Hannah
I woke up, still on my bedroom floor and tried to call Tori, but she didn’t answer which left me leaving some strongly worded voicemails, which wouldn’t have sounded scary at all, given how weak I was. I gave up on calling her and decided that I needed to get myself out of here. I looked down at myself and instantly felt like throwing up, I was covered in dry blood, my own and Jimmy’s and there was just too much, I looked like Carrie, but there was no way I could clean myself off, I needed to get help.

I used my bed and painfully lifted myself off of the ground and onto my feet, struggling to keep balance and crying in pain the entire time. I stumbled over to my door, and almost fell through it, but I caught myself on the banister, stumbling into it and hitting my side causing me to roar in pain. I dropped to the ground, too weak to keep myself up on my feet, but I pulled myself along the landing, leaving a trail of blood on the wooden flooring until I reached the top of the stairs and sat myself on the top step and rested my head against the wall beside me.

“Come on,” I whispered weakly to myself “You can do this, don’t fucking give up now,” I slid myself off of the step and down onto the next one, it was painful, but it was the only way I was going to get down, so I continued the whole way down the staircase. Once I was almost at the bottom, I looked behind me and felt woozier at the sight of my own blood. The lack of blood inside my body, added to the sight of how much had left my body, and the fact that I was weak from the injury, I couldn’t hold it anymore and I fainted, falling down the last three steps and onto the floor beneath it.
~~~~
“Hannah open your eyes!”

It was Tori, she was shaking me lightly and my eyes fluttered open at the sound of her voice and at her touch. I felt at peace with her here. As I looked at her, I saw something… someone behind her. Once my eyes adjusted a little, I could make out that it was Sebastian.

“Sebastian,” I mouthed at her, trying to warn her, but she couldn’t understand me.

Johnny suddenly pushed Tori away from me and yelled for her to look out. I looked over to her and saw her crash against the sofa, when I looked up, Sebastian was leaning over me, I started to cry silently, no energy to make any noise, and dropped my head back to the ground, my hair landing in the pool of my own blood, but what I saw next to me, made me try to scream out and move over to him, my father, unconscious on the floor.

Sebastian was talking to Tori while I cried and reached my hand out to my dad while whispering ‘Daddy’ in the hopes that he would hear me, but he never responded to me. The gunshot snapped me back to what was happening around me, and when I looked over at the front door, Matt and Brian were standing there.

“Don’t fucking touch any of them,” Brian practically growled, but Sebastian just laughed.

Again, I was struggling to stay awake, I knew that falling asleep was a bad thing, but it was all I wanted to do.

“You fucking idiots… are all complete dumbasses! You brought a gun into a house where your fucking best friend is lying in her own blood and her father is unconscious next to her? My work here is done… bravo gentlemen,” With that, Sebastian disappeared.

Tori was yelling something to the guys about getting me out of the house, but Matt told her it was almost impossible, that I was almost dead on the floor, which was true, I could feel it, my life was fading.

“Hannah,” Tori said gently as she squeezed my hand “I know you can hear me… I need you to focus as best as you can right now,”
My head rolled in the direction of her voice, but my eyes didn’t open again.
~~~~
Tori
Once I told the guys what they needed to do, I had Johnny help me get Hannah into the car. She was cold to the touch when we lifted her, so once she was in the car, I ran back into the house and grabbed the throw off the back of her sofa, checked her father’s pulse which was stable, I ran back to the car and got in the back seat with Hannah. I draped the throw over her and pulled her head into my lap and stroked her hair, continuing to chant under my breath.

Although I was focused on Hannah, who was trying to focus on me, I was very aware of how terrified Johnny was during the drive to the hospital, but he was being a hero tonight and I’ve never been more proud of him. He got us to the hospital, jumped out of the car, ran inside the hospital and came back three seconds later with a wheelchair, we got Hannah into it and he took off running back inside, yelling for some help.

“Whoa, kids, what happened here?” A male nurse asked, running over to us quickly.

“Our friend,” Johnny panted “She was attacked in her own home when nobody was there, we found her at the bottom of the stairs
barely awake,”

“Barely awake?” He asked, pressing his fingers to Hannah’s neck “She’s barely alive,”

He started yelling at other staff who were coming from all directions, they lifted her out of the chair and onto a gurney and took off running with her, leaving us behind in the waiting room without any knowledge of what they were doing to her.

