CENTREVILLE, Va. — It's been almost one year since Sean and Afrodita Foster lost their son.
Cayden Foster was 18 years old. He was looking forward to graduation from Centreville High School and to college.
"He had hopes and dreams for his future," said Sean Foster, his father.
On January 30, 2023, the Fosters sat inside their Centreville home, discussing Cayden's future. The avid soccer player knew he wanted to go to a big school.
"On January 30th our world was perfect," said Foster.
They talked about college and which schools they should plan visits to.
"You could see the excitement. I'm sure there was some anxiety there but you couldn't see it," explained his father.
He tells WUSA9 that Cayden went up to his bedroom to play PlayStation. They could hear him laughing with his friends, unbeknownst to them, they would never hear that laughter again.
Around 10 p.m. Cayden's parents headed to bed, stopping by Cayden's bedroom to say goodnight.
"I'll never forget the last thing I heard from him was I love you too," said Foster.
They all went to bed. The next morning was January 31, 2023. Afrodita says she went into Cayden's bedroom around 7 o'clock to wake him up.
"I said Cayden you have to get up and get ready for school," she said.
"As I approached the bed I saw he had the phone on his chest and I remember saying, Cayden you went to sleep with your phone?" said Foster.
No response.
"I went to take the phone out of his hand, his hand was very cold, I said Cayden you are so cold," she said through tears.
No response.
"I knew something was wrong and I tried to wake him up and he didn't wake up. I had no idea what happened. I just remember thinking what happened?".
She called her husband, and told him she had called 911, that she thought their son was dead.
The Fosters say police arrived and searched Cayden's bedroom. They found two blue pills in a case attached to his cell phone, that they believed were Percocets and sent the pills out for testing.
"There was nothing in it but fentanyl," said Sean.
They were shocked.
"We'd had the talks, not about fentanyl specifically because we didn't know, I knew generally it was out there but not that it was something so prevalent," explained Sean.
They hope that sharing their son's story will prevent another child from losing their life and that this sends a message to other parents.
"Parents need to have this explicit conversation with their kids. This can happen to you and it only takes one," said Foster.
To the person who gave their son the drugs, but also to the people who choose to sell fentanyl guise of other drugs, the Fosters have a message.
"They have completely destroyed everything. Now it's just a long slow death. All we've got left is this to try and stop this from happening to other people like us. He was our only child. we have nothing left and they took that from us," said Foster.