"Daddy!" "Daddy!"
A small chubby girl runs into a room and jumps on her dad's lap.
"Hey, what's up, my little Princess?"
Dad puts aside the newspapers that he'd been reading for some time with a smile on his face.
She's always running around the house and everywhere she could set her little foot on, bursting with energy.
"I want a hug!"
Rosy cheeks, breathless from her latest adventures playing hide and seek with the kids next door, she's wearing a beautiful knitted dress that mum had made for her. She never really liked wearing them, but mum always insist that she should behave and wear like a girl which she doesn't really cared, obviously.
"If a hug is what my Princess wants, she must have it," dad says lovingly.
She squeezed her dad's hand while he hugged her.
Feeling safe and comfy, she must be the luckiest kid in the whole world to have parents that doted on her. Even though they were always not by her side, she still have grandma taking care of her.
Two sisters, but they rarely really accompany her as they are grown ups. Busy with studies and sometimes dating with casual guys.
They were beautiful, and she had always thought that she wanna grow up and be as awesome as them. Other than that, there's not much connection between them while she's still a kiddie.
In fact, grandma's her best friend, and she thinks that grandma must have felt the same way too.
She smiled happily.
Years passed, and she is turning 12 years old in another couple of months.
She's excited and thinking of what will dad and mum get for her this year.
"Sandy, you know I've already got a lot of plush toys and I hoped that I will be getting something else this year."
"Mum actually threatened to throw away Carol last month and finally relented when I said bye to her with teary eyes."
"That's so scary! We must not allow that to happen again."
Sandy is her first plush toy. It looks like a cat with a flat body, wearing a yellow and green polka dot dress.
Sandy didn't respond and will never be able to respond but she didn't mind anyway.
Most of her childhood were spent chatting and playing with plush toys alone and she'd gotten quite used to it.
After chatting with Sandy for about an hour, she finally placed her sitting beside Carol, the pink doggy doll and ran to see what grandma's doing.
Sleeping soundly at night, she was awakened by a shake.
"Mum, I wanna sleep." Turns around and pulls blanket as she's feeling cold.
"No, you will have to come with me."
Getting on a car, with a driver she barely recognize, she sits silently with mum on the backseat.
She saw both her sisters get on another car but she does not know the reason why.
Got a little fidgety after few minutes in the car, unsure of what's going on.
Mum turned around and looked at her.
"Ling, dad's dead."
"Huh?" The only response a 12 year old kid could manage.
"Dad's not coming back to us anymore."
She did not really understand what had happened to dad. Only that mum had told her dad's gone. But where?
Moments of silence is indeed deafening.
Dad's friends brought them to the Government Hospital in the town.
Walked through a path with grasses and finally arrived at an isolated building.
Peeking through the scissors retractable doors, she saw her dad.
"Kneel down, girls. This is your dad."
She kneeled obediently alongside her two sisters.
Straining her eyes, she managed to get a clear view at dad.
What she saw, was not what she expect to be.
An image that she could never get out of her mind for the rest of her life.
Dad's lying on the mosaic tiled hard bed.
He seemed to be sleeping there.
She could see his head and then her gaze stopped.
Drip, drip, drip..
Blood trickled from his head to the floor, forming a dark red pool of blood.
It finally dawned on her, dad's gone forever.
