Chapter 1

My parents didn't have a clue as to what was wrong with me. Without an apparent reason I had some bad cases of hyperventilation, I looked pale, bruised really easily and had been catching colds non-stop. They hoped it was just a bad case of the flue, but a quick blood test at the hospital proved them wrong and a painful bone marrow punction confirmed it. How they wished it had been the flue. I don't think they had ever been that shocked in their life's. My name was Chelsea, I was seventeen years old and suffered leukemia.

But the doctor had been very positive. Turned out that seventy to eighty percent of the young leukemia patients survived. He prescribed me medication to slow down the cell division and arranged for me to have chemotherapy. I'd be fixed up before I knew it, he had told me. But chemo sucked. Majorly. I always felt worse afterwards than I did before. It was a matter of time before my hair fell out and I started wearing bandannas. My favourite was the red one my dad had bought me.

Every 6 weeks they did a blood test, to examine my progress. Each time they told me I was doing great, but all the values and numbers they mentioned didn't mean much to me. One year after my diagnosis, I received a phone call to go to the hospital and take my parents with me. It had been two days since my last blood test. I had already seen it coming, but my parents were speechless, bewildered and upset when they heard the news. The medicines didn't help anymore and the chemo could only prolong my remaining lifespan to three years max. If it had been up to my parents, they had signed the papers for the chemo. But I was eighteen back then. The choice was all up to me.

"How much longer do I have without the chemo?" I inquired.

"Provided that we start you on different medicines, two year. Give or take 4 months."

"Different medicines?" My dad had asked.

"Medicines with the same effect as chemotherapy, only weaker. It's your call." Absentmindedly, I had nodded.

"Is it all right if we call as soon as we have made our decision?" My mom questioned.

When we drove back home, my dad's knuckles saw white from squeezing the steering wheel and my mom didn't say a word, the tears slowly rolling down her cheeks as the rain furiously knocked on the windscreen. I looked outside at the passing scenery and counted the trees. I stopped at twenty-four.

The decision was surprisingly easily made by me. Three years meant nothing if I had to spent them horizontally on my bed. Convincing my parents on the other hand, had been hard. I could understand it must be difficult to let go of your child, but this was about my life. No matter how long it would last. But in the end, they gave in. With a dry mouth I had dialed the doctor's phone number and announced my decision.

Slightly dumbfounded by my own action, I sat down at the dinner table. Two years left, seven hundred and thirty days. The cat jumped on my lap and I stroked its soft fur slowly. I had too many things I still wanted to do. I wanted to fly on a plane, I wanted to learn how to drive, I wanted to have my first kiss, I wanted to wish on a falling star, I wanted to marry. I wasn't done living yet. Suddenly the cat jumped off my lap and seated itself on the window sill; the postman had delivered our mail. I stood up and went outside to empty our mailbox and quickly went through its contents. A postcard from one of our relatives, bills and leaflets. Nothing interesting. I stopped when I saw a brightly coloured leaflet with farm animals and crops on it and a headline that read 'A once in a lifetime oppertunity!'. The text on the leaflet read that it was an advertisement of a man, too old to take care of his ranch any longer. He was willingly to sell it off for only 7,500 G. My eyes soon wandered back to the headline. Before I fully realised what I was doing, I had dropped the mail and had run inside to loot my piggy bank.

Yes, this will be a multi-chaptered story for a change, so the one-shots will be put on hold for a while. I hope I didn't scare everybody away with the moodiness of the first chapter. Let me know who's sticking around. :)