With a solemn gesture Megan places my phone out of my reach on the coffee table. A sad smile lies on her lips. A smile that looks like an apology. I try to speak and ask her what's going on, but the only sound I can produce is an unhelpful squeak.

Megan embraces me, strokes my hair. In its own distorted way it's almost motherly. "Shush, Eli. Don't worry, it will be all over soon."

My heartbeat fastens and full-fledged panic settles in. Her words don't have a calming effect at all. I need to get away from her, get myself out of this situation, but my arms and legs feel stiff. Every time I try to move them, they fly uncontrollably in any random direction.

And let's not talk about my voice. Yelling for help is not an option as my voice completely betrayed me. I can speak, but the words I speak are soft and barely recognizable.

I can still use my eyes, although my sight is getting blurry and it gives me headache to look beyond the fuzz.

In front of me is the mug. It's empty now. Megan must have done something with the chocolate. Why else am I so helpless? Desperately I think of all the poisons I had to learn for my toxicology class, but the truth is that I don't have a clue what she might have used.

Megan reaches behind her back and brings out a box. I recognize it immediately. She gave it to me only weeks ago, and I know what it contains.

She slowly lifts the lid and stares with satisfaction at the gun. "Do you know how many times I pointed the barrel at myself?"

I stare blankly at her. I know she had her episodes, that the world seems too heavy to bear for her, but I didn't know she had played with the thought of suicide.

She chuckles, apparently not expecting an answer. " I did it too many times, but I could never pull the trigger." Longingly she traces the barrel with her finger. "And then one day I realized I wasn't the one who had to die." She turns the gun on me. "You're the one, Eli. You have to die."

There's no trace of humor in her eyes, no indication that this is some weird prank she's pulling. This is the moment I realize she's not joking and that she's batshit crazy. There's no other explanation. I don't have time to philosophize about her mental state. I have to get out of here as soon as possible, preferably before she pulls that trigger.

I stare right into the barrel, and part of me wants to close my eyes, as if my eyelids are shields that will protect me from what Megan is planning to do. It takes all the strength I can muster, but I don't give in. Stubbornly I stare back at the black hole.

"Let's face it. Everyone will think you killed yourself," she says as she places an envelope on the table. "After all, you lost everything you hold dear. You took everything from me, and now I'm taking everything from you."

I'm sure I heard those words before as they sound strangely familiar. And then I remember the unnerving phone call I received at the hospital not so long ago.

The danger never came from an outsider. My stalker was close the whole time. It makes sense now. She knows me inside out. Who else could have known about Joey? She knows how to manipulate me, she knows how to pull my strings. It was her the whole time.

"Why?" It sounds more like an incomprehensible grunt, but she understands me.

"You let him die." She clenches her jaw, her eyes are as hard as iron. "You knew he was ill and still you made him go on that trip. His blood is on your hands."

My heart feels as cold as a stone, the little hairs on my arms start to rise. I know exactly what she's talking about. She's talking about Greg. About his death. And I know that in her own distorted way, she's right.

"I miss him too, Megan. His death was never my intention," I say with my crooked voice, "and not a day goes by that I not regret my actions."

I will always carry the weight of his death with me. If I hadn't been selfish, if I hadn't begged him to come with Megan and me, he would still be alive.

"Why did you push him to go?" She spits the word in my face.

It's hard to breathe, hard to talk. It's so long ago, but I can still remember every detail. I saw Megan and Greg less and less when they started dating. They were so in love, they had only eyes for each other and I felt left out. So I made a plan and organized a trip. It was just a few days camping in the woods, like we did before they started dating. I thought everything would turn back to normal. We would stay up late, make campfires, eat a lot of sugary junkfood, basically just having a good time.

"I had been looking forward to that trip, Megan. I wanted to spent time with you two. It felt like you two had only eyes for each other."

Her eyes grow big as she stares to me. "He died because you were jealous?"

I raise my hands to calm her, but I look more like a bird in distress. We never really talked about this subject. I tried, but every time I tried she became too upset. I never expected that she blamed me for his untimely death. "I wasn't jealous, I was lonely. And yes, I should have listened to Greg, but I thought... I thought it was just a cold."

Megan and Greg liked the idea of the trip, our parents agreed and we picked a date. I couldn't wait, I was all pumped up as the weekend came closer.

