She whispered "hold your breath" then flicked off the lights.  Three floors down I could recognize the heavy thump, thump, thumping of Lucy's cheap wooden platform shoes against the cracking hardwood and I knew she was walking towards her death.  I thought I heard her sigh.  A sigh that said "not this again"... or maybe I'm wrong, maybe the sigh was saying "finally".  Lucy liked to sigh at the world so I couldn't say for certain how she felt in that moment, but I could say that she ceased to feel in the next. 

There was no sound to wake the neighbours, no resounding gun shot or blood-curtling scream...just one last thump as Lucy's body crumbled to the floor and she kissed the cracking hardwood goodnight.  Lucy's daughter, Meg, stood beside me in the dark with her hand twisted in mine, and her eyes burnt red with anger; or maybe it was sadness...  She bit down on so hard on her bottom lip that it broke open and oozed blood like tear-drops down onto her chin.  "What do we do now?" she half sobbed and half whispered into my ear.  I stared through the darkness trying to find words, but instead found myself mesmerized by the torrent of wavy ginger hair encircling her face, unintentionally picturing her mother's identical mane, flared out against the hardwood like a ring of fire around her lifeless head.

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