Epilogue I: Saying Goodbye

"Shut up! That's not possible!" AJ screamed, fighting against the guard's grip. She wailed away in a blind fury. She simply had to escape, or she otherwise would have lost her mind.

"AJ, please try to understand," Celestia said, showing a fair amount of concern for once. AJ gritted her teeth together. She could feel the tears flow from her eyes.

"He's not dead!" AJ repeated for the tenth time. "He can't be dead! You're lying to me!"

"You need to calm down," Celestia stated. "You're going to hurt yourself."

"How can you act so fucking calm!?" AJ asked furiously. "He was your friend, and he was murdered! Why are you acting like this?"

"It was a suicide. He left a note. Nothing is going to change that."

"That can't be true! Mac would never do something like that," AJ shouted. "He would never leave me like that! I know him! He couldn't do that, he just couldn't!"

Somehow, AJ was able to break free of the man who had held her. She thought about attacking Celestia. For a brief moment, the blame fell solely on the older woman's shoulders. She was the one who delivered the news. She was the one who kept lying to her. AJ wanted to pound her face in, beat her to a pulp, until there was nothing left but a bloody mess.

However, AJ didn't have the strength. Instead, she closed her eyes, and pushed past her superiors, running far away.

"AJ, wait!" Celestia shouted after her. Yet the young agent was far away by this point, running to the solace of her room. The absolute moment AJ was alone; she sank to her knees, and began to sob loudly. She used to think that she was above crying. If anyone had asked her just a few hours ago, she would have said that crying was for the weak and defenseless. She had thought that she had run out of tears to shed many, many years ago.

And yet, the tears would not stop flowing. Everyone she cared about seemed to end up dead. Her family was forever cursed.

She was alone once again.

__________

March 22nd, 2016

AJ blinked several time upon awakening. The heart monitor was easily detectable by her ears. She had not the slightest idea of how long she had been unconscious. Her last memory was slamming her head against a wall at a rather high velocity. Other than that, she could not recall much. However, upon looking around her environment, the pieces began to form together. To her left, she spotted Fiona, starting to stir from her long rest. To her right were two more beds, on which lied the bandaged forms of Rachel and Pinky. For a brief moment, AJ actually thought that she was back at the military base. How was it that out of all of the things to go wrong, it had to be the only important part of the mission? But then, her fears were quickly hushed as she saw Dash sitting at the foot of her bed. Her back was turned to her, although based on her posture AJ assumed she was staring at the floor in wait.

"What… what happened?" AJ asked groggily. She slowly sat up on the bed, feeling her bruised ribs straining against the pressure. She rubbed her forehead, feeling the bandages shift on her flesh.

"It's over," Dash said softly. Her voice held no emotion. "You should be starting to wake up now. The sedatives we gave you are wearing off."

"Sedatives?" AJ asked, very confused. What had happened to her yesterday?

"Yeah, I'll explain when they wake up," Dash stated. "By the way, your hat is back in your room. We thought it would be best not to leave it behind." AJ could hear the soft moans of those around her. She couldn't count the amount of injuries her friends had sustained. Pinky looked relatively fine, barely having a scratch on her. Rachel seemed alright with the exception of her foot, which was held in a splint and kept suspended in the air. Fiona was simply restless, with her face occasionally experiencing horrified flashes, and her skin covered in a thin layer of sweat. She whimpered unintelligible words every so often before grimacing and flipping over.

It took another thirty minutes for the girls to awaken. During that time, AJ remained entirely quiet. At first, she tried to talk to Dash to sort out her memories. However, something about her energetic friend seemed very off. Her shoulders were slumped, crooked. Usually when Dash was bored she would be restless, tapping her fingers or pacing about. Yet now as she looked at her, Dash never moved at all. She just sat there, waiting in absolute silence.

Instead, AJ searched through her memories. Her head was not especially kind to her, occasionally shooting a burst of pain through her system. One-by-one though, the pieces came together. She remembered working with her father, attacking her friends, and placing a bomb inside of a computer, but not much else. She still could not recall how she was injured, or how she had been taken back to Camelot. She doubted it she did it willingly, given her current condition, so then why did she bother fighting? An image of a syringe appeared in her mind. Perhaps the answer had something to do with that, she decided. She supposed she would just have to wait.

It was not much longer before the silence was broken.

