(continued from part 1)

Sarah awoke to sudden hurried footsteps, however. As she opened her eyes wearily, she was surprised to see Dr. Suzuki in front of her along with her father.

"Sarah!" her father began. "Sarah, it's... I mean, I... I... Dr. Suzuki, please tell her!"

Dr. Suzuki sighed and cleared his throat.

"Look, I'm not saying this to raise any hopes, but... I've talked to a colleague, who has informed me of a new procedure intended to treat the condition that you have. The procedure has recently been approved for clinical testing by the ethics committee and the government, and there's a center not too far from here that will be participating in these tests. I told your father-"

"Don't you see, Sarah!?" interrupted her father. "If we enroll you as a patient, they can cure you!"

"We..." The doctor grumbled. "We can administer the procedure, which has shown initial promise in laboratory tests, and monitor the effect on the patient's condition." He shook his head. "That's all."

"Oh, enough of that, Doctor. Sarah, I'll let you know when we're heading to the medical center!"

"All... all right," she replied.

As her father and Dr. Suzuki left, Sarah pondered her peculiar situation. Where before she had been dead, now she was alive again. She looked out the window once again.

"Must I continue for a little longer...?"

It was a long, arduous journey for Sarah to simply get her out of bed and into the ambulance waiting for her. As she lay in the vehicle, its engine softly rumbling as it sped down the road, her eyes stared in an unfocused manner out the windows in the back door. Though it did not appear to be accumulating on anything yet, there was a very light snowfall in the air, the first indication that winter's cold grip was soon to be upon her. In the distance, as all things converged towards the horizon, the sight of some children playing in a driveway sped past, causing her to close her eyes and exhale deeply.

Before the ambulance could get to the center, however, another wave of pain leapt into her chest, sending her into another coughing fit, this time even stronger than the last. Though those present tried to hold her down, it was useless as her body convulsed as it tried in vain to purge what ailed it, as a volcano expelling its burning contents. Her only solace was the slow dimming of her view as her surroundings slowly faded away in her drift into unconsciousness. Blackness surrounded her thereafter. The darkness of the unconscious mind is always a peculiar one, as it is always present, yet it is one that the sufferer will never remember, whether they live or die.

This time, however, it was not yet the right moment for Sarah. After a period of time that was lost into the mists, Sarah's eyelids slowly opened, and her eyes tiredly traced the room from one side to the other. She was in a plain hospital bed, with a curtain around the area, blocking off her vision from the rest of the room. The window in the room had been kind enough to place itself next to her, but at this time of year there was very little to see except for the steady falling of snowflakes as winter makes its push in earnest.

She wondered silently about what had happened and where she was - whether the procedure had been a success, whether she was at the medical center, or whether her whole life until this moment had simply been a dream. Time did not grant her very long to ponder over these questions, however, as two voices could faintly be heard getting nearer, one of which was her father's, and the other of which she could not recognize.

"Mr. Robinson, please understand; we could not-"

"I don't want a story! I want to know what you're going to do for my daughter!"

"We performed a chest x-ray in our preparations, and found that the damage to her respiratory system is far beyond what we had anticipated. We can't proceed under these circumstances. Mr. Robinson-"

"I was told she was enrolled as a patient! I was told you were going to cure her!"

"Mr. Robinson, if we went through with the procedure there is a high likelihood that she would die from it."

"She's going to die anyway! What good are you?"

"I'm sorry, but we couldn't take that chance."

"What chance?"

"Mr. Robinson, please understand that if she died, and an autopsy confirmed that her death was something that we had done, then that would be the end of both this clinical trial and of our careers."

"Then... that's it, isn't it? Fine. I'm too tired."

The voices ceased thereafter. Sarah offered no reaction except a blank stare, physically at the curtain in front of her, but mentally at nothing whatsoever. The curtain offered no response whatsoever, anyway. Footsteps in the room broke the silence and a short while later her father drew back the curtain surrounding her. He gave her a brave smile, but could not keep it up for more than a second or two. Taking a seat at her bedside, he spoke.

"There's, uh..." He conspicuously coughed. "There's been some... change of plans, and I..."

