Novum Acies Chronicles/A Final Goodbye

{|style="width:100%; color:#FFF;" A single father waits beside a hospital bed containing his only daughter, who was infected with an unknown disease during the on, as she nears the end of her life.

Elliot Browning sat by a hospital bed. The room was silent, save for the constant beeping sound of all the monitors beside him, constantly showing the biological condition of the patient, and the warning sounds from outside, as the government scrambled their forces to take care of the various casualties in the city. On the bed to the left of Elliot laid Clementina, his eleven-year-old daughter.

It had all happened so suddenly.

Elliot's life had been one of continuous ups and downs. He was born on Deston, but moved to Sedra early in his childhood, due to his father, who worked in BXR Mining Corporation being transferred to Sedra for the iron mines on the planet. After his eighteenth birthday, Elliot enlisted in the Sedran Colonial Guard as a soldier and moved to Sedra City. Within a few years, he found the love of his life, Rose Ferguson, and soon after that married her, having a daughter Clementina with her.

Then, things went down. The Human-Covenant war greatly affected Sedra's trade and the planet's economic status went down. The Sedran Colonial Guard was having a hard time acquiring resources and paying wages to all the soldiers working under it. Elliot pulled out from the SCG and joined a small firm at management instead. Unfortunately for him, in 2554, Rose died in an accident, when her car crashed into a tree, leaving Elliot as a single father.

Since then, Elliot struggled to make ends meet. He had to manage his small job, while at the same time sending Clementina to school. Recently, he took up a side job in business with his close friend Carlos, and he thought things were getting good for him again.

Except they didn't.

February 7, 2557. Elliot had decided to take his daughter to the recently opened People's Plaza in Sedra City's downtown. That brought a smile on Clementina's face, and that smile filled Elliot's heart with happiness. He always tried to make his daughter happy, to divert her from her mother's death. While Elliot himself had still not recovered on her loss, he made sure Clementina would not suffer as well.

They were in the mall when they heard gunshots two floors above them. He saw an alien, the ones they called "Elite". A man had his gun trained on it, when the alien jumped backward, activating a spherical machine. The Elite fell to the ground and died, but the sphere continued to hover in the air. Amidst all the confusion, even Clementina asking "Daddy what's that?", the sphere activated, sending a blue wave-like essence throughout the mall and the city. Elliot was still in a puzzled state when he saw his daughter fall down to the ground suddenly, holding her neck with both her hands and choking, while crack-like designs appeared on her hand.

Within seconds, medical personnel rushed to the site, taking away the suffering Clementina and many other similarly-affected people. Full of worry and shock, Elliot ran behind them as they escorted her to the nearest hospital and begun tests.

While he waited outside her ward, he saw the other people who were similarly-affected succumb to the unknown infection, and his mind filled with terror. No, he cannot see his daughter die, this cannot happen.

Elliot's thoughts were interrupted when a doctor approached him. Elliot, in a voice full of fear, asked "What happened?", to which the doctor turned his head down and became silent. Enraged, Elliot held the doctor's collar as he shouted the same question again. The doctor, who was full of nervosity, finally replied "She only has a little time left." Hearing those words, Elliot quickly made his way inside the hospital room, his hands trembling almost uncontrollably.

The room was silent, except beeps and other digital sounds from the monitors which displayed Clementina's medical condition, as she slept on the hospital bed. Elliot waited beside when she woke up slowly, her dad being the first thing she saw as she opened her eyes. Her heartbeat was dangerously slow, and blood pressure constantly varied. In a slow, almost inaudible voice, she asked "Daddy, what happened?"

Slowly controlling himself, Elliot kissed her forehead and put a hand on it. He replied, "Nothing dear, just a small check-up." The tension in his voice was clearly understandable.

"Will be okay? I saw many others too, on beds. Will everything be okay?"

Tears began to spring up Elliot's eyes. It was certain now, he couldn't bring himself to believe it. Crying, he held his daughter's palm with his other hand, and said "It'll be okay Clementina, it'll be okay." He could no longer control his crying now, it was the end.

"Daddy..." her voice deteriorated.

"No no no sweetheart, you'll be fine, I promise you. After this is over, we will go back to the mall and get yourself a new toy, okay? And we'll go out tonight, I'll show you the colorful city. Just don't worry, please please, okay Clementina? Just don't-"

Clementina's vital signs flatlined, as the monitors confirmed it.

Elliot's heart sank.

"No no NO! CLEMENTINA, DON'T!" Elliot burst out, tears continuously flowing out as Clementina breathed her last, seeing her daddy for the last time.

The room became completely silent for a moment, until Elliot's screams of sadness and grief interrupted the silence. People outside the ward stopped and stared at the room's entrance door, as Elliot's cries and screams were audible outside the room as well.

Elliot stopped himself and became suddenly quiet, absorbing the reality and putting all the emotions of tragedy and grief instead. He was all alone now, and he couldn't believe that his family was no more. He wished he had died instead of Clementina, because the pain was unbearable.

"Clementina... Rose..." Elliot slowly muttered as he fell into shock, tumbling over the chair he was sitting on previously and falling onto the ground. He lay there, completely still.

Silence engulfed the room once again.