We sat in the confines of Daniel's room for at least an hour. We were discussing what that annoying D.EA.D message meant. We went through all the possible denotations of it. Everything from words to acronyms to unicorns. I groaned and sat up.

"I'm going to get something to drink," I announced.

I sigh at look at the clock--three fifty-nine.

"Danny! Danny!" a little boy's voice cried, then I saw the owner of the voice run around the corner from the kitchen. He bumped into me and rubbed his nose. A small growl rose in my throat, but froze when I caught sight of dark eyes. They looked so much like Daniel's...

"Who're you?" the little boy whined, still rubbing his nose. He stared as me. His hair was cropped short and stuck upwards. I wanted to chuckle and fix it for him, but forced the feeling away. He couldn't have been older than eight.

I couldn't even reply to his question when the gunshots went off.