"Jeez, my head," said a high-pitched voice that undoubtedly belonged to Pinky. "Ugh, it feels like a bus ran through it. Where the heck am I?"

"You're back at the base," said AJ. "We've been out for a while."

"I feel like it," Pinky said sorrowfully.

"Me too," Rachel moaned tiredly. "My foot feels like it's on fire. The worst part is… I don't even know what happened to it."

"Neither do I," Pinky agreed. "It's all like… a blur. I just remember a lot of darkness. That's really it."

"Welcome to my life," Rachel joked. "Seriously, did someone punch me through a wall or something?"

"Maybe you tripped?"

"And broke my leg in half? I doubt it. It feels more like I was hit by a bus."

Suddenly, to their left came a gasp. Fiona shot forward, gripping the sheets tightly. She panted heavily, her eyes wide. All eyes turned to her as she frantically looked around the room. It took her several seconds to calm down from her panicked state.

"Where… where are we?" she asked.

"Camelot. You're safe now," AJ stated.

"Are you alright?" Rachel asked from across the room. Fiona tilted her head down.

"Yeah… I think I'm fine," Fiona said softly. "What happened to us?"

"You were being mind-controlled," Dash finally spoke up. All eyes and ears were on her, yet she still couldn't face them. "AJ's father, The Unknown, was a Macer, and he controlled you all into fighting us. You nearly killed us all."

The room was silent. The girls shared the same sense of disbelief. It seemed near impossible for them to have done such a thing without realizing it. And yet, somehow in the backs of their minds, they knew Dash was telling the truth. In fact, the very thought brought back eschewed memories of the events of the day before. However, AJ remembered something quite different, and that worried her.

"My father? Is he—"

"Dead," Dash stated simply. "Your little bomb trick worked perfectly. He never even knew what hit him."

AJ wanted to breathe a sigh of relief. For the past several days, she had been haunted by the knowledge of what she needed to do. Every single moment she had spent with her father brought a pang of guilt as she lived with the fact that she could not allow him to live. Even so, she couldn't help but feel saddened by his loss. Granted, he was a psychopath, a murder, and a wicked person, but he was still her father. He still did not deserve any of the things that he was wronged of.

"Dash, what do you mean by… us?" Rachel couldn't help but wonder.

"The Korbalovs. We paid them off to help cure you. They were the ones who broke your foot. Sorry."

"The Russians attacked us again?" Pinky stated in outrage. "Jeez, you think we could go a month without hearing from them ever again."

"Hey, Dash," Fiona said, sounding slightly nervous. She had looked around the room several times during Dash's explanation, and found something to be very off. Her friend was absent. Dash tensed up, as if knowing what she was about to be asked. Fiona didn't notice as she asked, "Do you know where Tara is? I know it sounds weird, but I… I really need to talk to her about something."

Dash stayed quiet. Suddenly, the other girls noticed this oddity. Tara was never one to leave her friends behind. Of course, she occasionally displayed levels of selfishness, but it seemed very peculiar that Tara would not stay close to her friends while Dash would. Subconsciously, they had just assumed that she was just off talking to Celestia, or doing something else important. Yet the more they thought about, the stranger the events seemed to be.

Dash took a deep breath. "We were having a hard time fighting all of you off. We were starting to get desperate, so I… I asked Spark if we should just go to attack The Unknown before anyone gets hurt. She agreed with me, so we… we headed after him."

In an instant, they knew something was wrong. Dash's voice was somber.

"When we finally got to his position, he… got the jump on us. I was knocked to the ground pretty fast. Spark didn't have a lot of energy left, but she… she kept on fighting. She charged right after him like the bravest warrior in the world."

Dash paused. She had no idea how to go on. What was she supposed to say? Tara died for her? The one person who everyone was friends with decided to sacrifice her own existence so that Dash could live on? How would she ever be able to live with herself after that? Could she even do it at all? More importantly, could the others? They deserved so much more than the truth. And although Dash couldn't run from the truth, she felt like it was her duty to fix it. For her friends' sake. For her sake.

Dash slowly turned to face Fiona. Her entire expression was one of terrible sadness. Just by one look at her face, Fiona went wide-eyed. She didn't need to be told what had happened anymore. It was already crystal clear.

