This wasn’t how I wanted it to happen.

I’d concocted some heroic scene in my mind, one in which people are trying to do things I knew were wrong and I in a blaze of self sacrifice and glory save the day, but lose my life in the end. Another option was a “suicide mission” – an event that would save lives, but would take my own. If not so dramatic, I imagined a simple way to go; peacefully, at an old age.

I wished that one of these things could have happened. Instead, here I am, lost and alone, my only company – a girl younger than me whose name I did not even know – now gone despite my every effort to save her. In the cold while she wore my sweater and my coat she had drifted away and I had caught a chill that no coat could rid me off.

There was no way to signal for help. I wanted desperately to sleep… but I couldn’t. I knew. If I closed my eyes…

I snapped them open again.

It was only a matter of time. No one could go without sleep forever. The other girl now slept without waking, and soon…