Chapter 1: Hi, my name is Heather

Hi, my name is Heather. I am a doctor in training in one of the local hospitals in my city. The City of Codaloob, Coda for short, is by no means a big city. It can hold it's own when it comes to tourists and business but for the most part Coda is still thought of as provincial by the country's capital. I was born in the capital but my parents separated and my father took me home to his side of the family in Coda where I eventually grew up; but that's a whole different story. For today, this is the story of how I died.

You can't work in a hospital, with all the stress and workload, alone. Friends always makes the job lighter and much more enjoyable than it otherwise can be. In my hospital, I work with a lot of different people, but none as much as I do with 2 girls in my batch. It was a friendship that was very much unexpected. Tamara, a sweet, jovial, rambunctious girl who grew up an only girl in a family of 6. She is all joy and laughter but hides her inner witch who tends to rear its head when you cross her. Then there's Alexa, my complete opposite in almost everyway. She is the girly girl type, who likes to model, dress up, do makeup, and be the center of attention, but she's also the no nonsense type of person who will not suffer fools and has a quick temper. We grew bonds surpassing friendship and right into sisterhood. Without these girls, I wouldn't have survived my training. Although, in the end, I still didn't although through no fault of theirs.

In our final year of training, all hell broke loose. Tamara got sick and had to drop out of training, leaving me and Alexa alone to fend for the remainder of the year. It was hard on all three of us to be separated but we still hung out after work. This wasn't the only thing to go awry this year though. As if the world had to chip in to our problems, the world wide COVID pandemic broke. Everything got harder and everyone got paranoid. Work became almost unbearable.

To get a break from the stress and the constraints of working in the hospital, the girls and I would set dates when we would get together, catch up and talk. That day was one of those regular days at work. Woke up, dressed, went to work. It was one of the days we had set that we would all meet after work in one of the girl's houses and make a night of it.

Due to the wide reach of the pandemic and the restrictions on gatherings and transportation, I would usually walk to wherever I wanted to go. I didn't mind. It allowed me some quiet time to think and some exercise along the way. On this day, I was on the way to Alexa's house, walking along the side of the road. I set out the minute I got off work. I left a few instructions to Joshua, the one who was going to relieving me and set out on my way.

As I was walking on the street, I noticed a car pass by, stop a little ahead then slowly back up level to me. When I glanced into the driver seat my face lit. "hey, could I drive you somewhere?" it was Rafael. I had known Raf since we were children. Raf was tall, dark and totally handsome in a boyish sort of way. He had abs for days and arms that could carry you without batting an eye. We used to play together but we lost touch for a few years when his family moved during middle school. To be perfectly honest, I have had a stupid crush on him since he moved in next door.

"hey! Long time no see!" and without thinking twice I got into his car. We caught up while he drove. The ride took shorter that I thought it would. I wasn't able to ask a lot about how he was doing and he seemed to have been more interested in what I had gotten up to after the years we had lost touch. It took less than 20mins and he was already dropping me off in front of the café Alexa and I had set as a meet up place before we headed to her house. I was just waving him good bye when Alexa walked out of the café doors.

"who was that?" she asked, handing me a cup of hot cocoa.

"oh an old friend. He passed me by the road and offered me a ride." I hid a smile behind my cup.

"are you sure it's just an old friend…?" she teased, seeing the smile.

"I'll tell you both all about it later." I laughed. "come on. Tamara will get there before we do and who'll open the door for her when you're here?" I tugged at her. She led the way to her car and she drove us the short drive to her house.

Tamara was already outside leaning on her car waiting for us to arrive. We all squealed when we saw each other and embraced before going inside. We spent the night in Alexa's apartments and talked all night about boys and all the things we had been up to lately.