"He… he pulled a gun out of his pocket," Dash said softly. She could feel the intense stares by those around her. "It happened so fast. I'm not even sure if she felt it. I… I tried to do everything I could, but…"

Dash could no longer bear to face her friends anymore. She turned her back to them, and curled her knees up to her chest, hugging them tightly. It was more painful to say the next few words than anything she had ever experienced in her entire life.

"She's… she's gone, guys. She's actually gone."

Silence. Absolute silence. Never before had Dash heard such an awful sound. She honestly wasn't sure what she should have been expecting. She suspected tears, denial, or sobbing. For the past several hours, she had mentally prepared herself for these things. However, she had anticipated silence. Cruel, painful silence. It spoke to her with more emotion than any amount of crying could ever do.

Just when Dash thought the silence would never end, AJ finally spoke. "Dash… what are you talking about?"

Dash said nothing. There was nothing she could say to make anything better, so she didn't even bother trying.

"You're not serious, are you?" AJ asked, starting to break down. "She… she can't be dead. Tara cannot be dead. Do you hear me? It's just not possible."

Nearby, Pinky held her hand over her mouth, and her eyes started to water. Unlike AJ, she never faced denial. She knew Dash well enough to know that she would never joke about something so serious. She had to be telling the truth, and it was something Pinky couldn't handle. It wasn't as if she hadn't lost people close to her before. It wasn't as if heartbreak was a concept unfamiliar to her. She had just thought that losing someone a second time would be far less painful than it was the first. She was wrong.

"Oh my God, oh my God," Pinky repeated over and over, her words muffled by her palm.

"Pinky, shut up!" AJ snapped. "Tara isn't dead. She can't be! I promised her that she would be safe. I gave her my goddamn word that nothing bad would happen to her, so stop crying! There's no way she's gone!"

The news broke through to Rachel next. It seemed completely unrealistic to her. How could it have even happened? It seemed too sudden, too unexpected, a variable no one had accounted for. The news shook her to her core. If Tara could die, then who was to say that anyone else was safe? She always knew that she worked with a very high risk of her own demise, but for some reason, it never seemed to her like it could actually happen. Perhaps it was all that she had survived that gave her an immortality complex. Perhaps she thought that being blinded was the very worst thing that could happen to her. And yet, here she was, facing the death of one of her closest friends. She wasn't even sad, just stuck in a state of perpetual shock; all she could do was stare at the ceiling with false eyes as her contemplated everything she previously knew to be true.

"Dash, you can't just ignore me!" AJ said in desperation. She could feel the tears swelling in her eyes. It was becoming increasingly more difficult to deny reality. "We both know she isn't dead. She can't be. Please, just say something. She… she can't be… dammit…" AJ clenched her fist tightly. She closed her eyes, trying to concentrate on blocking out all of her emotions. She couldn't lose someone again, not now. It seemed like she had just gotten over losing Mac. She had finally moved on with her life. And now, everything was over again. Dash offered no solace, refusing to give her as much as a second glance. In truth, Dash couldn't comfort her. She could barely comfort herself. The last thing she needed was to help keep someone else sane during such a stressful time.

However, at that moment, something unexpected happened. Fiona suddenly got off of her bed, and walked to the door. For the brief moment Dash looked at her face, she saw emptiness. Fiona was the last person Dash wanted to face; she simply knew that she wouldn't be able to handle whatever the shy girl felt. Yet that face, those dead eyes, struck a chord deep inside of Dash. Immediately, she became more concerned than ever.

Fiona didn't respond to those who called out her name. She never looked back as she exited the room, and started to walk down the gray corridors. Camelot was empty, just like she was. She felt absolutely nothing. She was a living ghost, unconsciously roaming the halls without a sense of purpose. Her motions were mechanic, for her mind ceased to function correctly. She continued walking on automatically until she reached the sleeping quarters. Without a second thought, she pushed open the door, and walked to her bunk. Her face remained blank as she walked to her bunk, and lied down.

Her head rested comfortably on the pillow. That was the only thought in her mind that made sense. It was just her, the silence of the room, and a pillow. That was all she needed to worry about now. Nothing else could penetrate the vast labyrinth of her mind except these very simple facts. Emotion was a distant concept; and there was no reason for her to worry herself with such things. Like a corpse, she remained still, staring at the door. She was calmer than any amount of drugs could ever make her. Her face showed no expression.

Her mouth twitched. Her eyes glanced down, and then quickly retreated back up again. Then, very calmly, Fiona turned into her pillow, and screamed.

