"Their true lies"

[December 25th, 2021]

"Where's Sean?" Ethan whispered to Giselle outside Aurora's ward while holding the dinosaur plushie covered largely with gift-wrap.

"They argued again I think. Haven't seen him since then." Giselle said as she sighed.

"Why are we giving her the gift now though? You didn't say anything." Lucy asked curiously.

"They have to start her biopsy soon… We might not get to celebrate her birthday. Plus, we didn't give her the graduation gift because she fainted. Then everything was so chaotic, no one remembered." Giselle explained. "About our personal gifts… Let's give them to her after the surgery!"

"Right, today is Christmas. She deserves to enjoy it." Ethan added.

Though it wasn't a normal Christmas, where everyone would stay up till 12am on the Christmas eve and celebrate late at night, it was still Christmas.

Sean was missing so that was a minus point.

Nonetheless, they knocked at the door of her ward and entered to see her nose bleeding and the nurses helping her clean it.

It was Christmas.

The nurses quickly helped her lie down again. They told the crew not to make much noise and that she had a nose-bleed because of stress.

They wanted to believe she was fine.

Before going over to her bed they asked the nurse if it was fine to give her a gift. The nurses nodded, still warning them not to make a lot of noise.

"Oh? Hi…" Aurora muttered and tried to sit up after noticing them.

"Hey, you alright?" Giselle asked.

"Yes!" She cheerfully replied, trying not to worry others.

"Merry Christmas!" Ethan exclaimed.

"It's Christmas?..." She asked.

Right. She hadn't been out in a while. She wouldn't know if there was hustle and bustle outside the hospital. All she knew was similar faces in similar clothes and places.

"Y-Yeah." Lucy stuttered as she nervously said.

"What's that?" She asked, pointing at the big gift in behind Ethan.

"Oh.. Right." Ethan slid it closer to her bed so she could unwrap it herself. "This is from all of us."

She smiled slightly at the big wrap before reaching her hand out to unwrap it in all its glory.

She carefully unwrapped it, trying not to tear the beautiful wrap. It had cute anime dinosaurs on it. Would be a waste to tear it apart.

Unwrapping it, she revealed the big dinosaur plushie from inside. She gasped loudly. The baby pink dinosaur had golden glowing eyes.

She grabbed it and pulled it closer.

"This is literally the best!" Aurora exclaimed while hugging her gift.

The dinosaur had a constant smile on his face, glad to be embraced by Aurora. "When did you guys get this?!"

"Just got it, haha." Ethan chuckled nervously. "We're having dinner here, is that fine?"

She could complain about it, and she felt complaining too. But for the sake of her friends, she didn't say a word. She just smiled and nodded. She had 2-3 days remaining. She thought it would be a waste to spend them complaining about something that is not in her power.

She'd have dinner with them if that would make her happy without having to think about the fact that she was currently in a hospital suffering great pain and about to die in a few days.

No, she'd try to normally have dinner with her friends and family. It was Christmas.

"C-Can you guys, get Sean to join?" She asked hesitantly. "I don't think he would. I was really selfish to him…"

"Honestly, we haven't seen him since yesterday… But we'll try!"

She could only think about one thing. She had less than 3 days on her hands and she had distanced herself with everyone. It was wrong, mentally and morally.

She took a deep breath as she remembered what she had said to Sean. She wondered if he would come back when the others mentioned he had disappeared.

She actually felt bad and wanted to live another day just so she could spend time with him. She remembered how the palliative care staff told her that her personality might start to differ as her end may conclude. She hated that.

She hated being so self-centered. She was never like that before!

But the thought of dying in a few days scared her core. She really didn't want to die. Now that death was near, she really didn't want to die.

"Alrighty, let's assemble our search party for big sad Sean!" Giselle announced before sending everyone to look for him before dinner.

He did mention switching a lot often when he's not in a good mood so there was basically nowhere they could look for him at. They weren't sure of places that other alters liked to go to other than Hefty Uncle and Baby Sean.

Adam and Lyla were mysterious anyway. Palanquin Lady liked exquisite things but also despised modern places and anywhere with technology so she would rather stay in the house.

But he was never there so it was really hard to guess where he could be.

They still gave it their all and searched in all places that aroused suspicion. From highschool buildings to pre-campuses and toy stores, banks, hospitals, parks; They left nothing untouched. However, Sean was nowhere to be found.

They arrived back with no news of victory. But her parents had already prepared dinner. Maybe they would have to go on without Sean.

That was fine, Aurora thought. She still had 2 more days to make it up with him. 2 more days. Hopefully.

She had the last Christmas dinner of her life with a mix of feelings. She didn't know if she was sad, or happy. She just knew she was there. She existed.

She smiled nonetheless and let all her mixed emotion build into despair. She smiled for the friends and family seated with her, trying to enjoy a normal Christmas dinner.

She smiled for her friends who got a normal gift for a normal Christmas.

She sighed as she saw her family and friends clean up after her. She felt weak. Too weak to clean her own dishes. She closed her eyes before lying down.

She wanted to catch some sleep to run from her feelings. She could feel her mother patting her head slowly slowly making her almost fall asleep.

"So… The biopsy is near. I'm scared. But I hope it'll be fine." Her mother muttered in a low tone, thinking she was asleep.

After hearing what her mother had to say, she was more than wide awake.

"I hope… I just hope everything goes right." Her father said slowly.

"Dr. Matthias said surgery would succeed." Lucy added.

"It will, it will… I feel bad for asking Sean to persuade her when we could've just done this before." Her mother murmured.

Aurora clenched her teeth. A surgery?! The thing she was scared of?! They really wanted her to live a few more days in despair?! Were they even real?

A series of emotions flooded in her head and unwillingly made her mad. She didn't know what to feel.

She only felt betrayed. She didn't know why. She was slowly approaching her demise but they only wanted to elongate it artificially.

She just wanted to leave the place as soon as possible. Their lies were too much to bear.

She couldn't sleep the entire night with delusional thoughts striking her mind every now and then. Physically, it was painful as it was, but now it was even worse as mental pains added to it.

She felt horrible. Almost wanting to end herself. Right there. Right now.

[December 25th, 2020]

No way in hell she could remember last Christmas. Neither did she want to remember anything anymore. The more she wanted to live, the more her feelings disintegrated.