When The Light Fades

Part 1

It was my sister who killed the CEO.

 She said she would have done it again, but I doubt it.  I saw the guilt and sadness in her eyes as she watched the aftermath.

 My sister's name was Ella Valencia, though many knew her by a much stranger name.  But to me she was always just my little sister Ella.

 Her story started on April 22, 1982.  I was 8 years old at the time.  At first my parents and I were happy, until we discovered something.  She had a rare disease that caused her to be paralyzed below the middle of her back.  She was also deaf and mute.

 My parents were extremely sad, as was I.  We weren't rich, we lived on less than ten thousand dollars a year.  My mother washed clothing and my dad did odd jobs around the city.  I quit school when I was 16 and taught Spanish to some kids with rich parents.  It wasn't fun work, but I did it anyway.  We payed for Ella's expensive treatments and wheelchair.  She never complained about her sickness, though the doctor said the medicine and endless needles and blood tests hurt her.  But gradually she began to improve.  One day, on her ninth birthday, she took a single step on her own.  There was much celebrating in my house.  The next day I took her to her bus stop and went to work, feeling more optimistic than I had in years.

  That was the last time I saw her.

 The police called us to say that Ella had been wheeling herself across campus when she had disappeared.  A hysterical teacher informed us that she had gone around a corner and just vanished.

 My parents were crying when I came home.  The police promised they were doing everything they could.  But they never found a single clue.

 Three days later I left home.  I guess I went a little crazy.  I fell in with the wrong crowd, and, in less than a year, found myself in a detention facility.  I might have stayed there for many years had not an NYPD officer named Alex May talked to me.

 “You're not a bad person, Miss Valencia.”  He told me.  “You're just lost.”

He offered to help me get into the NYPD Academy.  I accepted his offer and was soon on my way to becoming an officer.

 When I was 20, I graduated.  I visited my parents, then left the New York City suburb for good.  I threw myself into my job, always keeping an eye out for any sign of my sister.  I never found anything, but I discovered she wasn't the only young, sick person to disappear.  

 I'll never know if I would have discovered what happened to them, because on December 27, 1999, the Apocalypse began.  Then my search was pushed to the back of my mind by a more pressing concern.  Survival.