In Death's Shadow

Chapter 1

When I was five, I watched my grandma die.

My mom had dropped me off so grandma could watch me, which wasn't all that hard. At the time I had a mighty obsession with trains, and with an episode of Thomas the train engine on the tv and a crate full of wooden connector tracks in front of me; I could sit still for hours.

To me, my grandma was really old, ancient enough to have lived during the civil war. Her carpet smelled dusty and her couch was both incredibly soft and incredibly stiff at the same time. She used tons of skin creams and incense, not to mention the few half smoked cigarettes in the quarter bowl next to the musty recliner. Pill bottles made a forest on her kitchen counter, oranges and whites galore. It smelled like a female prison but I was five and couldn't have cared less.

When the episode was over, that or the commercials came on, I had managed to tear my attention away and look at my grandma. In the moment she seemed asleep, with her wrinkles even droopier than usual and her mouth just a little wider than normal. Relaxed. I was too dumb to check her pulse, or notice the near empty prescription bottle the police found later tipped on the coffee table.

Instead I got to my feet clumsily, my favorite train car clutched in my hand as I walked towards grandma. Before I was even 3 feet away something stopped me. Not like a brick wall but like a feeling asking me not to move further. I saw it though. Right there as if it had been there the entire time. A shadowy figure that seemed to be comforting Grandma and looking at me with sympathy.

Looking at my limp grandmother I suddenly knew what death was, and knew who the shadowy creature was. I don't remember being scared, but looking back I know I should've been. Grandma in the arms of death looked at me and said goodbye.

Mom came and got me 2 hours later.