Danny lit another cigarette, took a drag and tried to recall that feeling that had come over him, over all of them, a moment ago. It was gone quicker than a flash and felt so odd. It felt to him, it felt like death.

Of course Danny didn't know what death felt like but he remembered his father's last moments with utter clarity. The man writhed in pain for days that felt like weeks. The lung cancer and emphysema had sucked the life out of him. Sucked the life out of him. That's exactly what it felt like, as if for a moment the life was being sucked out of all of them. Only for a moment. Danny shuddered. What had the old man said on the last day? "The light will come for you, Daniel. It comes for us, that's why we're here" Danny assumed the old man was out of his mind at that point and hoped that he was really seeing the tunnel of light at death that everyone talks about. He was just hours from the inevitable at that point. Did he know something? How could he?

"Why are we here, dad? Why did you insist that we come here?" Danny asked himself silently. Jesus and now this. He should have left Oregon a million times in the last 10 months. Why didn't he? If Danny was honest with himself, he knew that as much as he wanted to and as much as he could justify why he should, he couldn't make himself leave. He didn't want to.

Danny stubbed his cigarette out and cursed himself.  He looked up and surveyed the moment. People were still jabbering on about the lights in the sky, the feeling and how their vehicles wouldn't start. He didn't want to think about it.

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