She screamed louder than she ever knew she could. She took all of the sorrow, all of the disappointment, all of the rage, and let it out into air. Her voice was weak, making her cries sound more like that of a banshee than a woman. Her nails pierced her own flesh, causing blood to run down her palms. She didn't even care that she was running out of breath or that she was growing faint, or that her voice was strained and painful to emit. She just screamed like there was nothing else left to do in the world.

Fiona suddenly heard the door open to her left. Without a second thought, Fiona grabbed her pillow, and threw it as hard as she could towards the person in the doorway. Incredibly enough, it was Dash who stood in the entryway. She swatted the pillow away, although she hardly did it with satisfaction. Before she had time to say anything, Fiona was sitting up on the bunk, pointing at the door. She snarled.

"Get out!" Fiona yelled harshly. "Get out right now!"

"Fiona, I think you just need—"

"I said get the hell out of here!" Fiona repeated, jumping up from her bunk. She stayed towards the back of the room, keeping her distance. She wanted to be as far away from human contact as possible.

"Fiona, calm down," Dash stated, trying not to sound agitated. The last thing she needed was for Fiona to get even more out of control. "It's over. Everything is going to be okay."

"Okay? Okay!?" Fiona shouted, outraged. "How!? How is anything going to be okay!? How can anything ever be okay?"

"It's going to be hard, Fiona, but you can't just run away from us," said Dash. "Listen, it's alright that you're sad about this, but being alone isn't going to help anything."

"But I'm not sad!" Fiona said, turning away. "I'm just angry. I'm angrier than I've ever been in my entire life!"

Dash was puzzled by this. "You're angry? At who?"

"I'm angry at myself!" Fiona stated, her voice cracking up. "I never should have lied to her. I should have told her everything, instead of hiding it like a coward. I should have always been there for her, and now I'll never get the chance…"

"There was nothing you could have done," Dash said truthfully, trying to ease her friend's mind. "You should be thankful you got to spend so much time with her in the first place. You couldn't have saved her."

Fiona stopped for a moment. Suddenly, her anger was redirected.

"It's… it's all your fault!" Fiona snapped, pointing at Dash accusingly. Dash was taken aback.

"My fault? I didn't do anything!" Dash claimed.

"Yes, you did! You let her die!" Fiona shouted. "You were supposed to watch over her. You were supposed to keep her safe. I trusted you to keep her safe, and you let her die! You failed to protect her! It's not like it even mattered to you. You never cared about her anyway."

Dash no longer tried to hold back her emotions. Her frustration came through in full force.

"Don't try to put this on me! Spark was my friend too!"

"Do you honestly think I'm supposed to believe you!? I've seen how you treat her. I've never once seen you treat her with any kind of respect. You won't even call her by her damn name! Why would I ever believe that you cared about her? Better yet, why would she ever bother caring about you?"

Dash growled. "What the hell is wrong with you? Do you not see how this is affecting me, how this is affecting any of us!? Of course I cared about her! Why wouldn't I? Yeah, we fought a lot, but we were still fucking friends."

"Well she deserved better friends than you!" Fiona stated. "She didn't deserve to die because some selfish, thoughtless, insensitive girl acted far too careless with the lives of others. You led her to The Unknown! You were the one that killed her. Tara deserved far better than you in her life."

"Like you're some perfect example?" Dash asked in turn. "Do you think you're just some golden fucking idol, like a towering beacon of friendship that everyone struggles to get to? I hate to break it to you, Fiona, but I have every right to be upset about this as you do!"

"Don't act like you understand me! None of you could ever understand what this is like for me!" Fiona shouted furiously.

"Yes we do!" Dash stated. "We were all people who were close to her, whether you think we deserve it or not! So we all feel the same fucking way!"

Fiona had lost all control, when she finally screamed, "Well you weren't the one who was in love with her!"

Suddenly, everything became silent. Dash's expressions soften, as the truth dawned on her. Fiona hadn't realized what she said until it was far too late. Both girls were panting, feeling very tired. Fiona wasn't sure how to react. Truthfully, she couldn't care less of what Dash thought of her. She didn't care if Dash bothered to tell everyone else either. She felt far too empty to care at all. Defeated, Fiona sat on her bunk, and stared at the floor.

"Leave me alone," she said weakly. Dash took a tentative step forward.

