I've just realised that these chapter's get shorter and shorter each time. Oh well, when I get slightly better episodes, they'll be longer!
"Vic got hit from behind. Never saw it coming."
I saw it coming. I don't remember much of it now.
I saw my own gun in my hand.
I heard a shot and looked up.
I saw a bullet and everything was in slow motion.
Slow enough for me to see the bullet spin.
Just before it hit, I looked into the shooter's eyes and saw anger, malice and above all, victory.
When it hit me, everything returned to normal speed and I was blinded by pain.
I had been so intently remembering my own death that I didn't notice what was happening.
I was brought back to the present when I heard my own name.
"I know you and Tim Speedle were close…"
I glanced over and saw that the speaker was Ryan and he was addressing Alexx.
Yes, we were close. In fact, we still are.
Even though Alexx and I had agreed that she wouldn't tell the team about me just yet, I was begging her to tell him.
I really hate it.
Everyone talks about me in paste tense.
I am still here.
It would be so nice if someone would just say "Speed is…" rather than "Speed was…"
It would be nice, just for once.
After Ryan brought me up in conversation, Alexx was slightly cold to him for the first time since he started working at CSI.
"I don't need any more friends."
"Of course you don't Alexx. I'm here."
I knew she couldn't answer because there were people all around that would hear her if she spoke.
Which is why I nearly died of shock when her smooth voice echoed in my head.
I walked around so I was standing in front of her.
"Alexx? What just happened?"
"Timmy, I don't know."
I know I defiantly heard her, but Ryan, who was standing right next to her, didn't.
Everything was starting to scare me.
Things kept changing and I wasn't sure what I could or couldn't do.
I wasn't sure exactly what was going on.
I decided to distance myself from Alexx, just for a while.
That is how ended up watching Eric and Calleigh.
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Watching two people reading files doesn't seem like the best way to pass time, but when I sat there for an hour in the layout room, watching Eric and Calleigh learn more about their suspects, I felt the most relaxed that I have since my death.
There were three chairs in the layout room, so Eric and Calleigh had one each.
There was one empty seat.
Except that it wasn't empty, they just thought that it was.
We sat in silence; the sound of pages turning providing the only noise, unless anyone found anything worth sharing.
When they finished reading the files, they started making profiles on the computer.
Calleigh read the names to Eric and he wrote them in the computer.
The only problem was that Eric forgot the names very quickly.
By the third person, he had forgotten the first name already.
"I am never going to remember all these names, so this one, juror number three, can be engineer. And she can be soccer-mom."
I looked at Calleigh, expecting her to be angry at how Eric was putting things "out of place", and was surprised to see her smiling.
So I smiled too.
They had fun naming the suspects:
Tree hugger
Engineer
Soccer-mom
Cheerleader
Dentist
Construction Worker
It was the first fun either of them had had in quite a while.