It was six in the morning, and already the snow was beginning to melt.

No doubt that the recent Christmas chill was beginning to fade. Change came, and it was through the melting of the snow outside that that change formed and coiled about the streets and cities of the darkened world in that early morning. That change was quick like a snake in the grass that had long slumbered, crippling the white heaven that had pervaded for weeks and rendering it little more than a blobby, wet mockery of what had once been.

For that spirit that came with the holidays was now removed from the memories of the sentient. The lights had been taken down. The trees were removed and either thrown into bushes or left in ditches or sold at a low price so as to make up for all of the residue pines left coating carpets and floors. Their decorations were bundled up with ropes and haphazard knots, and they were collected into thin, cardboard boxes and placed in dark attics or basements, darker still. What had been the soul of that time now was gone. Buried, perhaps. For another twelve months it would lay dormant and only the young and foolish would still find time to reflect.

Now was no time for that. The world had returned to its previous manner, one of pure cynicism and regret. Would work settle in and burden they who walked the land again? None knew then, and none would know until it had already happened. The dawn was already here, anyway. Six in the morning was being close to late. Time to get up and go about the day, or the days, or the week, then the month, until all that had been good was habitually thrown asunder. Only then would peace come. So it was said.

It was six in the morning, and the snow was beginning to melt. But not fast enough so as to avoid the stomping, frantic footfalls of a friends bound for a tragedy that had already passed.

On the twenty-seventh of December, which was a Saturday as dull as the grey sky outside, Ink Quill turned to see the door to the hospital’s waiting room thrown open. The boy who had done so apparently had not taken into account the stoic quietness that pervaded from within. A group of praying families turned their heads and regarded the open door with notable distaste, but otherwise did not say anything, even as the door failed to widen for the group that numbered in much and pushed on through.

The boy was the first to come to her, garbed in that yellow jacket that had always been his—a little dopey, if she was being honest. If he was speaking, she did not hear them. She could only blink mutely like an idiot. She had done so for the most part of the three past days and it did not seem she had any intent to do otherwise. Dimly she was aware of the boy’s other, a puffy-haired girl who, in another time, might have regarded her with a mix of amusement and sinister depth, yet who now stood by, eyes wide and sad, words unable to form in her throat.

She knew them. Both of them. And she knew the others who had come with them, who stood in the doorway, shuffling out to the side so as to look at the sorry state of the girl who had seen too much. Perhaps it was like a roadside attraction where the people would slow and stop and stare at a terrible scene so damned terrible forthright that there was no decision made but to wait and wonder what had transpired.

The boy placed his hands on her shoulders, steadying her, getting her to look at him. His cerulean eyes were a bright contrast to her dull burgundy ones. They stared at each other for a moment, but for Ink, it seemed like forever.

Then the boy pressed forward and wrapped his arms around her and held her close, and so the dam that had housed the waters of her soul broke, and Ink Quill cried.

“We’re here,” Artifex Frost whispered to her, softly, and she caught a breakage in his voice, and knew that he, too, was crying. “We’re here.”

Ink said nothing. She buried her face in his shoulder, no doubt ruining his jacket. Another pair of hands snuck forward. It was Adagio, there by her side, by Artifex’s side, and though she had no tears to speak of, her eyes were closed and her brow was furrowed. They all hugged, and Ink cried into the two of them.

They separated, and Ink managed a tearful smile. “Thank you for coming,” she whispered hoarsely. She had been drinking from the water cooler for the past several days, plus the water that came with the hospital’s breakfast meals, and yet her throat remained as dry as ever. “And congratulations, you two. Took you long enough.”

Artifex managed to smile back at that. “Yeah, well… turns out we’re both kind of dense.” He let out a weak chuckle, then a groan as Adagio punched him in the shoulder.

“Well, this boy certainly could sweep any woman off of her feet, if he tried a little more often,” Adagio said, retracting her fist. She winked at Ink. “Thank you, by the way, for not telling him.”

“I wouldn’t have dreamed of it.”

All three knew, however, that this was light and brief conversation in effect; the real topic had yet to be discussed, but who among them would be the one to broach it? For how could any one person or any group of people bring up the subject of tragedy that had just occurred? And how could they, when they saw the state of their friend, in good conscience dare to muster up such a bad memory?

Only the one who had gone through it ever could, and so, with her smile slipping off of her face, Ink explained to them, in hoarse whispers, what the doctors had explained to her.

There was a hole in Mrs. Quill’s brain. It was not natural. Holes in the brain never were good and when the hole was not just any hole but a bleeding rupture, the message was all the more clear.

The hole was 7 millimeters in diameter, less than the diameter of a dime. A hole that big, however, was unequivocally dangerous. It fell within the 6 to 15 millimeter ranges for holes and had developed in one of the blood vessels coursing through Mrs. Quill’s brain. It was not just an ordinary hole. It was what was known as an aneurysm.

The aneurysm was the result of the walls of the vessel slowing becoming weaker and weaker due to constant enlargement of the vessel while blood pumped through the brain. At 7 millimeters, it was considered a medium-sized aneurysm.

Once the aneurysm had opened, this had resulted in a subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). Brain bleeding. The opening was what had created the intense head pain that Mrs. Quill had felt beforehand. The bleeding itself resulted in intense nausea and vomiting. The trauma experienced resulted a seizure, thus the lapse in consciousness.

This was to say nothing of the trauma Ink and Mac were feeling, having been the ones to witness everything, but such a topic was neither here and there and would have to be addressed at a different point in time.

