• The hospital ward for cancer patients reeked of cleanliness. It had a tendency to always sparkle white; the floors reflected images of the hall dwellers and the windows were so clear they might as well not have been there. The staff seemed to mirror the ward itself, becoming so clean that their skin shined like the surfaces of the countertops and floors, their toothy smiles were always straight and clean. Even the whites of their eyes were pristine.

    If cleanliness is godliness than the cancer ward was close to heaven.

    Doctors and nurses spoke in hushed, comforting tones to make the imminent death seem more comfortable than the pain the patients were in and the mortality they faced. Doctors attempted to be as close to perfection a person can reach, masking their hopelessness with an aura of professionalism. Nurses were overly friendly, making false friendships that were doomed to an untimely end.

    In the hospitalization wing of the cancer ward, in the juvenile cancer branch, a flustered doctor close to surrendering, behind that perfect mask, comfortingly talked to a set of parents in hushed tones. The mother gagged and choked as she tried not to weep, the father stood stock still and rigid. The doctor just kept talking, explaining further, riskier operations with a low success rate and high price rate. They stood just outside a room, having left the door open a crack so as to hear any dire sound from within.

    The door swung inwards to a narrow, short corridor leading into a small room with a small bed, made for one person. On the bed, only taking up a quarter of the space, sat a small girl. The daughter of the two unfortunate parents. She had feigned sleep when they were sitting beside her, monitoring her, watching for signs of miraculous health or fatal death. When they had left the room, she sat up, alert and listening. She had often faked her unconsciousness in those later days. Without the aid of painkillers, her dreams were harsh nightmares and her body ached to great for sleep to be of any comfort.

    The child had tender reddish brown hair, which had finally started to grow back after almost a year of chemo-therapy. It fell limply, framing her face in a soft veil of reborn, baby fine hair. Her eyes had once been a shining bright blue, but now there was only one faded eye left. It was dulled, tired, and prematurely aged. Her empty socket was covered with gauze and a plain black eye patch.

    The doctors had explained that the cancer had infected and conquered her eye already. That they couldn’t save it. That the best and most aggressive treatment was to remove the dead pale blue object before the cancer spread. It removed the cancer that was in her eye, but they were too late. The cancer had made its home in her brain. Her doctors had reasoned that that was why her dreams were so disruptively violent. Why she kept seeing shadows where there were none.

    The young girl watched through the window in the door; watched her mother weep into her father’s shaking arms. His eyes were wet and his mouth was a firm, tight line. The young girl had a calm expression on her face, despite knowing exactly what was going on. Despite knowing that she was going to die. A minute sadness did tug on her heart, but it seemed so slight, so insignificant. Just a dull throb in her chest.

    “They really do love you,” came a voice from right next to her.

    The girl did not advert her eyes from the door. She knew who joined her in the room.

    “They say you’re not real. That my brain is making me see you,” she whispered, not wanting her parents to hear.

    “You know better than that,” the thing next to her replied, its voice just as quiet as hers. “It’s just a lie they tell themselves so they can sleep better at night. We both know that it wasn’t the doctors who took your eye away. It was long gone before they even touched it.”

    The girl remained silent. She had heard this bed time story before, the explanation. For months, long before the cancer set in, she had been hearing it in her dreams. Her fitful nightmares. She remembered exactly how her eye was stolen from her. She had seen it from inside one of her dreams.

    “They love you so much and you’re just hurting them by staying here. Please just come with me. End their pain. And yours.”

    The offer had been a definite rejection at first. But that was so long ago, when she lost her eye to her dreams. She had faded and wilted. The offer to leave became more and more tempting.

    “I can’t go,” she whispered. “I love them.”

    As she said it, she knew it wasn’t true. That it had become and empty sentiment. She blinked her remaining eye, feeling the sadness starting to fade. In a desperate attempt to hold onto it, she tried to cry. But she couldn’t conjure the tears. Something insider her wasn’t there anymore. Something she had lost long ago.

    “If you really love them, you’ll stop hurting them.”

    The girl sighed, trying to make her breath shake, trying to cry.

    “You’re not one of them,” the thing next to her said. “You don’t belong here. I know you can feel it.

