"Oh my god! I am so happy that you got accepted to the Biochemistry program in the S... University in St. Louis!" Sara said to her friend Matt who called her to give her the good news. "Umm, I guess you will be happy to hear the news I am about to give you too," Sara continued. Matt asked enthusiastically, "Wait, you heard from your programs too?" Sara replied him "Well, not just any university. You know how much I wanted to get in the Evolutionary Biology program of the S... University in St. Louis?" Matt's heart was about to stop from the happiness and excitement. He decided to tease her instead by saying "Sara, don't tell me that you also got into my university. Then I will feel like I just got into a university that anyone could get in," with a playful tone in his voice. Sara laughed, as she was very well used to the level of sarcasm between the two, and replied "Shut up! I will be honoring your university." "But seriously though, I am so proud of you Sara! And also so happy that I will be spending 5 more years with one of my best friends." Matt replied. 

Sara was a Biology major in the A... College, which was a small liberal arts college in a small East Coast town named C.... She was an introverted and nerdy person, who spent a great deal of time on her studies. She was very smart and hard-working, but still a very down-to-earth and friendly person. She was constantly a top student in her classes, but her personality made her one of the most favorite person of her classmates. Other than classes, she enjoyed hiking in the nature and doing outdoor activities a lot. She was rather plain looking and did not put too much effort in her appearance, but she had a warm and beautiful smile on her face that made her attractive to the others. She had long and black curly hair, blue eyes, pale skin and a round and friendly face with freckles. Her hipster glasses with dark blue frame were her default accessory. She was 5'9" and rather curly.

Matt was a Chemistry major in the same college as Sara. He was quite different from Sara in terms of personality. He was not usually the top of his class and he had a habit of constantly getting work done in the last minute. Compared to the well-organized life of Sara, his was a little hectic. But he was also a friendly and caring person like Sara, which enabled them to get along so well in the past 4 years. Matt was more of an artistic type who spent hours and hours on his drawings and ship models that required patience and diligence. "I can't really understand how well you can focus on these ship models and spend hours on them while you can't focus on your classes at all!" Sara constantly teased him. "It is a serious art, Sara, come on!" Matt always replied. Although not being a very organized person, he was still very passionate about his research in Organic Chemistry, where his artistic talents and creativity surely helped him a lot in designing syntheses. "See, Sara, it is not so different from building ship models. You just build nano-sized models, but you still need the same kind of patience and hard-work." He had short blonde hair, green eyes and tan skin. His face looked a bit rectangular. He was 5'10" with an average build.

Sara and Matt first met during the freshman orientation activities of their college, thanks to living in the neighboring rooms. In the past 4 years, Sara, Sara's freshman roommate Alexis, Matt and Matt's roommate Rob hung out together and had become best friends. Alexis was a Physics major and a rather serious person. Yet, she was a very good friend and had a brilliant sense of humor with people that she felt comfortable around. Standing at a 6'1", she was the tallest in their group, and she had a very thin figure with long, stick-like legs. She had long blonde hair coming to her shoulders, ice-blue eyes and a diamond-shaped face that gave her a very stern look. Rob was a History major, and he was a great conversationalist. He was a huge history nerd, constantly amazing others with his knowledge, yet making others laugh all the time with his jokes. He was had a short and frail stature, standing at 5'6". He had short brown hair, green eyes and a friendly face. Being pretty much the only person who could make Alexis laugh, the two started dating around the middle of sophomore year and they were also planning to live together after graduation. 

Since Sara and Matt were the other pair of the group and constantly hung out together as a couple, Rob and all their other friends usually assumed they were dating or at least into each other. Sara and Matt laughed every time they heard those comments and Alexis rolled her eyes, usually saying something along the lines of "Come on... Leave them alone! They are just besties okay?" In reality, Sara was an asexual and most likely an aromantic. When she was suspicious of Matt being attracted to her around 3 months into their freshman year, she decided to talk to Matt about these feelings. He indeed admitted feelings of attraction to Sara, but he respected her decisions. This event indeed made them much closer as friends. In the following four years, Matt dated a couple other women in their college while being best friends with Sara. 

