"She's not going to wake up."

It had been exactly seven hours since it happened, yet it feels like years since I last saw my baby smile. It started to trickle onto the news stations within an hour and by the six o clock news, it was the main headline; "Three year old critically injured in store robbery, no arrests made." It sounds so impersonal and harsh, it's not just any three year old, it's my little girl and so far the vile, pathetic people that put her in this intensive care bed had gotten away with it. She looked so weak and pale in the huge bed, the many wires attached to different parts of her chest, neck and face swamping her tiny frame and the consistent beep...beep...beep drowning out the sounds of her assisted breathing. I prayed they felt so guilty they would hand themselves in, or even better land themselves at my feet so I could handle them myself, anything less than a torturous death would be too little of a punishment for hurting her.

There was a mobile sweet shop that stopped on our road every week, the owners were lovely and I often took her up there to buy something when she behaved. This time, I was 'too tired' from work and let our teenage neighbour take her... If only I knew. It was perfectly safe, I was sat on the doorstep in my white slippers and matching dressing gown, being able to hear the faint rumble of the truck and the screams and laughter of children playing on our street. Being so pre-occupied with my phone calendar, I almost missed a young boy sprinting past on the other side of the street. Chuckling to myself, I thought he was probably late to get home, in a few years that will be her. I definitely didn't miss our teenage neighbour running up our garden path, without her. In my gut I knew something was wrong, and the horrified look on her face confirmed it. Not waiting for her to talk, I ran out into the road, slippers and all. Then I heard it.

At first, it seemed like a firework. But it was daytime, only an idiot would let off a firework during the day, the blood-curdling screams that followed assured me that it was something else. As I made my way up to the truck, the sight of two men running in the opposite direction with something small and black in their hands caught my eye but I didn't care- all I wanted was to find her. Although, when I did I wasn't sure if that's what I wanted, I wasn't sure of much if I'm honest. All I knew is that she was on the floor covered in red and I could feel the world closing in on me, my airways getting smaller and smaller, and my stomach doing flips like I had jumped out of a plane. Waiting for an ambulance I prayed that I was dreaming, that I would wake up to her smile just a little too close to my face, pestering for Cartoon Network.

A few minutes ago in the hospital relative room, I was told the last thing any mother wants to live through, and upon hearing it I wished and begged for me to be in that hospital bed, for me to be in pain instead of my baby. It obviously wasn't good news from the moment I saw the Doctors grey, deadpan face. I hadn't expected a miracle, though I had prayed for one, I just never expected to be told; "She's not going to wake up."