Child Without a Voice.

Chapter Nine

"Mr Peterson?"

Came the cold, flat-toned and yet empty voice of the doctor. His sudden address surely took Damian by surprise, throwing him off-guard a little as a result. Without waiting for a response from Damian, Zachary continued.

"Your daughter's case has certainly been a tough one, to fully get to grips with."

He paused for a moment, before going on.

"As I'm sure you are more than aware, myself and my team have been doing everything we possibly can for her."

Zachary then placed a gentle hand on Damian's shoulder, making him jump a little.

"However, as is often the case with these kinds of casualties; we have run into a fair few difficulties, along the way."

It was this, that finally caught Damian's attention more than anything. He stood-up quickly, putting both palms to his forehead, as he did so. The doctor allowed him a few moments to collect himself, before continuing on with the harrowing news.

"Such difficulties have meant that procedures being carried out on your little girl, have not exactly gone in accordance with what we had planned."

After speaking such heart-stopping, mind-numbing words, the doctor then came to another, much longer pause. Whether it was because he could see how much the news was affecting Damian, or due to how hard it was to relay it to him; it was tricky to tell, for certain. It seemed that both parties were having trouble taking in what had happened.

"As much as I deeply regret having to tell you of this, Mr Peterson... She didn't make it through. She simply wasn't strong enough to fight against her injuries, after losing so much blood. I'm so, so very sorry."

From that moment, nothing more Doctor Claudio could say, could help ease the shocking pain Damian now felt in his shattered, crumbling heart. He almost couldn't believe what he had heard – his precious young Sadie, now ripped clean away from his empty, shaking arms forever more. All Damian could do in response, was fall to the floor in a crumbled, tattered mess of heartache, wrenching pain and stinging tears.

The calming, starlit night of little Sadie's funeral was but a solemn one. There were little to no clouds to be seen in the darkened skies, and the gentle whistling of the quiet wind, was all that accompanied the muffled mutters of the attendees. As far as Damian was concerned, however, he might as well not have been there. This was not out of malice, but merely due to the way in which his mind was simply not retaining any of what was being said. Even when it eventually came to his turn to speak, it was almost as if Damian's mind felt totally detached from his body. He knew he was talking, but the words were a free flowing river from his dried-up mouth. Desperately scanning the faces of those he was addressing, for any signs that he was saying what they wanted to hear; he saw nothing to suggest his words had wronged anyone so far. With a shaking voice and an inability to fight back the tears that stained his face, Damian nervously continued on. Although by this point in his dry speech, the people he was addressing were gradually becoming more blurred, through his streaming tears of truly empty sorrow – buried deep within his heavy heart, now a place of nothing but weighted guilt and regret for what happened to his little Sadie. The one little shining light of his long life.

It was at this point, that Damian's stare suddenly became fixed on a small, fragile-looking figure in the near distance. They appeared to be a young girl, roughly around the age Sadie was when she was killed. Surely, Damian must have been imagining things? The little girl he was seeing right now, looked like no ordinary girl. Her skin was pale, and the light from her eyes had been almost completely drained. Damian could feel the weight of those empty, pitiful eyes staring straight into his very own. It was almost as if she was trying to tell him something, to get a message of some sort across. The young girl reached out a hand, a mere foot or two away from Damian's which lay limp at his side. Her facial expression was blank and she wore a simple, white dress. Her hair was worn in two pigtails, each of which was tied with a small pale blue ribbon. On her feet were a pair of small, white, flat shoes and ankle-length white socks. She appeared much like any other girl her age. That is, apart from one major, highly visible difference to her overall outward appearance.

The entire right-hand side of the little girl's face was stained red with blood; along with the short, blonde bangs of her soft, shining hair. She appeared different somehow, almost as if there were a certain aura about this particular young girl. Damian wanted, with all his being, to either scream out or run away. But in spite of this, all of his senses were grounding him to this very spot. His legs felt rooted to where he stood, and the overwhelming feeling of terror was taking over. It were almost as if he were trapped, within his own body. Who was this little girl and just what was she doing here? More importantly, just why did he fear her so?

"You... you will pay heavily, for what you have caused."

Spoke the disembodied voice, its owner simply standing and staring, straight into the face of Damian. There it was again, that horrific feeling of utter dread within his very bones. The very feeling which was preventing him from making any sort of attempt at escape; as his body, soul and what may well have been his entire being was simply rooted to the spot. His already quickening breathing was becoming much faster and his vision more and more faded. Everything around him was quickly becoming a mere blur, making it almost impossible to properly define anything.

The eyes of the young girl appeared wide and almost sunken in, to an extent. Her rough-looking skin was hardly recognizable, as it was covered in dirt, dried blood and bits of what appeared to be mud. Her white dress looked as if it had been torn in places, as did the two ribbons which adorned her hair. Drops of blood fell occasionally from each eye, proceeding to then trail slowly down her withered, worn out face. Her whole body was covered in dried dirt and bits of mud. Her dress was ripped, right across the bottom and had tares in both arm holes. Her face was blank and expressed no emotions, of any recognizable kind.

Almost as if out of nowhere, the young girl's immediate surroundings soon began to change. The cool, chilling wind soon began to pick up, at an alarming rate. The skies above gradually started to grow ever darker, lit only by the cracking of occasional thunder claps. A faint whistling could be heard among the howling winds, though the little girl's mouth never moved. Damian had never before seen a ghost. But like they say, there is a first time for everything. Of all the pairs of eyes that were currently fixed on him, he could easily say hers were the most intimidating. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he knew there was just something about her. For a few brief moments, it felt as if time itself was just standing still. All around Damian, all seemed to stop dead. Trees, passing small animals and even people; all suddenly frozen in time, as if by some sort of scripted curse. To Damian, nothing at all was moving, not one little bit.

His mind however, in that moment, almost resembled a raging, crashing ocean of confusion, hurt and worst of all; outright anger. Anger at the one person who, in the blink of an eye, had taken away what had been his whole world. Sadie and Damian had been as close as a father and daughter ever could be. The two of them used to go everywhere together and were practically joined at the hip. Now here he was, standing in-front of the people he hadn't heard head nor tail from in years. Telling them all about just how much his only daughter had meant to him. It almost seemed all too surreal, to be actually happening to him.

Suddenly, as if almost on cue, there was the sound of a young voice. It sounded pained, as if the girl were still suffering terribly.

"Why, Damian?"

He turned sharply at the mention of his name, glancing to the left and then right of himself. "Why did you have to let me die?"

Following such harrowing words, were two very loud, high-pitched screams just ahead of where the little girl stood. Not one other person in that cemetery seemed at all phased by what was happening. Leading Damian to believe he may be losing his mind. Was any of this really, truly happening to him right now? It was quite difficult to tell, for sure.