MALLORY HAD IMAGINED HER DEATH TO BE MORE ROMANTIC. 

She would be a ninety something-year-old lying on her deathbed, surrounded by her most loved family members and friends, a bouquet of flowers taped to her chest and her ears full of sweet melodies that would bid her sleep. It was the kind of death that would be slow and unpainful, stealthy, the kind that would caress you before enveloping you. But like most of what one imagined, such wasn't reality.

Her death was slow and painful. She lay on the ground by Cole and Diana, listening to her slowed breathing. Cole had said not freaking out would make the process easier, that calm in the face of death made it less traumatizing. But she didn't believe she deserved any of that. Calm, peace. It had been her fault that they were all here, locked like animals in a room of pinkish haze. The poisonous gas had gobbled up most of their oxygen. It was mostly by manual effort that they were still alive, by breathing in and out with intentionality, looking, searching for an ounce of oxygen in the atmosphere. It was getting harder and harder by the minute.

"I'm sorry," Mallory said. "This is all my fault."

"What don't you understand by don't talk?" Diana asked. "It reduces the oxygen concentration in the air."

"Diana's right," Cole joined in. "Don't talk."

"What's the use? We're going to die, anyway." Mallory sat up, groaning. Every exertion felt like hell. "I should've listened when I had the chance. Dad. You were telling me not to—"

"Don't waist precious time being remorseful," Ava added. She had the most peaceful look on her face, as though she'd met death and conquered it before and would have no issue doing so again.

Mallory listened to Ava and tried to pull her mind away from her remorseful thoughts, but her heart was still plagued by pangs of remorse. She needed an abstraction. "So, Ava...do you ever remember how your son was?"

Her face lighted up. "Faintly. He was eight when I last saw him. But even young, he was easily the kind of person that you couldn't forget. There was this light to him, this assurance that he could conquer anything. I loved him. I really did. Jane was inhumane to take him away from me."

"She never returned him?"

Ava paused for a long while. "She never..."

Diana coughed. "I wish that slimy bitch would just die wherever she is. What the hell is wrong with her?"

"She's a victim." Ava eased up against the wall. She, like them, was losing it, losing her grip from the ladder of life. It wouldn't take long before she would completely let go of the ladder and fall into the unknown beyond. "She's a victim and life is the nemesis."

Mallory spun her head to Cole when he groaned. He was having it the worst. His sweat glands were on overdrive, with the amount of sheeny liquid that coated his entire body. It gave his skin an almost transparent look under the light. Breathing was becoming harder and harder for him by the minute, his chest heaving up and down like a marathon runner's. Of them all, he should be the last person here, considering how lethal his sickness already was.

"It's okay, Cole." Mallory neared her father. "It's okay."

She was astounded by how audacious her words had been, how confident she was to say that. The truth was, everything was but okay. They would die in no less than an hour. They would be nothing but soulless corpses, another set of Jane's unfortunate victims. And the most painful of it all was that neither of them would have the opportunity to carry out their revenge plan on her. She'd ruined their lives in one way or the other. She'd haunted their peace. If Mallory ever had the chance to get out of here, she swore she would make it her life's mission to destroy Jane Anderson. Forget that she was her own biological mother. She hated Jane. And hate, hate was an emotion Mallory didn't normally feel.

Jane exploited Mallory's deepest passions. Her music, becoming a star violinist, starlight star, just so she could bring Mallory to her demise. She should have seen it in the beginning. She should have heeded to—

"Mal..."

Cole's breathing increased in depth. Worry sunk its claws into her mind when Cole rose his hands to clench his chest. He smiled feebly and reached out for her arm. Mallory knew that smile any day, anytime. It was the smile he put on when he was dying inside, the one he put on to make people believe that he was fine when, in truth, he was not.

"Mal, I love you," Cole said. "You should know that."

Mallory knew how this went. She'd watched enough movies to know what that meant, that I love you wasn't literal, that it was littered with a million other meanings: "I'm leaving", and "I want you to let me go", and "even I go, you'd be alright". She clung to his hand. He was just bluffing. This was one of the times at which he believed death was near, when in actuality, it was far away. Susan had said it herself once, that there were so many times when she thought Cole had supposedly died. He usually fainted and roused up again. He always got up again. He was a fighter. He would get through this. He would...

"I love you," Cole said again.

Anger struck Mallory. "Stop that. Stop saying that!"

"Mal..." Diana touched her shoulder affectionately. She shrugged it off.

Panic coursed through her veins as Cole's eyes began to flutter. She was overcome by the wanton desire to keep them open by all means, but somehow, logic prevailed, reality set in. She was losing him. She was losing her father.

"It was all my fault," Cole said. "Not yours. Never for once blame yourself for us being here. I was the reason. I'll always be the reason."

"What are you talking about?" Mallory turned to Diana. "What the hell is he talking about?"

Diana only bowed her head in pity.

"You were a star already, Mal. That was my mistake, not telling you that you were already a star when you were younger, a jewel needless of jewelries. You don't need the validation of anyone else, Mallory. You don't need Starlight's validation. You don't need anybody's stupid trophy to tell you that you are enough."

Mallory cried hearing her father speak, hearing how close he was to death with every word he spoke. How was it possible to feel grief without having lost him yet? She buried her face in his hand and cried against it.

"Play for me, Mal," Cole said, closing his eyes for one last time. "Play for me..."

Mallory didn't know where or how she found the strength to, but she picked up the violin that was strapped to her back and began to play.