The Heretic

Prologue

"They said I had 2% chance to live and it's okay. Two is not zero." - Nightbirde

(^,^)

There wasn't much she could remeber about her previous life. Perhaps it was because she was in the constant brink of death. When you are contantly being wheeled back and forth between surgery room and your permanent hospital bed, there wasn't really much living happening to begin with. From the moment she was born, she has never gone out of the hospital.

She couldn't remember her name nor her age. All she could remember was that she was dying of terminal cancer and that she was miserable. She couldn't recall anything about her previous family, besides the fact that she was angry at them, especially her stubborn mother who she could not even recall, despite being the woman who gave life to her and insisted on fighting to keep her life.

If that crazy, old woman hadn't been there, constantly nagging by her side, then maybe she could have been free from the all the suffering and fatigue earlier. Despite all the painful chemo treatment failing, she forced herself not to give up because then the old woman would loose her fighting spirit, become all depress and mopey. And if that happened, then she would really get angry at the old stubborn woman.

So she stayed a little while longer.

Her mother wasn't the only thing she found irritating. She was annoyed at her goody-goody sister too, the one who was willing to go through multiple bone marrow transplants for her, extending her life as well as her suffering. God, that bitch was annoying. Who would chose to hangout with the sick and dying, just to watch corney TV shows about vampires, instead of hanging out with her highschool friends? In her mind, she secretly thought that maybe her annoying sister was a loser with no social life. The clingy loser would certainly have no friend if she left.

So she decided to stay a little bit longer

She had hoped that her father would atleast be more tolerable than those two, but he seemed to be more of a fool than both of them combined. He was the type of man whose going to end up dirt poor and broke dragging his entire family with him. Despite knowing there was no cure for her, the stupid man kept insisting to waste his money, yelling at doctors to save his daughter who would inevitably die. He would always look at her with teary eyes. She would too if she had to look at the person that caused her a great pile of debts.

All of them were so damn annoying. That's probably the reason why she couldn't remember much about them. She didn't want to live any longer but for them she decided to keep fighting cancer. Not matter how pained and tired she was.

One day, something miraculous happened. All her doctors and her family were suprised when her last lab results came showing that the cancer cells inside her body had been reduced and that she had entered a period of remission. It all seemed all to good to be true. She could finally step out of the hospital. She wasn't going to die. But somehow she couldn't celebrate her recovery and share the joy of her family. However, she didn't want to be that bitch who was the kill joy that ruined their happiness, so she just smiled and let them squish her in between their hugs.

The day that came after that proved her hunch was correct. Her miraculous recovery was indeed too good to be true, as her miracle was cut short. Not even 24 hours had passed.

It was in the middle of the night when there were no visitors left in the ward. All thats left were a few patients and nurses working during the graveyard shift. The fire alarms went off and she could remember so much screaming and crying. She could remember thinking perhaps this was what hell looked like. Flames surrounded her everywhere. She was to weak to run or push the door that was blocked. It was the only entrance and exit to her room. There was no way she could survive this. She thought that this was it. There were no other miracle that could save her. Just when she was about to say her final good bye to the word, a loud bang came from the door.

One of her nurses in charge manage to open the door. She was one of the annoying ones too. She was the nurse that shared with her gossips about the hospital staff and always held her hand during painful procedures. She could see one of her arms was bruised and bleeding but she managed to pick her up and ran out of the room.

She was shocked to say the least. Hospitals should really pay nurses a lot more. She leaned weakly behind the nurse looking frantically for an exit. The government should really give these folks a raise. She recalled all the frantic nurse's rants about doing extra work that wasn't part of her job description. Neither of them would have guessed being a crappy fire fighter would be part of her work experience.

Perhaps, someday they would see each other again and shit talk about the bad healthcare system this country has. But she doubt that day would come, as she noticed the falling banister from the ceiling that the nurse wasn't able to see. She pushed the nurse out of the way, leaving her lower body crushed by the heavy wood planks instead.

She definitely wasn't going to survive these.

She was losing her senses. She felt something grip her hand. She watched as the crying nurse say words she couldn't hear. She always feared that she was going to die alone in the operation table or hospital bed. She couldn't remember it clearly but she remembered the nurse promising her she wouldn't be alone as she kept helding her hand during each procedure they had her do. The bitch really kept her promise.

She smiled, laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation, "They should really give you a raise," she jokes making the nurse laugh. She likes it better when people laugh. She hated seeing people cry. It was bad enough she had to endure being sick and dying. She didn't lile being surrounded in a dark, gloomy atmosphere. "T-tell my family I love them. It's okay. Tell them its going to be okay."

During her last moments, she finally realized why she was so angry at her annoying family, at her stubborn mother, at her clingy sister and at her teary-eyed father. They made it so difficult for her to say goodbye. All she wanted to be free from the pain and suffering. Yet, she stayed because she couldn't bear to see their efforts go to waste.

Perhaps, maybe living a short-life with cancer was worth it in the end. No, it was definitely worth it. She got to have wonderful family willing to sacrifice so much to spend more time with her and meet beautiful, kind people like the nurse who was willing to hold her hand as she took her final breath.

Her mother said that if you do a good deed before dying God will grant you a wish. In her next life, she only wished to have a healthy body. She hoped that the next family she was born into was just as nice as this one, and that she wouldn't have to say goodbye to them.