down on my bed. I looked up at the ceiling and thought about the day. All the painful faces, her lifeless body in my arms, the way she collapsed and everything. It was more painful than anything I've ever experienced. It will forever be engraved in my memory and no one can change it. And I knew that she was strong enough to get through it. Why couldn't the others see it?

From then on, I started distancing myself from the others a bit. And it stayed like this for a few months. I would rather die than forget about her. Until one day, they came up to me and apologized.

"We are sorry Aaron, we also want her to make it but being in a coma for 9 months is just..." Valerie started apologizing to me. I decided to forgive them this time, as long as we would make a promise to go visit her together again. So in the following months, we started getting back into the old rhythm and being a team again.

It even went as far as being in an even better rhythm than before. Our moves were connected. Our brains were continuously thinking the same. We were at our ultimate state. And we all knew it. But I felt slightly bad. We were achieving this all without her. We had planned to wait for her to complete our rhythm, but we couldn't wait anymore. We couldn't keep standing on one point of our progress just because of her. We had to keep going. But there would always be a spot for her. We made sure of that.

And it was too painful for us to choose a new leader, so we didn't. We soon visited her hospital together once again. We entered her room and stood beside her.

"It's been one year now. We miss you so much. But we pray that you'll make it and that you are strong enough to survive all of this." We all shed some tears as we looked at her. Her face was white, and her eyes were closed. No sign of life was visible, and the machines were the ones barely keeping her alive. If you could still call it that. We went back to school after spending a few hours in the hospital. The nurses already all knew our full names and informally spoke to us. We've known each other for a whole year now.

And Mr Lavez still seemed to be affected by it, and we could understand his grief very well. I don't even know what would've happened to us if she died out there. We would've probably all died with her then and there.

A new day of training started. It was one of the best ways to keep us busy without getting too sad. It kept us occupied and helped a lot. But for our teacher, it didn't seem like much of a help. It probably reminded him of all the classes and lessons he had with Ashlyn and how he missed those so much. He also said several times that she misses her like a daughter.

But he was the main reason we were all doing so well, despite the fact that we had lost a member of our team potentially forever. He gave us the motivation we needed, even if he didn't possess it himself. He made sure every single one of us was doing fairly well before sending us out on a mission. He was much more caring than I had originally thought in the beginning. He was like a father figure for everyone. He had also already made plants and rotations in case of her return. Including a plan on how to efficiently use her mixture-like ability for everyone's benefit. He was sure that she would wake up. He was more sure than any of us had ever been. Even after the year had passed, he was so sure. I was envious of that security. I wanted it too. I missed her so much.

When would she finally come back?

Would she be proud of us when she does?

Did she hear anything we said to her during the time she was in a coma?

Will she be able to return to the state she was in before?

Would her strength have remained?

My mind was tortured with questions such as those every single night. It had kept me awake a few too many times. I knew it wasn't healthy. I just didn't want to forget about her. So this night was another night where I didn't get a full night's rest. Yet, I stood up early that day and spent every single bit of energy I had left to reach our goal. 

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'Where am I?'

I asked myself as I heard a dozen ringing and beeping noises beside me. I had to use a lot of my strength to open my eyes and gain full consciousness. And then I remembered. 'Ah... I almost lost my life, saving Aaron that day. How long have I been here? A few weeks?' I asked myself in confusion and then looked at one of the machines to see the time and date.

"What?" I exclaimed and then suddenly heard the door behind me open. I fell to the floor in shock and just looked at the nurse. Her eyes widened, and she suddenly yelled.

"She's awake! She woke up!" She had a bright smile on her face. As if I meant so much for her. Who even was she?

A few other nurses came swarming into my room and did a few check-ups.

"Wow, she seems to be in very good health." They said and looked quite surprised. After they were done, I took my things, got dressed and headed to school. I had a hard time remembering the way, but it worked out in the end. As I entered the common room, I felt a sense of familiarity and then saw a lot of gazes rest on me.

"Am I hallucinating?" Aaron asked as he looked at me with widened eyes. "Either we all need to go to therapy, we see her ghost or..."

I snickered happily. "You missed me so much that you suspect yourselves to hallucinate?" I asked with a smirk on my face.

"It's definitely her." Valerie said and then looked at Aaron. He came dashing towards me and hugged me tightly before letting go and sitting back down with tinted cheeks.

"You know, he was in your hospital room every day. He missed you the most of all of us." Jessica said and smiled at me. I gasped and then smiled too. I sat down beside Aaron and hugged him again.

"Ok, since it's a special occasion you can all come hug me for once." I said and sighed happily. They all instantly ran towards me and wrapped their arms around, forbidding air to enter or leave my lungs.

"We missed you so much." Isabella said after they had all let go. And then Luke said something.

"You missed a lot. We worked our way up so you would arrive to a better basis that before."

It took a whole month to get me back on track and get back my old strength. It was fun to train and actually reach something different. I had a fun time training with them and saw how much they had improved too.

Aaron came to me the following evening and sat down beside me on my bed.

"I will never be able to explain how much I've missed you..." He said and smiled at me with a tear rolling down his cheek.