Part 3/9:

Years later, on Anna's sixteenth birthday, her declining health becomes painfully obvious. The emotional climax comes when a heartbroken Gabe ends his struggle to protect her and takes his own life, leaving Anna to navigate a new world alone. Anna wakes in a hospital, a place both alien and bewildering. She is soon cared for by Sheriff Ellen, who, having discovered Gabe’s fate via neighbor reports of gunshots, offers a glimpse of hope and kindness that Anna lacked for so long.

Emerging into Reality