    Resignation and temptation made her turn to face the creature. It was a shadow, a black puff shaped like a boy. He didn’t look much older than she was. His silhouette revealed an outline of tail coat and bow tie, but not much details of clothing beyond that. He had no legs, no feet, just a tapered tail that ended his body. His head was a circular shape. The damaged girl knew he wasn’t bald, but there was no evidence of hair. It was some other state of hair. His face was near featureless save for a lipless, toothless mouth and round circles for eyes. Both were perfectly white, solid shaped, and seemed to emit a soft glow. He had introduced himself as Soot upon their first meeting, before the doctors and the cancer.

    “What will happen to me if I go with you?” she asked tentatively, not wanting to give in just yet.

    “We can find your eye where we’re going,” Soot said. “I know the monster that took it.”

    “You said it was the Boogeyman,” she said, still blinking her good eye.

    “A boogeyman,” he corrected. “The one that used to hide under your bed. Before he stole your eye, that is.”

    The little girl looked back over her shoulder, towards the window in the door. Her baby fine hair just barely following her as she turned her head. The sadness that was in her heart and behind her good eye was almost a faded memory.

    “Come,” Soot said holding out his hand. His mouth in a serious straight line. “Stop hurting them. We need you more than they do.”

    She just continued to stare. The doctor was gently touching the woman’s shoulder, rubbing it slightly. The man tightly gripped his wife who was crying into his chest. He silently allowed tears to streak slowly down his face. They were no longer talking. They knew their little princess was going to die.

    “Will it hurt?” she asked her voice quiet and broken. She gave up on the tears that wouldn’t come. “When I go with you?”

    “No, in fact, it will be like falling asleep. The best sleep you’ll ever have.”

    “What about them? They love me.”

    Soot faltered. He was surprised for her attachment to these people at this point. He felt a strong sympathy for her, but time was of the essence. If they didn’t leave soon, she would die and he will have failed. That was not an allowable possibility.

    “Only for a short while,” he lied, attempting to be comforting. Like a doctor. “Then it will fade. They will continue to love you, but they’ll learn to go on without you.

    The young, broken, cycloptic girl sighed deeply. She turned her whole body in the bed to face Soot. Nodding with determination she took Soot’s outstretched hand. She had expected her own to fall right through his, her assumptions being that he was a shadow. But it rested gently, as if he were solid. He was warm, like sitting next to a hearth with hands up to the light, palms face to the fire, fingers stretched to get heat in between them. The inside was in constant movement, as if feeling organs under the surface of skin, digesting.

    “I’m ready,” she said, already forgetting the people behind her.

    “Thank you,” Soot said, smiling slightly. “Thank you forever.”

    He leaned forward and wrapped himself around her in a hug. It was warm, soothing, and dark. His body slowly stretched to encompass her. The warmth took her in, the movement under his surface pressed tightly on all sides of her body. It became claustrophobically tight for a brief second and then they were gone.

    The girl’s parents found their daughter asleep in the bed as they stumbled, teary eyed back into the room. Her mother smiled, seeing her offspring resting naturally, an event she hadn’t spectacled for a long time now. The tiny body lifted and fell with steady, even breaths. The functional eye flickered in a soft dream. A small smile was worn by the delicate lips. The parents of the small body slept by the bed, the father taking the uncomfortable chair, holding the frail hand gently. The mother curled up beside her daughter, not wanting to fall asleep, but succumbing to the exhaustion she didn’t know she had.

    By morning, the body was cold and stiff. The breathing had ceased during the night as it slipped into death. The woman became hysterical, waking up her spouse and a handful of the hospital’s staff with her terrified screams. The girl never opened her eye again.

    The funeral was carefully planned. It was quiet and somber save for the mother’s endless weeping. Everything went perfectly. The sermon was touching, the grave was beautiful, and the little girl’s body looked almost alive. She had a fake eye in her empty socket to make the lump under the eyelid more realistic. There was a smile on the face. The casket was no bigger than 5 feet long, with extra room to spare for dolls, worn blankets, and stuffed animals. It was a deep brown and looked darker in the bright sunlight.

    The girl’s mother didn’t make it to the end of that day. She opted to hang herself rather than live on without her beloved only child. The hanging had broken her neck. Her head flopped over in the casket when her husband leaned down to kiss her good-bye.

    He managed to bore through life. Alcohol and self abuse aiding his will to live on. He had hoped it would kill him off, but he managed to survive long enough to sober up and return to life. He even remarried further on in the future, had more children. None of which he loved quite as much as the cancerous, one eyed child. He had told himself that she was whisked away to a better place and was happy there.

    He had the right idea, but the wrong place.