"Fiona, I didn't—"

"Please…" Fiona begged. Her body trembled ever so slightly. "Just… just leave me alone."

Dash frowned. She looked on at Fiona's weak form for several moments. Then, with a sigh, she exited the room, and closed the door. She waited just outside, taking several deep breaths. Already, the sounds of sobbing faintly came to light from inside. She wanted to go back inside just to say something, but she knew of nothing to say. She wasn't good at making people feel better. All she was good at was making things worse. Reluctantly, Dash walked away. She probably should have returned to the medical bay with her friends. It was best that they stayed together through hard times. Yet Dash was sick of crying. She was sick of the sadness that stalked her life. She was simply sick of all of it. So instead, she simply walked to the training room, where she knew she could finally be in peace.

__________

March 23rd, 2016

Fiona was gone by the morning. She simply snuck away when everyone was asleep. None of the guards in the base claimed to have seen her, and no one had the slightest idea of where she could be headed. She had just vanished, only leaving behind a very simple note on her bed, reading, "I'm sorry."

Yet this was the least of Dash's concerns. She and the other girls were sitting in the Briefing Room, with packed bags and gloomy faces. AJ sat on the opposite side of the room, hiding her eyes beneath her hat. Celestia sat behind her desk, twiddling her thumbs in wait. She appeared equally defeated as the rest of them. There was another woman in the room, sitting on top of Celestia's desk. This woman was, as Dash assumed, Victoria Starleston, a member of the vicious "Rat Team" that had caused so much duress. However, Starleston did not appear sad at all, humming a cheery melody to herself while kicking her legs back and forth.

"I told you it was going to end badly," Starleston said in a singsong voice. "You shouldn't have done something like that to Price."

Celestia sighed grudgingly. "I'm sorry, ma'am. It won't happen again."

"And?"

"And… thank you for not expelling me from my position. You are… truly gracious."

"That's better," Starleston said. She leaned over on the desk, and whispered in Celestia's ear. "You owe me one, got it?"

"Yes. I do," Celestia groaned. Satisfied with herself, Starleston slinked off of the desk like a feline, and happily walked out of the room. Her chipper mood only worsened the feelings of the P.O.N.Y's. They waited eagerly for her to leave the room, just to return the grim atmosphere that surrounded them. Celestia let out a saddened sigh.

"Girls, as you are aware," she began. She tried her very best to sound formal and business-like. "The passing of Miss Sullivan is quite hard for us to deal with. As it stands, this… unfortunate accident, coupled with several former wrongdoings, has earned us a lot of strife from the higher-ups. As such, it has been their unanimous decision to… shut down the Police Operative and Nonpareil Youths initiative. The operation, in whole, has been deemed a failure, and we are now unable to accommodate any of you in any way similar to this project. I'm… I'm sorry about this."

The room remained silent.

"As of now, considering that you are all of legal age, you are responsible for your own well-beings. However, as… compensation for the… tragic events you have suffered through, you will each receive a paycheck on the first of every month for five-thousand dollars. I know it's not much help in dealing with things, but… at least it's something. I recommend you girls stay low for a while. For those of you who have families, avoid contact until you think you're ready to face them. Remember, you're still sworn under secrecy of all events that occurred here. Aside from that, I can't really do much help but wish you girls luck in your endeavors."

Still, no one said anything. Celestia sighed. She sounded insensitive, and she knew it full well. Truthfully, she was thankful just to still be in work after the catastrophe of the past few months. Still, it was hard not to feel the weight of Tara's loss, especially given how much the poor girl had left in her life. She hated tragedy in youth. It struck a chord all too familiar with her. Given that she had nothing else left to say, she stood up, and left the room. However, just before she left, she turned her head around.

"I'm… I'm really sorry about all of this," she said. She forever left the room, closing the door tightly behind her. At last, the girls were alone. They showed no real emotion. All of their tears had been shed the day before. They were stripped of their identities, and left out in the cold, harsh world. For many of them, it came close to being the worst day of their life. Perhaps the worst part was that the day was still young, and there were many more hours left for them to wallow in.

Finally, after several excruciatingly quiet minutes, Pinky spoke up.

"I… I think I'm gonna go back to college," she stated. Softly. The noise pierced through the emptiness, attracting the girls to its position.

"You do realize that the semester is almost over right?" Dash asked questioningly. "Also, the people at Ymerton still think you're dead, or missing, or whatever."

