Spring, 1999
Chicago, IL, USA

The girl lay there, in a cold, white bed, in a cold, white room. Pristine curtains were drawn over the window, shutting out the serene night sky. Who ever was it who foolishly thought that the dying shouldn't feel moonbeams upon their face or witness the twinkling of an infinite field of stars? This child's only stars were the steadily glowing LED's of the artificial support system by which her parents, in unknowing cruelty, sought to prolong her suffering life.

For a moment, I too wished that I had the power to heal the cancer eating at her heart, to enact a miracle and resurrect the damaged organ. Miracles do happen... but they are wrought by those with more learning than I. Soundlessly, or so I thought, I crept into the room, followed by my mentor, my companion. Him I could beseech for her mortal salvation... but one look into the gaze she turned my way sent all such desires fleeing. She was prepared to shed this diseased corpse in which medical science kept her trapped. She would not believe in any miracle now, and the fiery lashes of disbelief would scorch anyone who so tried.

I don't know how she knew I was come, and why for, but she did. It was evinced in her smile, a weak gesture for a complete stranger. The sick, the aged... they seem most often to Know. A shameful feeling washed over me, at the thought that this dying girl was struggling through the tubes and masks to offer comfort to ME, when I had actually come to give HER the ease she sought, but was unable to provide for herself.

But now was not the time for self-recrimination. I had a task, and this girl must be sent upon her way into her next life before I or my mentor could be discovered here. The Technocracy builds these places, these aerosol-stinking cesspits of morbidity called hospitals, and getting caught was not an option. Something in me prompted my actions now, to take up the girl's frail fingers, to smooth her hairless brow. One more moment I studied her, to be sure. There can be no mistake in these matters. Another precious moment, then a simple gesture towards the machinery.

So new was I, that it was not yet in my power to hasten much of anything. In this testing, it was I who was to determine how it should go, and what should be done, but it was my mentor who would provide the power to do it. However, I had merely expected him to pull the plugs from their sockets while I held the girl's hand, watching with Sight until the chaos of her body stilled.

In what I grew to know as typical fashion, he slagged them from the inside, leaving the panels perfect but the workings crumbled.

It was a struggle to hold my peace as I felt the wave of power that battered the mechanical sentries, to continue to offer a calm, caring presence as the young woman's heart struggled through its last beat. He must have worked some additional trick as the same time, for no crashcart of electric shock pads and adrenaline came rushing upon us, and I attended the moment of her death in all solemnity, before quietly lowering her hand. I was unaware off the tears on my cheeks until my companion brushed them away, urging me gently out, escaping the cold, white corridors with the pale washed-out hues of color. I looked back, once, then a final thought occurred to me.

I never knew her name.