Not too long after Hannah had been whisked away from us, Matt came through the door with Erin in his arms while Brian supported Zack who was determined to walk. Erin was awake, and every step Matt took was clearly hurting her wounds, but then the same thing happened, he was placed on a gurney and taken away, while Zack was told to hang tight in the waiting room with the rest of
us.

“Someone needs to tell Jimmy,” Matt said, breaking the silence “He has no idea that his girlfriend could be dying,”

“Would you stop?!” I snapped at him “You keep saying that she’s dying, but you don’t know that, nobody knows that, Jesus, even I don’t know that!”

Everyone was silent for a few moments, Johnny rubbed my back soothingly before speaking.

“You can’t get a read on her?” He whispered.

“Nothing,” I sighed, a tear slipping from my eye “I can barely even feel her anymore, it’s like… she’s barely there,”

There was some commotion from down the corridor and another bunch of nurses when rushing by, and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. A heavy weight on my chest, just for a moment before it left me completely, taking my breath with it momentarily.

“What is it?” Zack asked panicked “Tori, what the Hell just happened?”

“Hannah,” I choked, trying to get my breath back “I can’t feel her, she’s… she’s gone,”
~~~~
Third Person
From the second Hannah was taken from Tori and Johnny, nurses and doctors didn’t leave her alone. They were trying to get her stable, but they weren’t winning. Two nurses were switching between attempting to regulate her breathing while a doctor worked on regulating her pulse while three more people worked on stopping her bleeding.

“She’s losing too much blood,” One woman announced to the room.

“She can’t afford to lose anymore,” The doctor told them all “She lost too much before she got here and goddamn it, I am not going to lose this young girl, not tonight,”

Everyone started to work ten times harder, each person was determined to keep Hannah alive, but she had other things in mind.

Hannah could see something, a sort of light coming from the doorway. She tried to reach her hand out to it, but she was too weak and couldn’t move a muscle, but, the light vanished when she started to stabilize.

“We got her,” Someone sighed in the room. Everyone had a smile on their face, feeling proud of themselves and each other.

Their success was short lives when Hannah’s heart monitor started to go berserk and her body started to thrash around on the bed. Her eyes snapped open as her back arched off the bed and she let out a scream of pain and terror before collapsing back onto
the bed… and flat lining. By this time, the room was jam packed with more doctors and more nurses, who were now using defibrillators to bring her back.

Hannah stood from the bed, the light at the door now brighter than ever. She turned around and looked at her physical body, laying on the bed being attacked by people and machined, jolting with every shot of electricity shooting through her chest, but she wasn’t being tugged back into her body, not even a little bit. She smiled a small, sad smile to herself and walked towards the door, but before her hand could grab the handle, a soft voice spoke her name from the corner of the room. Hannah looked to see who was there, and she saw the beautiful face, similar to her own, of her mother, smiling back at her.

“Mama?” She whispered, a smile spreading across her face.

“Hey baby,” Her mother smiled back at her, holding her arms out to her daughter.

Hannah rushed into her mother’s embrace and they wrapped their arms around each other.

“You’re a lot bigger than the last time I held you in my arms,” Her mother told her, letting out an easy laugh “But I’ve been watching you grow into the young woman you are now,”

Hannah pulled away, but was held at arms-length by her mother, who was still smiling at her.

“But now is not your time,” She told her, shaking her head “You’re not even eighteen years old yet, you haven’t even started to live yet, so you have to get back in there,”

Hannah, who was still in shock from being with her mother, and being dead, could only stare at her mother as she spoke.

“I know what’s happening in your life baby girl, and it happened to me, too. Sebastian, when I met him, was a lovely, charming man and I fell in love with him, hard and fast and agreed to marry him after only a year of being together officially, but, during that time I
had met your father and also fallen in love with him, but I refused to admit that I loved him, but Sebastian had noticed my feelings for him were wearing off and started to become violent, so, before I could marry him, my sister, your aunt, convinced me to leave him
