Skylark

The Party

An August afternoon. A small girl of four sat at a kitchen table. Her long brown hair was covering her face. She was playing a racing game on her pink Gameboy advance. There was yelling coming from the hallway. Just another typical day. First, her mother came into the family room screaming. Next came her father. The girl didn't know why her parents fought but she blamed herself. Something was different that time. Her father wielded a gun. The girl didn't notice this. She had learned to tune out the nightly screams. She focused on becoming first place in the game. She only looked up when she heard a gunshot. Her father had just shot into the ceiling. A warning shot. Her mother started crying. The girl stared in horror as her father laughed and walked towards her mother. Next, her father pressed the gun to her mother's forehead and pulled the trigger. It rang throughout the house. He pointed the gun towards her. She didn't understand what was about to happen but she knew she should get out of there as fast as she could. She hoped her dogs would be ok.

The police arrived 20 minutes later. The girl had managed to escape to the neighbor's house and tell them what happened. The nice police officers gave her a teddy bear to cry into. She had no idea what happened. The grown-up's kept saying the words 'attempted murder-suicide' which the girl was curious about. She asked the policewoman what it meant.

The woman looked at her with a sad expression and wiped a tear from her eye. "It means your daddy hurt your mommy and then he hurt himself. They've been rushed to the hospital but it looks like that they won't be coming back. I'm sorry, sweetie." She hugged the girl.

The girl was still confused but didn't say anything. Her dogs were fine.

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The girl was six. She'd been in the orphanage for two years now. Ever since that night, she'd had night terrors. Her doctor had told the matron that it was possibly PTSD but that the girl was too young for him to know for sure. The girl thought that PTSD was a bad thing and the reason that she hadn't been adopted yet.

At first, she denied her parents were dead. She would ask when they would be coming back. The answer was always the same. They were never coming back. She refused to eat until she could see them. This resulted in her sleeping more and more. That's when the matron called up a doctor friend of hers to check up on the girl. That's when the counseling sessions started to happen. She hated reliving that night. She'd had to recount the events at least ten different times to the police and then a court. She was tired of it. It made her feel like she was floating outside her body. Her mind was screaming at the doctor to stop with the interrogation. She had had enough of his questions.

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At eight, the girl was finally adopted. The family gave her a new name. Skylark Elizabeth Alouette. Mr. and Mrs. Alouette had a son named Ciel who was around her age. He was sick many times so she didn't get to play with him as much as she would have liked. That was alright with her. She was an only child and never learned how to share before. Even being at the orphanage for four years didn't help. Most of the other children left her alone for the most part. Her new parents owned a large and profitable confectionary and toy company called Kitsune Konfections, They always threw parties in their large ballroom. Lots of important people came to them. She always enjoyed sneaking off with some candy to share with Ciel if he was too sick to join them. She felt bad when he couldn't but he had their dog to keep him company. They both had the best tutors that money can get. She and Ciel both got a well-rounded education. This bonded them even more.

Sky's room was as big as the one at the orphanage. Although she had had to share that one with seven other girls so it was a nice change from that. She had a closet she could walk into where all her new clothes could hang. She had never had so many choices to wear before. In the House of the Incident, she had a small closet with only a few shirts in it. She couldn't really remember anything else about that house. She didn't want to. At the orphanage, she only had a small chest in front of her bed that contained a few meager possessions such as the bear that the policewoman gave to her all those years ago.