"I know, Daddy."

"Right, well... right."

Silence reigned thereafter, save for an audible inhale and exhale from her father.

"I want to go home, Daddy."

"Right. Yes, right; I want to go home too. We'll go home. Nothing much else for us here, after all."

Slowly, Sarah was loaded back into another ambulance to take her back home. The trip back seemed much, much longer than the trip there. Seconds blended into minutes, and minutes into what seemed like hours. The entire time, however, Sarah never bothered to look out the windows. She knew that there would be nothing for her there anymore. By this time, her fatigue was such that it was tiring simply to keep her eyes open.

Through almost no effort of her own, she was helped back into her home, and then back into the bed in which she had spent much of her life. Once her head was back upon the pillow, she turned her head to the side, facing away from the window. No longer could her mind maintain any desire for a place in time; rather, she just wanted to fade away as she knew all things eventually would. The gray clouded sunlight coming in through the window offered little comfort or warmth in the winter of her life.

Somewhere in the back of her head, she could hear the sound of the door open, and then voices muffled in the haze of her mind came through.

"Mr. Robinson?" came the first voice. "What's going on? I heard-"

"What do you want, Doctor?" replied her father.

She grit her teeth, trying to block out the increasingly loud voices, but eventually they became too much to ignore.

"You told me she could be a test patient! You told me they could cure her!"

"Mr. Robinson, I must admit that I have to sympathize with them, and I assure you that any doctor in their position would have made the same call."

"Then what good are you? Huh? What good are you all?"

"Mr. Robinson, this is precisely why I said I did not wish to raise any hopes."

"All the wonders of modern medicine, and my daughter dies because some cowards were too afraid to use any of it - is that really it?"

"You know as well as I do that they are correct that it would be the end of everything for them if your daughter had died."

"Then answer the question: what good are you!?"

There was only an audible sigh as a response.

"None! That's what. So get out. Get out of my house! If you won't cure my daughter, then get out of my house!"

"But Sarah-"

"Shut up! She's going to die because of you! Get out!"

There was nothing more audible except footsteps and the sound of a door opening and closing.

Though Sarah stayed motionless, a single, salty tear made its way across her cheek before becoming absorbed in the emotionless pillow on which her head lay. Whether or not her father were right that the doctors had been cowards, Dr. Suzuki was nonetheless more than that to her - he was, or had been, a friend. Now she knew there was no one else to come for her. The world had abandoned her and left her all alone. She waited for the blackness to take her for one last time, to her final, peaceful sleep. Death no longer brought fear into her heart; it had now become something that she almost desired.

It was not to be just yet, however. Behind her, she heard a faint sound, unexpected enough to make her rouse enough strength to turn herself over and get her eyes to focus. There, outside her window among now-melting snow on the tree, was the songbird, once more providing her with his gentle voice. She shivered, and weakly looked back to her room. She knew that she had to escape before it was too late.

Without another thought, she threw aside her blankets, and got to her feet. Opening the window, she placed one foot on the windowsill, and then leapt into the open air, a smile beginning to emerge on her face. As the wind caressed her hair as a mother would caress a newborn, she could feel her now-weightless body beginning to shrink. Her clothing evaporated into the air, and feathers began to sprout on her steadily smaller body. In one fell swoop, wings took the place of her arms and her face was adorned with a characteristic beak. Flying off in the direction of the tree, she was finally free.

"Sarah?"

Her father's voice came into the room, but received no reply.

"Sarah?"

As he made his way into the room, he quickly saw why he was receiving no reply. There, drooped motionless over the side of her bed, was Sarah. Her father bent down and checked for any signs of life in her body at all, but none were to be found. He grit his teeth and bobbed his head from left to right in a vain attempt to figure out what to do as the tears began to well in his eyes. Just as they were about to surface, however, he noticed her notebook lying open to a page on the ground, her pencil lying close by. He picked it up and looked at the page, and finally the tears burst forth as he sobbed uncontrollably while holding the notebook against his chest.

On the notebook was not a picture, but instead three words, very weakly scrawled on the page:

Nothing hurts forever.

And in the tree outside the window, two songbirds chirped their happy little songs.