Never Alone

2 : 4 2 | A M

"Don't cry, Sunshine," Dad murmured, using the same voice he always did when Mum went away. It was a quiet, soft kind of tone that sang like a silent harmony in my ears, a pleasant hum that was just the right pitch to tune me up again. Just the right pitch to tune my senses into forgetting the giant, gaping hole in my sheet music. It was the sort of voice that cut out all of the minor key and switched it to major within a fraction a second. It was the kind of voice that made me want to believe him. "She'll be back soon. She'll be alright."

He knelt down in front of me, a soft smile on his features that spoke the same message as his words and the soft pads of his thumbs as they wiped away the tears from my face.

My sobs had been reduced to hiccups, voice thick with tears as the water from my eyes retreated back into my throat. "But...but what if she doesn't come...come back." My words curled around themselves, tangling themselves in with my unspoken tears until they were incomprehensible.

Dad scooped me up in his arms, clutching me to his chest as he began to slowly walk out of the airport. I clung to him like a koala clings to its tree, terrified that if I let go then he would leave me too. Losing Mum every once in a while was bad enough, losing Dad would be like tearing my entire being in half. I couldn't survive on my own. I needed my parents. They were the only thing that I could rely on to be there.

Burying my head in his shoulder, my six-year-old self did not register the sadness of her father. She did not pick up on his tense shoulders, his taught jaw or the way that he kept turning around just in case his wife had changed her mind.

"It'll be alright Sunshine, you'll see. Mummy will be back soon." He kissed my forehead and gently placed my small frame into the back of the car, brushing my messy blonde locks out of my face so that he could see my expression properly. Seeing that I was still looking incredibly forlorn at the sudden loss of my mother, he bent down to my level and cupped my face in his hands. "Until then, you've got me."

"B...but what...what if...if you leave t...too?"

"I won't leave you Sunshine, I promise."

"Pinkie promise?"

"Pinkie promise. Now, how about we go home and grab you some ice cream, huh?"

"Can...can I have the strawberry one?"

"Of course you can, Sunshine."

That's when things took a weird turn.

Instead of getting in the front seat and turning on the radio, like Isabella remembered, he collapsed.

Dad's head was on my lap, heavy and weightless at the same time as it swayed on my knees, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. His legs lay sprawled out beneath him, hanging out the car door like some kind of murder scene. It was a murder scene. The gunshot still stained my ears.

I looked up shakily, not even fully registering that I was no longer six years old, nor was I sitting in the back of a car. Instead, I was a pale and shaking senior at Redland Highschool, eyes wide and panicked as I sat paralysed on the tiles of the school corridor.

The tiles didn't feel cold.

He raised the gun once more, hand firm and unwavering as if this was a rehearsed move that he had been practising for years. The weapon was so steady in his hands, so natural that I wondered why such deadly things were made to fit human hands. It was as if the gun added to his confidence, posture straight and taught as he towered over me, looking so much taller than he had been before. All decked out in black. From head to toe. No. Emotion. In. His. Eyes. He was terrifying. I was terrified.

But I couldn't move.

He pulled the trigger.

I let out a bloodcurdling-

-scream.

Isabella sat bolt upright, screaming into the silence and darkness of the night around her as sheens of sweat erupted from every pore in her body.

Her aunt came rushing in.

"Isabella, are you alright?"

"No...I...I...it was just a...a bad dream."

"Oh...well...are you okay?"

"Not...not really."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"I...I don't think so."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."