The day began like any other.  Cecilly finished teaching in the early afternoon, and she tidied up the room after the last of her pupils departed.  A stop by the office to grab her things and to chat for a bit with Amelia and Quinn, and then she headed out.  She'd plans for dinner with a friend, and she wanted to get some chores out of the way before she had to get ready.  The meal was a treat, a combined celebration for her recently passed birthday and her friend's imminent one.  They'd chosen a fusion stir-fry place, and sizzle of cooking food made her mouth water.

Afterwards, pleasantly full and knowing her cat would be waiting on his own dinner, Lee bid her friend good night at her bus stop and got off to walk the rest of the way.  It was only a couple blocks, and she could hear chirping crickets and the buzz of cicadas, with the distant whistle of a train across town carrying on the warm wind now that the sun had set.  The day had been hot, but now it was merely comfortable.  The breeze tugged at her skirt and the sleeves of her blouse, smelling of open blossoms and cooling asphalt and salt from the ocean.

Cecilly had just turned thirty-one, but years of dance and aikido had her in superb shape.  She was tall and solidly built, with short, dirty blonde hair that framed a rounded face.  She walked with a confident stride, and from a distance it was impossible to tell she was blind.  These were familiar streets, and with her ability to "see" the world in spaces and the distance between things she moved without fear of collision.  She heard the car coming, but it had a red light and she was already halfway across the street.  Even if she'd known that it wasn't going to stop, there might not have been time to get out of the way.  It was going far too fast, and she had just enough time to realize she was in trouble before her world imploded.

The sound of the car's engine moving away was muffled.  There was something warm and hard and uneven digging into her cheek, and under her fingers.  It took a long moment for her to realize that it was the asphalt of the street, that the rhythmic noises were the footsteps of someone approaching.  She was far too disoriented to make them out in great detail, and they didn't sound quite right, but she prayed they would help.  [i]Please God, I'm not ready to die.  I don't want this to be the end.[/i]  It was more the idea than actual words, but that was the thought that ran through her head.  [i]Please.[/i]

"Oh now [i]this[/i] is no good."  The voice was playful but chilling, even in the warmth of a summer evening.  "No, no, not at all.  You were always a strange one, weren't you?  Not quite like them, but still trapped in that pretty head of yours.  Too much sadness.  You look better when you [i]smile[/i]."

She didn't know who the person was, and she couldn't manage to get enough air to tell them to call an ambulance instead of talking to her.  Her senses were scattered by confusion and pain -- was this some sort of hallucination?  The voice kept fading in and out, and it was hard to understand what it said.

"Perhaps you just need a little help, kid.  It would be such a shame if you never unlocked the gifts inside you, the ones pumping through your veins."  She thought she felt it smiling at her, as it lifted a hand.  Something warm and wet poured over her.  "Maybe a little life-saving transfusion can help you find what you're missing~"  The muscles that still responded to her control tensed, as [i]warm[/i] suddenly became [i]scalding[/i].  A sound closer to a croaking wheeze than a scream of agony forced itself from her throat and the distant flutter of her heart changed, becoming steadier, louder, feeling like it might tear itself right out of her chest.  Her skin crawled under the searing pain, and she felt like whatever had been poured on it was seeping into her, filling the gaping cavern left after her insides had somehow been scooped out.

Lee didn't hear the pattering approach of hurried steps, nor the shout of someone telling the thing looming over her to get away.  She couldn't feel the ground anymore, nor taste the copper of blood in her mouth.  There was only a wide grin, the roadkill-scented voice by her ear, the rank breath brushing her cheek.  "If you look, you can always find a reason to [i]smile[/i]."

Then nothing.