Looking at her lying there like a porcelain doll, never moving, never speaking, never coming alive, is like watching a part of myself die.

She’s so different to who I remember; looking into that pale, angel face, I can barely see my Helena anymore. It’s like there’s an imposter that’s taken her over and left her unrecognisable. Those beautiful, soft lips bear no trace of the smiles we used to share every day; they are chapped and faded, not plump and perfect like they used to be. I can hardly bear to see her like this, so sick, so wrong. Soon, the doctors say, her gorgeous golden locks will fall. Soon, she’ll just be a shell. Soon, she’ll be gone, and I’ll be alone. I never wanted her to leave me. I never wanted to have to say goodbye. I’m frightened.

She’s the only person who’s ever been so close to me. She’s pulled me back from the brink so many times, she’s been my one and only hope in the blackest of abysses. Where am I going to turn, when she fades away?

And I hate it so much; the unfairness of it, the injustice of it all. Why my Helena? Out of every sinful, wrongdoing creature such sickness could have chosen, she was picked to bear this curse. This is so wrong; she’s barely lived her life yet. How can it be snatched away like this?

I'm hardly two feet away. It would be so very easy to reach out to her and touch that papery cheek. I want to touch her so badly, just to feel if she's still warm, still whole; I can barely see her breathing, and I so desperately want reassurance that she's still among the living; she has to still be with me. But to my eyes, it seems like just one touch would shatter her into a thousand shards. She's like a spider's web; so beautiful, and so very, very delicate.

Her voice is so close to silence, and yet it cuts through the air like a gunshot, and instantly all the dreamlike elements are gone. The words are like the rustle of leaves in the trees; so feeble. So perfect. With effort, Helena turned her head slowly to the left, towards the window, eventually facing her sister Marie. "Could you get me a drink of water?"

Her sister, young and not fully able to understand the scope of the mysterious affliction and how it was stealing the beauty from her older sister, nodded a few times and then got up and slowly left the room, her tiny legs only allowing for each pace to carry her a foot at a time.