The Devil's Pact pt. 2

"Sir, its about your daughter, Diamond."


Those words brought Sammy's world to a standstill.


"Well, sir... a man came to the school looking for one of the teachers. There was an altercation and he shot the teacher as well as five students... Diamond was killed."


There was a long pause. Sammy's mind went blank; he couldn't process it. Suddenly a wave of nausea  swept over him.

"Sir, are you still there?"


"Yeah," Sammy replied weakly.


"Do you think you could come down to the hospital to identify the body?"


He didn't feel his stomach heave or even taste the bile; he found himself looking at his breakfast from earlier. Everyone was staring at him.


"I'll be there in thirty minutes." It didn't seem real.

Walking into the cold hospital was a cold welcome for Sammy. The walls were a frigid white. A nurse hurried past; her heels clacked against the floor. Sammy's boots made no sound, but his breathing did. Every breath was deep, slow, and controlled; he had reverted to his stress training. He had to focus on breathing and keep on walking.

   The nurse with kind eyes at the reception desk told Sammy that, "The morgue is in the base floor, room zero two zero. Can I get someone to take you down there, hun?

"I'll find it."


After a long walk of controlled breathing and mindless steps he did find it. A man in black scrubs met Sammy at the door to that room that was even more icy than the rest of this building of death.

"Are you ready?"

Sammy looked into the man's eyes and saw that they were as the rest of that god-forsaken structure, unfeeling... almost dead.

Sammy merely nodded his head. Walking in he saw a short and familiar figure on a table under a white sheet. As the man in the black scrubs lifted the top of the sheet Sammy felt the bile rise up in his throat again, but this time he managed to stop himself. For a split second the face on the girl before him was not his daughter's. However, the notion that he could dictate reality simple thought force of will left almost as quickly as it came.

"Sir?"

"It's her... That is my daughter."

The man in the black scrubs began to cover Diamond's face.

"Wait!"

So Sammy stood there looking at his daughter's face.

Memories of Collete's death came rushing back with the force of a freight train. After an agonizing eight hours of labor the screaming ceased. Collete's eyes were bloodshot, her hair matted, and her face had developed a film of sweat. Her head fell back as the machines started beeping even louder. Alarms went off and people rushed in. The doctors were shouting and everything was chaos.

Was a nurse ran in he asked, "What's going on?"

She didn't say anything, she simply continued into the room.

After what seemed to be an eternity of panicked nurses and doctors there was another calm. At last a doctor started walking towards Sammy. The doctor was fidgeting.

"Uh... sir, your wife. She was bleeding internally and we couldn't stop it. However, your daughter is just fine.

For the briefest of moments Sammy wouldn't accept it, but his mind quickly turned to God.

We were supposed to be parents together. They were supposed to raise their daughter together. This wasn't supposed to happen! God, how could you let this happen?