And then Greg sneezed, sneezed again, blew his nose and told me he didn't want to go anymore, just on the morning we were leaving. He didn't feel well, he said. He complained about a headache, and he wanted to stay at home. I talked to him until my mouth was dry and my tongue felt like a piece of leather. I told him he would feel better, that he would regret it forever if he didn't come along. It would be the trip of a lifetime! In the end he gave in. He took some aspirin to suppress his headache and then we left.

"Well, you were wrong," Megan says. "Why didn't you listen to my pleas? I told you we had to get help for him."

The camp site was perfect. It was quiet, there was no electricity, it felt like we were the only people in the world. Our tents were hidden under the thick green leaves of the trees and there was a perfect spot where we could build a camp fire. Megan and I went for a swim in the lake, while Greg remained in the tent, trying to catch a little more sleep and get rid of his cold.

Megan and I stayed an eternity at the lake, laughing, swimming, talking. I had missed my friend, I saw her almost every day, but somehow we never talked to each other anymore. She was always to busy with Greg. I was happy that day and she was too, I'm sure of it.

When we came back to the camp site, Greg wasn't feeling any better. Actually, he was worse than when we left him. Sweat was pouring over his face, his cough sounded awful, like the barking of a vicious dog, and his body was shaking.

Megan panicked when she saw him like that. She started to cry and wanted to call our parents, but I assured her everything would be fine. It was just the flu, after a good night's sleep he should be okay. It was hard to convince her, but in the end she gave up.

"I'm sorry," I say, my voice is barely audible. "I thought he would be fine, that it was just flu, not... "

We didn't build a campfire that night, nor we stayed up late. For a while we tried to talk, but we didn't want to wake up Greg, so we went to bed early.

Not that I got much sleep that night. First I couldn't sleep at all. I was frustrated, because my plan had failed. I kept tossing and turning, hoping that Greg would feel better the next day. Eventually sleep must have come though, as Megan woke me up in the middle of the night.

It was hard to tell by the light of the flashlight but her face must have been pale. She tried to keep as calm as possible, but I heard the tremor in her voice when she asked me to come and see Greg.

When I entered their tent, I was shocked. Greg's condition had deteriorated even further. He was delirious by then, he called me 'mum', his body glistened with sweat, his limbs were stiff. But the thing that scared me most, were the red stained tissues.

His breath was rasping and when I came closer, a wave of blood left his mouth. Megan started screaming, telling me to do something, that I had to save him. I tried to clean his face, wipe the blood away and cool his head, but he started to convulse. His arms and legs lashed around uncontrollably and I had to stand back, so he couldn't hit me.

And that's when he died.

Everything that came after I remember in snaps and flashes. Megan screaming, going nuts, the paramedics, the police and finally our parents.

I remember someone picking me up from the ground, telling me it wasn't my fault. I couldn't have known that he didn't have a cold, but something more deadly.

It was much later, when I was in med school when I learned it was hard to spot the difference between a cold and an early stage meningitis, but I still feel the guilt. If I didn't beg him to come and let him stay in bed that day, he would have had a chance. If I had listened to Megan, he would have had a chance.

I never had any thoughts that I could have magically cured him. What I dod was worse. I took his chances away, one by one, until only one possible outcome was left.

Megan takes my hand. It feels strange, my skin is tingling and I barely have any control over it. She wraps my fingers around the gun and curses when my fingers aren't as flexible as she thought.

Some guttural sounds leave my mouth as I start to protest. I can't control my voice and I'm afraid to move my hand as my index finger rests against the trigger.

"I can't live like this, Eli, and I can't die like this. I can't bear to see you live your life like nothing happened. This is the only way. " Megan takes my arm and tries to bend it. It takes a lot of her strength and I feel the cold touch of the barrel against my head. 

She heaves a breath and lays her hand over mine, so she only has to press my finger to fire the gun. She has my hand in a tight grip, and I fear every second for my life.

"Goodbye, Elise." Megan's eyes are empty of any sentiment, the tone of her voice is cold, disconnected.

A red, hot anger takes possession of me. I don't want to die. I lost enough the last couple of days and I don't want to add my life to that list. For once I'm going to fight back and I close my eyes.

I want to pull my hand that holds the gun upwards, so no one gets hurt, but the poison Megan gave me makes my movements unpredictable. As soon as Megan feels my arm move, I can see her panic, and she pulls the trigger.

The explosion that follows dulls my senses, but I register a scream.

And then everything turns to black.

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AN: Thanks for reading! If you liked the chapter, please vote for it by pressing the little star :)