and run off with your father, I took her advice and did what was right, and in the end, I ended up being happier than I could have ever imagined, I gave birth to the most beautiful little girl,” She reached her hand up and gently stroked Hannah’s cheek with it “And I know you love James, and he loves you too, so much more than you think he does, but if you don’t do as Sebastian wants, this will continue for generations,”

“What do you mean?” Hannah whispered, knitting her eyebrows together.

“If I as strong enough to get away from him, I know that you are, too. But it’s my fault that he is after you, because he didn’t get me, and if you get away and have a daughter, he’ll come after her, and the cycle will only continue,”

“So you’re saying I have to end it before it even begins?” She asked, confused and scared.

“As much as I don’t want to be telling you this, yes, that is what has to happen, and I’m so, so sorry baby,”

“To save my own children, I have to marry Sebastian?”

“I know that you can feel what I felt for him,” She smiled knowingly “When he’s in the room, even when he’s being big and scary,
your heart skips a few beats and your palms get sweaty, you want to touch him and you want to kiss him, but… that’s just the affect that he has on women,” She pulled Hannah to her chest and cradled her “You need to stop fighting what you feel for him and go with it, to save yourself and everybody else,”

Hannah turned back to her body and looked, they were about to give up on her.

“You don’t have long,” Her mother said “A few minutes,”

“I have one more question,” Hannah said quickly “Did Alfie make it to the other side with you?”

“Of course he did,” She smiled “Would you like to meet him?” Hannah nodded furiously.

Her mother disappeared, and after half a second, she came back, cradling a tiny baby boy in her arms.

“Hannah, I’d like you to meet your little brother,”

Hannah was overcome with emotion, but she couldn’t let any of it out because she wasn’t inside her own body.

“He’s so tiny,” She whispered, reaching her hand out and touching his chubby little cheeks.

“Here,” Her mother whispered, holding the little bundle out to her.

Hannah took her baby brother in her arms and looked down at him, like he was the most precious thing she had ever seen before.

“Hey,” She whispered to him, a smile on her face. The baby opened his eyes and smiled at her, his smile matching hers to a T “I’m your big sister, and I know we’re not going to be able to bug each other and I’m not going to get the chance to judge you on your girlfriends, because you’re never going to get big enough to have a girlfriend, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you, okay?” The baby cooed in her arms “Good, because I loved you from the second I found out you existed, and I always will love you little brother,”

Hannah looked back up to her mother who was glowing now.

“We are another reason you can’t leave this world just yet,” She laughed, taking the baby back into her own arms “Although I know that you would be happy on the other side with us, your father would be all alone, I know he has a new woman in his life, but he wouldn’t have any of the original family left, so I’m sending you back in there to keep him sane,”
Hannah had to laugh at that, and nod in agreement with her mom.

“I better go,” Hannah sighed, smiling at her family “People to save and all that,”

“Just remember, I’m always watching you baby girl,”

In her final glowing moment, Hannah’s mother leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Hannah’s forehead before pushing her towards her own body, and vanishing in a beam of light.
~~~~
Hannah
I woke up slowly, the room was dark and void of any other people. The only sound was the beeping of my heart monitor and the whooshing noise of the machine breathing for me. I sat up slowly and carefully pulled the tube from my throat and my nose, tugged the IV out of my arm and the blood drip from the other, disconnected myself from the heart monitor and turned it off before anyone could notice that it was flat and come rushing into the room. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and let my feet dangle above the cold floor. I held my arms and my legs out in front of me and realised that someone had cleaned all of the blood off of my skin, I grabbed my hair in my hands and realised that it had been washed, too. I was finally clean.

I still had a hair tie on my wrist, so I used that to throw my hair up into a messy bun on the top of my head before I slid off of the bed.
Pain shot through my side where my stab wound was, but I grit my teeth to stop myself from making any noise.

I silently slid out of the room and made my way down the corridors, stumbling every so often when I would get dizzy and lose my balance, or when my body would remember how weak it was and my legs would try to give in under my weight. Eventually, I found the room I was looking for, the room with Erin’s name written outside the door.

