A/N: This is how I think Daniel saw his parent's die andis fromhis point of view.
We almost missed our plane heading for New York, but we made it to the terminal just as they were boarding. I was somewhat excited and sad at the same time. Egypt was all that I knew and had never been to the States before. "What's New York like mommy?" I asked once we were up in the air.
She looked up from the paper she was reading and smiled. "It's big. With lots of people, buildings, and parks. Did you know that I met your father there at the University?"
I smiled and nodded. "Yup. You were giving a lecture and when you were leaving the room, daddy ran into you because he was looking at a map of a pyramid."
Mommy smiled and said, "That's right, Danny."
"It's Daniel mommy. You know that." I complained.
She laughed softly and tousled my hair. "All right then, Daniel. You're right."
We made our connecting flight at Lisbon, but it was delayed for two hours, so when we finally took off, I was getting tired of all the sitting. "I'm board." I mumbled to myself.
My dad heard me and said, "Board huh? Well I think I can fix that." He pulled out a piece of paper and started writing on it. He then handed it to me and said, "See if you can't figure out what this is."
I stared at it. There were hieroglyphics, but I didn't know what they said. "What does it say, daddy?" I asked.
He looked at me and smiled. "That's the challenge."
I frowned and pushed my glasses up with my finger. They were always slipping down. I tried for awhile, filling in some stuff, but fell asleep. Daddy woke me up as we were landing. Soon we got our luggage and were walking outside. I looked around with a mixture of fear and amazement. I had never seen so many people at once. But the amazement soon wore off and I got scared. I was used to the desert and Cairo, not all of this. There were to many noises and people and the air smelled dirty. A lady with long blond hair walked up to my parents and said she was with the museum that my parents were going to work at. I was so shy that I tried to hide behind mommy's legs, but couldn't because I was so tall. Daddy quickly introduced us and the lady, whose name was Carissa, asked me how the flight was. And she called me Danny. I told her that it was long and that my name was Daniel. She thought that it was funny, and soon we were in her car and I fell asleep again. Mommy woke me up when we arrived at the museum and said that I had to play by myself while they worked. I told her that I was fine with that and she gave me a hug. When she was hugging me, I got a feeling that something bad was going to happen, but I couldn't figure out what. I went outside and entertained myself for awhile, but then there was nothing to do so I went back inside to watch mommy and daddy work. No one noticed me as I went over to where they were. Stopping beside a glass case filled with pottery, I watched them as they were help lowering a stone column for the pyramid that was going to be in the exhibit. What happened next I would never forget. Suddenly, the column fell onto mommy and daddy, crushing them. "Mommy! Daddy!" I cried out, but my voice was lost among the other workers who were trying to raise the column. I slid down to the floor and hugged my knees, crying. They were gone. I dimly heard the other people talking.
"Call 911!"
"We need to get that column off of them."
"Let's move! C'mon people!"
"Oh damn. Their kid's here and saw it."
"Call social services."
"Does he have any living relatives?"
"I don't know. What does the file say?"
"There's a Nicholas Ballard, but there's no phone number or address."
They later told me that a link in the chain holding the stone had broken and that there was nothing anyone one could have done and the medical examiner said that they died instantly and didn't suffer at all. But that was a small consolation because I was left alone in a strange city with no one to care for me. They found my Uncle Nick and he came for the funeral and later took me to a diner for lunch afterwards, but he didn't want me so I became a foster kid.