In the following 4 months, the four characters enjoyed the remaining time in their senior year, hung out together, took off items from their C... Town bucket list, and finished off their studies with high honors (except Matt of course). Before the night of the commencement, the four decided to sit on the shore to chill out amid the craziness of commencement week. That was when Alexis turned to Matt and Sara, and said "Rob and I are moving to St. Louis next year." Matt and Sara let out a scream and jumped in their place out of excitement while Rob did a face palm and said "Oh wow... Only you could ruin such good news with such an amazing dryness, honey!" Alexis turned to Rob and kissed her forehead in response "I know, and I know that's why you love me!" Rob shrugged and said "True!" Shortly after, Sara got up and gave a huge hug to Alexis and Rob, saying "I am so happy that we will be together next year too!" Rob nodded and added "Yeah, I was expecting us to get very emotional and drop a good amount of tears at the end of tonight, but hey! We are getting emotional in the opposite direction!" 

Following the commencement, the four packed up with the help of their families and moved their belongings to St. Louis. During the summer, Sara and Matt found a two bedroom apartment in the nice neighborhood across the road from the university. Alexis and Rob found a more modern looking apartment near the Central West End district, which was where their jobs were. While Sara and Matt had decided to continue in academia, Alexis and Rob wanted to discover other options. Rob was working at the special collections section of a library, while Alexis was working as a data analyst in a start-up company. The four explored the city and enjoyed the summer events.

August meant the beginning of studies for Sara and Matt though, so they started to spend more time as a pair when the semester began. Living together was a quite interesting experience for both, since they never lived together in spite of being best friends. They always shared a nice meal at the end of the day and spent time relaxing and chatting in their living room. "I am so happy that we bought this couch! I have no idea what we would do without it!" Matt said, turning to Sara that was sitting next to her while leaning back comfortably on the couch. "Yeah, maybe you would have become less of a couch potato, my dear!" replied Sara, patting him on head. "Stop it! You know how much I hate when you do that!" said Matt with a playful tone, which was followed by Sara wrapping her arms around hm and leaning her head on his shoulder. This was not a first time: The pair developed a habit of cuddling on the couch during the past couple of weeks. This was completely platonic though-well... at least for Sara. On the other hand, Matt could not help himself but become more and more attracted to Sara as they became physically closer. 

            Around September, Matt and Sara started to work in their first lab rotations, which meant more stressful times for both of them. Even though they loved the work that they were doing, it still required a lot of mental power and hard work in addition to the effort they were already putting into their grad-level classes. Matt was working in a lab in the Medical School that was aiming towards shrinking tumors with a novel drug therapy. Sara was working in a lab that was studying evolution models by using a particular bacteria species. Around this time, Sara started to take a better notice of the lack of organization that Matt had. She didn't bother herself with his room of course, but the mess he was creating in the living room was enough by itself. One day he decided to talk to Matt about it, which turned into a heated argument. "Oh, do you have any idea how much time I have to spend in my lab! It is so demanding" Matt said with a rather loud voice. Sara folded arms on her chest and gave a mocking smile to Matt, "Oh, of course I forgot that you are the only one who is attending grad school right? How stupid of me!" Matt realized that he went too far and said "Oh, I, yeah, you are right." They stood up staring at each other for a couple of seconds and gave each other a huge hug while sobbing. "Oh my god, what is this place doing to us!"  Sara said. Matt said, "Yeah, I guess we didn't realize how stressful grad school could be." After the hug, Sara held Matt's hands in her hands and said "Look, Matt! We are best friends, and I wanted to let you know that no matter what happens, we will be the closest supporters and allies of each other’s okay?" Matt, whose heart was beating faster because of his hands being in his lovely Sara, replied "Yes, Sara! I promise to always look after you and support you no matter what happens" while trying to hide his beyond-platonic feelings. Sara said "I promise you too! We will be friends forever" and gave him another hug. Having a slight sinking feeling of disappointment in his chest due to the reminding of the bitter facts after hearing the last sentence Sara said, Matt forced himself to smile and said "Yeah, friends forever"

Needless to say, an unfortunate accident would soon test their promises.