Carefully, I opened the door and let out a breath of relief when I found that her room was empty, too. I tip-toed over to her bed where she was sleeping peacefully, she was all bandaged up and I took a risk and checked her chart on the end of her bed. She was admitted the same day that I was, but there were two more days on her chart. I’d been asleep for three days.

Pushing the memory of the last time I saw my dad to the back of my head, I climbed onto Erin’s bed and tucked myself into her side. She stirred a little, rolled her head towards me.

“I’ve been sleeping in your bed for the last two nights,” She said, groggily “I was wondering when you were going to wake up,” I looked up at her and saw her eyes were open now and she was staring down at me with a smile on her face “I heard you died,” She whispered, trying to keep her tears at bay “I was so worried about you,”

“You scared the shit out of me on the phone,” I told her “But we’re going to be alright now,”

“I think we have to talk about what we’re going to do,”

I remembered everything about my death. I remember seeing and talking to my mother, and holding my baby brother, but I was going to keep that to myself.

“I’m going to go through with it,” I whispered “I can’t put you or anyone else through any more, so I’m going to go through with it and be with Sebastian,”

“And I’m not going to try and get in the way,” She choked “That way, we both survive and so does everyone else,”

“We’re all going to be miserable,” I sighed.

“We don’t know about that,” She chuckled “Chris and Sebastian are both pretty hot, and they make us weak at the knees,” I blurted out a laugh but quickly covered my mouth to keep myself quiet “We’ll just make sure that we go out with a bang on your birthday,”

“Sounds good to me,” I smiled widely “But, that’s when the proposal is coming, I think,”

“Listen to me,” She said softly, running her fingers through my hair “We are going to be okay,”

“We’re going to be okay,” I repeated.

“Exactly, now get some sleep,”

“I’ve been sleeping for days,” I yawned.

“That doesn’t mean you’re not tired, and keeping me awake, so, sleep,”

“Okay,” I yawned again “I love you,”

“I love you, too.”
~~~~
Jimmy
Matt and Brian had come into my room to tell me about Hannah and Erin, but especially Hannah, and it was a good thing that both of them came because they had to hold me down when I tried to get out of bed to get to Hannah. I’ve visited her every day, usually after breakfast, and I stay there for as long as I can, but I’m getting to go home today and I want to spend my morning with her again. I know that she can hear me when I talk to her, I sang our song that we wrote together to her, and I brushed her hair for her, but not once had she shown any signs of waking up for me.

I walked into Hannah’s room and was shocked when I found her bed empty.

“Hey,” A small voice came from behind me, I turned around to see Hannah standing in her hospital gown with a cup of water in her hand and her hair tied up.

“When did you…?” I trailed off.

“Wake up?” She chuckled “Last night, I found my way to Erin’s room and slept beside her for the night,”

I couldn’t help but smile at her and lean down to press a kiss to her lips.

“I’m so glad you’re going to be okay,” I told her, taking her hand in mine.

“Yeah,” She smiled “Me, too.”

“You think you’ll be out of here in time to celebrate your birthday?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” She shrugged, taking a sip of water “I don’t think the doctors are going to stop examining me all day though, so we’ll hopefully know by the end of the day when I should be getting out,”

“I’m getting out today,” I beamed.

“Don’t rub it in,” She laughed, smacking me on the arm “You’ll still come and visit, right?”

“Of course I will,” I nodded.

“Can you do me a favour though?”

“Anything for you,”

“Find my dad,” She frowned “If he hasn’t been found already yet,”

“He’s been here,” I told her “The night that you were admitted, he was in to be checked over, he had a nasty bump on his head and apparently Sebastian brought him in, but he’s been here during visiting hours to see you, and he’s going crazy trying to organize
something for your birthday to make it up to you, but…”

“But what?” She asked.

“He’s eternally grateful to Sebastian,” I told her.

“For what?” She asked “Stabbing me and leaving me to die?”

“No,” I shook my head “For saving him,”

“Of for fuck sakes,” She groaned “That was all a part of his plan to make my dad love him even more, to sort of seal the deal,”

“What deal?” I asked.

She hesitated for a few moments and then looked into my eyes.

“The marriage deal…”

Notes

How do we feel about this chapter?
I got quite emotional writing the scene with Hannah's mum and brother when she 'died'.

More to come from E!! <3

- LMV