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Prologue

This is another normal Sunday morning for people in Australia but for the Stuart family it is a chaos where Alice Stuart is making pancakes hurriedly as her husband Daniel Stuart is about to leave for work, and he is waiting for his breakfast, looking continuously at the wall clock of the living room. These days Daniel often reaches late to office and gets scolding from his boss.

Well Mr. Daniel does not get late due to the traffic of Sydney, neither due to the laziness of his wife Alice nor due to his oversleeping habit. The actual reason for Mr. Daniel's late arrival at his office, is his 18-year-old daughter Arial Stuart.

Ariel is not the troublemaker here but yeah she is indirectly the root cause of all the troubles in the Stuart household these days. Confused! Okay so 1 week ago, Ariel was a carefree teen munching potato chips and sipping coke in her school canteen with her besties Kate and Casey but during the Mathematics lecture Ariel's head ached badly.

Ariel thought that Ms. Taylor's boring lecture regarding Quadratic equations and stuff was messing her mind and causing the headache. Later that day after school Ariel ate a tablet of Paradox (a painkiller for headache) to get rid of the severe headache which was getting serve with each passing hour.

Ariel could not even eat her lunch. So, she decided to take a nap to get rid of the nagging headache. It was dinner time when Ariel woke up. Her headache had subsided now. Ariel walked up to the wash basin of her room's bathroom. She opened the tap to wash her sleepy face.

After a few minutes Ariel's elder brother Ryan came to Ariel's room to call her for the dinner. Ryan knocked the restroom's door, and he asked Ariel to join them on the dinning table. Unusually, there was no reply from Ariel just the sound of flowing water from the faucet was heard, Ryan thought that Ariel heard him, and she will come downstairs.

Almost 15 minutes passed away there was still no sign of Ariel at the dinning table. This time Ryan asked his mom Alice to check on Ariel.

Alice got up from the table. She knocked the door of Ariel's restroom. This time too there was no response from inside. Alice now banged the door and shouted her daughter's name.

But still there was no reply from Ariel, which was now causing the panic rise inside Alice's chest. Alice ran downstairs to call her husband Daniel.

Ryan and Daniel rushed to Ariel's room along with Alice who was now in tears. The water was still flowing from the faucet. Daniel and Ryan broke open the door together.

Ariel was lying on the floor unconscious. Ariel was rushed to the hospital. Next 2 days went in tests and scans. Ariel all this while it was losing and gaining her conscious, unaware of the storm awaiting her.

The test reports arrived making Ariel's world turned upside down. Ariel got diagnosed with stage IV malign brain tumor. Ariel now have only about 2 months to live further as her first and the last cancer symptom and diagnosis came up in the last and advanced stage of her brain tumor.

The family was shattered when they got to know that their lovely daughter Ariel had only few days to live. Alice wept hearing the cancer news, Daniel was too shocked to utter something while Ryan was hiding his gloom under the fake facade of staying strong as the big brother of her ailing and near dying sister Ariel.

The Toughest part was to tell everything to Ariel. First Daniel thought to talk about it, but then he broke down seeing the innocent face of his daughter. Alice then gathered some courage to speak, and she said “Hey sweetie we have something to tell you “.

Ariel sensed something was wrong but to lighten up the atmosphere Ariel instantly cracked a joke “Hey mommy and daddy did you both fight, now don't tell me that you guys are taking divorce or separation. If this is so then me and Ryan will stay under one roof and you guys can stay happy on your own”.

Alice's eyes brimmed hearing lively gimmick of Ariel. But Alice had to disclose, so she spoke out,
“ Honey it's about your brain. You have cancer.... I mean you have a tumor in your brain. It's in the last stage, and it's pretty serious “. Ariel exclaimed,” This means, I am going to die !”. Alice hugged Ariel tightly not knowing what to say further.

Ryan stood speechless or rather like a rock statue seeing his mom and sister wailing and crying their hearts out.

It's been 4 days since the heartbreaking diagnosis. Ariel's condition has started to regard with episodes of constant seizures, vomiting, nausea and fainting spells.

Ariel is now too weak to even get up from the bed. So, Alice first helps Ariel with the morning chores like brushing Ariel's teeth, dropping Ariel to the restroom then putting Ariel back on bed, feeding Ariel breakfast, then giving a pile of tablets to Ariel to gulp down her throat.

All the new morning routine of Ariel makes Alice late in doing other chores of the house including, making breakfast for the rest of the family, that is why Daniel gets late to his office, making him face the wrath of his boss every early morning.

Life has drastically changed for Ariel. Now it is been a week since the diagnosis and Ariel is still trying to process what's happening in her freaking life.

Casey and Kate are trying to figure out how to go through the school and extra boring lectures without the funny and entertaining antics of Ariel. Cancer news has shaken Kate and Casey to the core, accepting that their bestie will soon die is just too hard for them just like the Stuart family.