A Lighter Shade of Gray

Sister?!

"Your brain was just playing a trick on you." I told myself as if trying to rationalize what I had just saw. "You heard a scream and you assumed the worst." But when the second bolt of lightning illumined the sky  I could not deny that what I had saw was the truth.

In my doorway stood a short humanoid figure, the things hair was soaked from the rain outside and clinging to torn clothing. Its feet were bare and dirty, it's arms hung by its side, but I could not see the face through the mass of hair that was sticking to it. And then a soft voice came from the horrifying image in front of me.

With its hand outstreached as if reaching for someone or something, like a whisper of wind it uttered "Please help."  And fell forward into Harmony's panic stricken body forcing her to catch the limp form.

Harmony looked in my direction as if to ask what to do as my brain slowly tried to process what was going on.

"What do I do?" Harmony said out loud panic heavily evident in her voice.

"Take it to the couch and lay it down." I said without even thinking. Slowly she picked the thing up and took it to the living room. I followed behind her, shaking the whole way not fully understanding what was happening.

Harmony carefully laid the body onto the leather sofa then slowly she reached out her shaking hand to pull the hair from the face. My stomach lurched. Before us was a small child, a little girl that couldn't have been no older than six years old. Her clothes were tattered almost as if they were shredded on purpose, grimy and disgusting. Her pale skin had large red angry looking welts on them, with some already beginning to bruise, while others seeped blood that mixed in with the rain water that ran over her bare skin. 

"Go find Sam and Marcus and grab a towel I'm going to call 911." I told Harmony as calmly as I could. But I knew my voice gave me away, I was just as scared as she was. 

Harmony just nodded and walked off into the house, quickly I walked into the kitchen and grabbed the phone, and called 911.

After two rings a voice answered from the other end of the line, "911 what is your emergency?"
Again I froze how was I going to explain that I had some child show up at my door pleading for help and was now unconscious on my couch?

"Hello is anyone there?" The voice on the other end of the phone said. I decided the best thing to do was just to be truthful about the whole situation, and say what happened.

"Yes, a young girl showed up at my door and she wound up collapsing. " I said trying to hide the panic in my voice.

"Is the child still breathing ma'am?" The voice asked, as I heard her frantically typing away on the other end of the line.

"I don't know." I responded.

"Ma'am are you near the child at the moment?" The operator asked.

"No, but give me one moment and I can be." I said half jogging back into the living room, and looking at the couch. She was gone.

"Ma'am, ma'am can you tell if the child is breathing?" The operator asked again.

"She's not there." Was all I could say.

"What do you mean she's not there?" The operator inquired.

"She's not on the couch where we left her, she's gone." I said in disbelief. The child appeared to be too wounded to move, and was exhausted to the point of collapsing, so how did she disappear into thin air?

"Ma'am I'm dispatching an officer right now to your location, in the meantime I will stay on the phone with you. Can you spot the child anywhere in the room?" The dispatcher said.

Scanning the room I didn't see her. I started looking behind the couch and around the tables letting the person on the other end of the line know that I had not yet found her. I began to panic, I had a scary child loose in my house. At that moment a shrill scream came from the back of the house and I took off running.

I made it to the sun room and threw open the door to see Sam and the ghostly child standing on one side of the room and Marcus looking stunned on the other. The small child was clinging to Sam for what seemed to be for dear life and what shocked me was he was holding her back, I guessed he noticed me because he looked over at me tears streaming from his eyes.

Heavy breaths sounded from behind me, I turned to look seeing Harmony running up to me, "I heard a scream what's going on?" She asked towel in hand.

My only answer was, "I don't know." I mean I could understand what I saw, but what I didn't know was why. Why was the strange, battered, little girl clinging to someone she didn't know? Was it because she mistook him for someone that she did know? Was she just that out of it? I looked at Sam as if trying to pry some kind of answer out of him. But he kept his gaze down cast at the little figure that had attached herself to him.

I faintly heard what sounded like a voice echoing in my ears I started looking around for the noise only to realize that it was coming from my hand where I had the phone. I quickly put it back up to my ear.

"Yes I'm here, we found her, yes she's still here." I said watching as Sam was holding the child still. "The officer and EMS are in route miss, they should be there soon."

"Ok, thank you." I said and then hung up the phone. Turning my attention back to the sight that had the three out of four of us confused. Seeing no one make a move I decided to try and get some answers.

I cautiously walked over to Sam. "She seems to trust you." I said looking at the quivering child. As she clung to him her eyes darting in every direction. Looking at Harmony, then Marcus and finally stopping on me. I could see terror in her eyes, as if she was frightened of the world around her. A loud boom of thunder shook the ceiling of the sun room, making her hide her face once again on the other side of Sam's leg.

"Oh I got this like you asked." Harmony said bringing over the towel and laying it across the child, who flinched from the unexpected contact. My heart hurt, the poor thing. She reminded me of an abused puppy. Who would do something like this? I wondered to myself. An answer came to mind and it made me feel sick to my very soul. I looked at Sam, at this point he had stopped crying yet his face was still red and covered in streaks from the tears that had dried. Even though there was still sadness still swirling in his blue eyes, the main emotion that they reflected was pure unbridled hatred.

"Sam what's up?" I asked.

"You said that she seems to trust me." Sam said his voice rattling a bit. I could tell that he was fighting the rage that was swelling up inside of him.
I nodded "Yeah I did, I didn't mean to upset you." I replied taking a step closer, toward him ready to get the little girl away from him. Shying away from me, he held her closer and said, "She should she's my baby sister."