“Grandma? May I come in?”
“Of course, Nicky,”
Nick Lynx walks into the room with a tray full of Nayomi Lynx’s favorite food.
“Nick, you’re sixteen. You should be out with your friends,” Nayomi protests modestly when he sets the tray on her bed. “Have you been preparing this all morning?”
Nick nods and smiles sheepishly, ruffling his black hair.
“I don’t understand why everyone has to baby me just because I’m dying,” Nayomi pouts as she starts eating a bowl of steamed white rice. Her doctor has forced her to stay in bed and not “waste” any more of her powers and instead concentrate them on her life force, which is rapidly fading.
“Save humanity everyday of my life and this is what I get,” she adds as she drinks some soda. “I’m starting to think I’ve never made a difference in my life to anybody,”
“You made a difference to me,” Nick says quietly.
Nayomi smiles and holds her hand out, as if to touch his cheek. Nick suddenly feels the warmness of the hand on his cheek. His lips twitch into a smile.
“I still don’t understand how you’re dying,” he confesses.
“Well, the simplest way I could put this is I’m dying by old age. The force that keeps our bodies working is vanishing and sending itself to heaven. It’s a peaceful way to die, really,”
“How could you die by old age when you don’t look a day over 25?”
“Because God and I have the same sense of humor,” Nayomi remarks sardonically. “Nicky, I wouldn’t want to die any other way,”
“Yes you would. I know that you secretly want to be kidnapped and tortured and then brutally murdered so you could be investigated by CSIs and whatnot just so you could stump them with the tricks you would plant along the way,”
“You left out one thing, sweetie. The kidnapping would be a set-up,”
Nick chuckles a little as his eyes become damp.
“Baby, don’t cry,” Nayomi coos him.
“I can’t just sit here and let you die, Grandma,” he says with a hint of a sob. “Especially when I don’t understand--”
“Nick, one day you will understand, I promise,”
“That’s a pretty big promise, Grandma,”
Nayomi smiles.
“Could you do me a favor, Nicky? Could you send Gil and Remus in here?”
Nick nods and leaves to fetch his older brothers. Nayomi turns to stare out the window, which is open and allows the breeze to blow into her face. She watches two birds flutter onto a nearby tree and rest on its branch. Never before had she been so appreciative of this casual, every-day, normal scene. Normally, Nayomi doesn’t get mesmerized by these scenes. It usually takes much more glamour, more peace. Now she just savors every second of sight that she has of this ordinary spectacle.
I wish everything wouldn’t change just because I’m dying. Why can’t I just have a sudden death?
Suddenly, Nayomi sees a person covered in black clothing come out of a corner of the room. He pulls out a knife and holds it out as a threat to Nayomi.
Nayomi smiles grimly. She sits up and sets the food on the nightstand table.
“Be careful what you wish for,” she reminds herself, before letting out a silent bloodcurdling scream.

“Grandmother? You wanted to see us?”
Remus Lynx pushes his younger brother away from the room.
“Call an ambulance, hurry!” he says hastily
“How will they know where to come?” Gil retorts. He is correct; the Lynx house is in the middle of nowhere, only with one road leading to it that extends for hundred of miles before someone reaches a town or city. The Lynxes normally leave through doors to different locations all around the planet.
“Give them one of the fake addresses, then!” Remus snaps back. “And don’t let Nick come in this room!”
Remus rushes to the side of his grandmother, whose blood is splotched all over the bed. A knife is placed precisely on her heart, and a river of blood flows from the wound.
“Grandma...” Remus sobs, kneeling next to the bed. He grabs Nayomi’s hand. “No...how did this happen?”
Sapphire Lynx enters the room.
“Gil told me something was wrong,” she says, for once not smiling. She kneels on the other side of the bed, placing her hand on Nayomi’s.
“Grandma was supposed to die peacefully...Not brutally murdered!” Remus mourns, his head buried into the side of the bed.
“Who could have done this? Did this just happen now? How could we not have known?” Sapphire mutters, evidently in denial.
They suddenly hear a man clear his throat.
“Guys? You’re in the evidence,” Gil’s voice says shakily. There are a handful of uniformed police officers from the Las Vegas Police Department and two CSIs. One of them puts a hand on Gil’s shoulder and nods.
Remus and Sapphire stand up slowly, simultaneously. They step back and let the officers do their work.

“Nick, when you entered the room, did you see anybody else?” Officer Teporm asks Nick, who is sitting on a couch near the fireplace.
Nick shakes his head, staring into the blazing fire.
“I didn’t see anybody. I...I didn’t look anywhere other than at Grandma...” he replies, in a slow, shaky voice. He looks up into the officer’s eyes.
“Sir...what happened?” he asks with wide, pleading, lightning blue eyes. The officer sits down in an armchair that lies diagonal from Nick.
“Son, your grandmother was murdered,” the officer says.
Tears well up in Nick’s eyes, but they don’t leave their home.
“I promise you, I will find out what happened. And the minute I do, I’ll tell you everything I can,” the officer adds, grasping Nick’s shoulder.
Nick forces his head to nod. After that nod, he feels no presence of anybody else in the room. He can feel his chest move forward and backward, but his whole body is shaking.
“Nicky...”
Her voice...Her sweet, gentle voice...
“Nicky, honey, shouldn’t you be with your friends?”
“Nick!”
Who’s that? Who dares interrupt the voice?
“Nick, you’re in shock!”
There are suddenly many presences in the room. He suddenly sees the face of Naomi Proot. The tear-gates open and suddenly tears flow down.
“What happened to Nayomi Lynx?” he sobs into her shoulder.