Rebecca Ladouceur sat on her bed with a blanket wrapped around her and started plucking away at the strings on her guitar.
With her heart feeling as though a belt were cinching it tighter and tighter, the words flowed out of her.
"Started out with a pulse, got to blood work, then came dizziness and seizures…"
She wasn't sure where the music would take her, but she knew exactly who it was for:
All the children who have, or are suffering, at the hands of cancer.
Last week, after learning that Lilee-Jean Putt had succumbed to brain cancer, Ladouceur, a Grade 12 student at Chilliwack Secondary, started thinking about the two-year-old, who "didn't even get to live out her life," and the hurt her family, friends, and the community at large was going through.
"I started to think about how I'd feel if someone so close to me would have passed from cancer, especially someone so young," she said. "It would really hurt."
Ladouceur wanted to do something to help quell the pain, to let people know they weren't alone – which is how her song Fearless came to be.
"I really wanted to be able to touch people's hearts," she said. "I wanted to open people's minds up, make people feel like they will never fight alone."
The 16-year-old sings about the effects of cancer, the unfairness of cancer, the strength of its victims.
All the time I asked why. I'm so young and innocent. I don't know why it's happening to me, oh so fast…
She isn't looking for fame, isn't looking for money, she's just looking to help mend Chilliwack's broken heart.
"So many things have happened this past year, so many young people passing," she said. "Suicides, bullying, cancer… it's just all so emotional."
I'm so fearless…
Ladouceur song can be heard on the website http://soundcloud.com/beccaa-anne-jacqueline-ladouceur/fearless-rebecca-ladouceur/s-gst1R