The faint whir of tubing and beep of machines died down, and the colours of the world bleached from their places, pooling somewhere far from the shuddering child who’s ashy, tissue-thin skin had barely changed in the drain.

“Mami? Papi?” The child, excited, coughed through the crack of their unused voice. The two blurred and wavering figures nodded, each offering a hand to the colourless babe, the gaunt shell of a thing who now struggled free from their papery sheets. Looking back the child saw two figures huddled over where they once lay. “What about Gram? What about Gramps?”

The figures only gazed past the child at the guardians, still coloured, though muted as they blurred away. They offered the boy their hands once more.

“But Mami, I don’t want to go yet, cousin Charlie said she would teach me how to play ball” The child whined, turning back to their grandparents, only to find they weren’t there. Only black and gray, swirling in the place of the child’s old world. The figures took the child’s hands, turned them around, and began the long walk home.

“Mami, where is… where is my sister?” The figures, the perfect pair of them, both only smiled down at the child, and walked them into the light. This was how it would always be for them, until the last of the set joined them in eternity.

And as the tick tick tick of the machine became a low, keening beep, all who were there to listen began, hopelessly, to weep.