Once Mrs. Quill had been transported to the hospital, the doctors ran a CT scan of her brain. This was where they had discovered the aneurysm. To promote clotting, they inserted platinum coils up through her groin and traveled through one of the many arteries crossing her body, heading up to her head, where the coils were inserted.

To prevent further ruptures or the injury furthering into a hemorrhagic stroke, Mrs. Quill was given special medication. Unfortunately, the medication resulted in swelling of the brain. Mrs. Quill, recovering somewhat while at the hospital, lapsed once again in and out of consciousness. Severe swelling occurred in her occipital lobe and in her cerebellum, affecting her visual prowess and memory.

In private, a nurse confided with Ink that her mother’s brain was actually already swelling due to the brain hemorrhage. By some miracle, this was good. The swelling allowed the blood pooling to only be in one area of the brain and not spread to others, thereby reducing overall damage.

Ink overheard a similar sentiment from other nurses: this was a miracle. But what miracle was that of seeing a loved one crippled by a hidden sickness? It did not help, too, that Ink was subject to the possible outcomes by one uncompromisingly blunt doctor.

She was to be prepared to face other complications.

First, that of vasospasm, a complication resulting in irritation by the leaked blood causing narrowing of the blood vessels. That would occur in 15 to 20 percent of all patients, a number she barely registered.

The chance of severe brain trauma was 20 to 35 percent even with the aneurysm treated.

The chance of another aneurysm appearing was also within that range, though it could not be ascertained if that would occur.

The chance of Ink’s mother waking up anytime soon was low. The doctor had given her the percentages but she had since forgotten them because there were too many numbers that night and she did not want to think of them any longer.

Due to the region where the aneurysm had occurred, the chance that Ink’s mother would even remember her… she did not want to even consider that.

And the chance of death was 30 to 40 percent. A percentage that would only grow in time, if more complications arose.

Estimated hospitalization time: unknown. Estimated time for recovery: unknown. Estimated cost of treatment: unknown. Like flashing lights, this word appeared in every waking and non-waking corner of Ink’s mind. It was there even in the dark, when all lights were gone save for that of the NICU where her mother was placed.

And whenever Ink closed her eyes, she saw only her mother on the floor, unconscious, in a pool of her own vomit, dying, dying, dying, a nightmare she could not escape, whose existence now bled into reality.

This was what Ink told those who had gathered there, and she did this as bravely as she could manage. But talking was no longer her forte, and by the end of it all she had lost her voice, and so she fell back into despondent silence, the small task completed, but the bigger problem still in play. Mac placed a hand on her back, drew her close; they hugged, silent, in this together until the end of the road, wherever that led.

It was a long time before anyone there spoke.

“Can… can we see her?” Artifex asked. He leaned heavily on his cane.

Ink nodded. After a gentle pat from Mac, she got up and led them into the NICU.

“Nurse Golding, it’s my friends. Can they…”

“Of course, Ink. But be quick about it, please.”

They all shuffled into the small room. Mrs. Quill was lying on her back, covered in a thin hospital gown and blanket, upon which were blue polka-dots like little drops of ink set upon a white canvas. There was a respirator on her face. Wires laced through her hair like thin, skeletal fingers, and these lit up at some ends as they scanned her brain activity. Her hair had not been cut. Her eyes were closed. She was breathing laboriously, and on occasion would turn and shuffle in her bed so as to grow more comfortable, but it appeared to be in vain.

Ink did not need to direct their eyes. They moved on their own across the scene. By the bed was a white monitor, reading out her mother’s vital signs, beeping methodically, in a tone that would have suggested panic had they not all been so tired. The smell of hospital ammonia festered.

There were other patients in the ward, also unconscious. Ink knew of one who was an older man with greying hair and a balding face whose eyes had been perpetually closed for close to a month now. He was in a coma from a terrifying stroke. His family came in regularly. It was always quiet in his room, too. Ink had heard some nurses discussing at length his treatment, and more than once she had heard them talk about disconnecting him from life support.

She had been careful not to look into that room since. There were enough reminders of the end of life already in front of her. Nurse Golding came around and placed a hand on her shoulder. Nothing was said.

Artifex took a step forward, one hand stretched endlessly toward Mrs. Quill; he seemed not to notice this. The hand was still and poised. It was, in a sense, like a ghostly phantom reaching back towards the land of the living, towards one who was on the brink, so as to pull them back… or maybe that was just Ink’s mind going crazy, going mad with grief, seeking to put some artistic revelation or comparison to what had happened, if only to make sense of it. But then Artifex did seem to notice his hand, and his eyes momentarily went wide and he brought his arm down and he rested on his cane and said nothing. His face turned weary.

“Ink…”

She turned, and was surprised to see Gaige and Hazel entering the NICU. The first thing she noticed was that Gaige had cut her hair short. Her pigtails were gone. Her green eyes trailed first over her writer friend, then over to Mrs. Quill, then back to Ink. Hazel seemed on the brink of tears, for her glasses, set on her nose, were shaking, were quivering.

They came closer, and of course nothing was said, for what could be said at all if anything but empty and doubtful promises? They came forward, stood in front of Ink. They stretched out their arms. Ink fell into them, almost unconsciously. Their embrace was warm, but Ink was tired, and could cry no longer, and so they stood there, in that ward, while the others looked on, and Mrs. Quill was silent, and so was Ink, and it was all too quiet to bear.

All too quiet to bear.