1 In a blink all was gone

It was a sunny day, as irritating as those can be, scorching moist heat, one of those days when the clothes get uncomfortable and sticky, sweat stains are noticeable in delicate or questionable places and you keep wondering why in the thousand hells did you came out of the house for?

For Lazuli the answer was easy, this day was the start of the summer, vacations were in order and she finally could take a few days to go home and relax, she wasn't a pampered little miss but none the less she was the pride and joy of her old parents, you see, she was a too expected baby, a well planned and much waited little girl in a sea of boys. She had 4 older brothers, all named after semi precious stones, Abalone, the oldest, always trying to protect the little ones, family or not, eventually opened an orphanage; Malachite, the second, was a born leader, fast to climb the corporate ladder, already married with two children, Jasper never left home and dedicated all his time in tending the old couple's needs, he inherited the family's business: an old farm. The youngest of her brothers was Garnet, he was so pretty and they wanted a girl so much that all of his baby pictures are in pretty pink dresses, loves Lazuli the most since she spared him of cross dressing for life, eventually he moved abroad to try his luck as a model and was fairing quite well.

Her parents always the loving and dotting couple, were already very old, she was conceived when her mom was already 56, the doctors couldn't really believe she was pregnant and even tried to make her abort, and almost succeeded if not for the nosy little nurse that told them "it could be a girl" in the right moment.

So in this hot day she was on the platform waiting for the train that would take her from the city to the little outskirt town that made her homesick, thinking in what was the first thing she would do upon arrival, which foods to eat first and maybe, just maybe if she should break them the news of the new boyfriend she had or wait for his arrival to introduce him by surprise, she liked surprises. She hated the one she got though.

It was just to sudden, a burglar trying to get away, a miss step and a easy trigger was all it took for her life to end, the pain of the wound didn't last long, a clean shot through the heart and all was gone.

Her last thought was to her parents how grieving it would be to the aging couple for their little one to die.