"I didn't mean right now," said Pinky. "I meant in the fall. Besides, I was thinking of heading to Stanford anyway."

"Pinky, no offense, but how do you plan to get into Stanford university anyhow?" Rachel asked with a small amount of doubt. Pinky stared at her quizzically, as if the answer the most obvious thing in the world.

"Well, they did send me a full scholarship," she said simply. Rachel was amazed by this.

"You got a scholarship to Stanford?"

Pinky let out a small laugh. "Yeah, for computer science. Remember how I knew how to hack all of those computers? You guys didn't think I got into Ymerton for baking, did you?"

Rachel then let out a small chuckle. She hadn't known why she would bother thinking something else. It felt so strange to laugh, almost foreign even. A part of her felt like it was wrong to be letting herself feel happy, but it gave her a sense of normalcy that she desperately needed. For a moment, it seemed like everything would be okay again.

"After I get everything straightened out, I'm going after Fiona," Rachel stated, somewhat shockingly. "She… she probably needs some friends right now."

"Do you even have any idea where she is?" Dash asked. Rachel shrugged.

"It can't be too hard. I have her number," Rachel said. "Besides, how many places could she go? Something tells me it won't be too hard to find her."

"Hey, good luck with that," Dash said, actually sounding sincere. "She could use a friend like you." Rachel smiled lightly at the comment. Ever since Tara's death, Dash actually became much more likeable. It was very strange indeed that such a horrific tragedy could bring about such honest change.

The girls sat in silence for another few minutes. It was finally ending. After months of dedication, their lives ended not with a bang, but with a whimper.

"This… this is actually it, isn't it?" Pinky said softly. "I'm gonna miss you guys."

"We'll stay in touch, right?" Rachel asked hopefully. "I mean, it's not like we're never going to see each other."

"Yeah, of course," Dash agreed half-heartedly. "Friends stick together. Spark… probably would have wanted that."

Once again, everyone was silent. In the corner of the room, AJ glanced away. She wasn't very good at saying goodbye. If someone had tried to talk to her, she wouldn't have had the energy to respond. Thankfully, whether it be out of sheer coincidence or plain respect, her friends left her alone. No one said anything after that. Rachel was the first to stand up.

"I'll let you know when I find her," Rachel stated, tossing her bag over her shoulder. She bent over with some struggle, and picked up her crutches. "Pinky, would you mind helping me a little?"

"Sure. Of course," Pinky replied softly. She threw her back over her shoulder as well, and opened the door for her blind friend. Rachel slowly left the room, muttering something to herself along the way. Pinky briefly turned back to the others.

"See you soon," she said, clearly nervous. Dash gave a small nod.

"Don't go too crazy without me," she said with a smirk. Pinky smiled as well.

"Wouldn't dream of it."

With that, Pinky left the room, and closed the door behind her. Dash sighed, and stood up from her seat. She couldn't help but look at AJ, who refused to look back. It suddenly dawned on her why AJ was so upset: she would never see any of them ever again. AJ still worked for Celestia, stuck forever in a chain of top secrecy and conspiracy. None of them would ever hear from her again. AJ could die on a mission, and none of them would ever find out. Once Dash left, AJ would be truly alone once again.

Worst of all, there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.

"AJ, listen," Dash said somberly. "In case something goes wrong, or I don't see you again, I… I just wanted to say thank you. I don't know what you plan to do with your life, but I… hope you find something truly meaningful to you. Really."

AJ frowned slightly, although it was almost indistinguishable. Dash sighed, realizing that she would get no response. She took one final look around the room, absorbing all of the memories it contained. She opened the door.

"Rebecca."

Dash stopped dead in her tracks, and turned around. AJ stared directly at her. She rose from her chair, and walked right in front of her. She held out her hand, steady as a rock. Dash looked at it for a moment, understanding the situation perfectly, like she always did. Without a second thought, she pulled AJ into a hug. Satisfyingly, she felt her friend hug back.

"Good luck," AJ said plainly, although her voice echoed her feeling of loneliness.

"You too," Dash replied earnestly. The hug seemed to last an eternity. At last, the two friends released each other, and gave one final nod: a sign of respect. Dash took a deep breath, and then exited the room. AJ stared at the door in silence as it closed back into position. She wanted to follow Dash outside, but knew that she had nowhere left to go.

She was alone once again.

To Be Concluded…