Death did not come quietly.
It never does for people like me.
It arrived screaming, wrapped in steel and fire, the kind of chaos that gives you no time to pray or regret—only to act.
But before that night, before the rain and blood and broken streetlight, there was a life.
A heavy one.
I was the oldest.
That single fact defined everything about me.
My name was Shawn Emile Campbell, and I learned early that being first meant being last to eat, last to rest, and last to complain. Our father died when I was sixteen—heart failure from years of overwork and stress—and our mother followed two years later. Cancer. Quick, cruel, expensive.
After that, the house was quiet in a way that hurt.
So I stepped in.
I worked construction during the day—hauling cement, lifting steel, breaking my back for minimum pay. At night, I stocked shelves at a grocery store until my hands went numb and my eyes burned. On weekends, I fixed phones, bikes, anything that could bring in a few extra dollars.
College wasn't an option. Dreams weren't either.
My siblings came first.
My younger brother Marcus was sharp—too smart for the neighborhood we lived in. My sister Leah still slept with the light on. I paid rent. I cooked. I argued with landlords and smiled at teachers. I learned how to be calm even when I was exhausted, how to swallow fear so they wouldn't taste it.
I didn't resent them.
Not once.
If anything, they were the reason I kept going.
That night, the three of us were walking home from Marcus's late study session. The rain came down hard, the kind that blurred streetlights and drowned footsteps. The alley was a shortcut. I hesitated—but time mattered, and exhaustion makes you careless.
That was my mistake.
I remember the rain first—cold, heavy drops soaking through my clothes as night swallowed the street. The flickering streetlight buzzed above us, casting broken shadows against cracked concrete walls. My younger siblings were behind me. I could hear their breathing—fast, terrified.
Then the blade came down.
I moved without thinking.
Pain exploded through my side as metal tore flesh, but I didn't fall. I couldn't. Not yet. I grabbed the man's wrist, twisted, felt bone snap beneath my grip. He screamed. Another came at me from the left. I shoved my brother back and took the hit meant for him.
Warmth flooded my chest.
Blood.
My blood.
I fought like an animal then—not skilled, not heroic, just desperate. I remember shouting. I remember slipping on wet concrete. I remember Marcus screaming my name.
The world slowed. Sounds stretched thin. My legs buckled, and this time, I couldn't stay standing.
As I collapsed, my vision blurred, but I smiled.
They were safe.
That was enough.
As the rain washed the blood away and darkness swallowed everything, my last thought wasn't fear.
It was relief.
I did my job.