2 No. No. No.

Lyssandra felt the dull, numbing ache before she even opened her eyes. Her body throbbed from head to toe as she struggled to lift her heavy, swollen eyelids.

Blinking slowly, her eyes finally adjusted to the bright light filtering through the wide windows. She stared up at the hospital room ceiling and baby blue walls, not really seeing anything.

Her fingers twitched as the images of her parents erupting into flames flashed through her mind, but no matter how much she willed herself to get up and look for her parents, her body seemed cemented to the thin mattress.

Shifting her head as far as she could move, Lyssandra's eyes darted around the room, the miserable hope of seeing her parents alive and well bubbling up inside her as her lips parted, but only raspy air came out.

Instead of her parents, she saw the familiar face of Ryder, her parent's colleague and a close family friend, leaning slouched in one of the hospital arm chairs and sleeping with his head bowed to the side.

She stared at the figure sleeping in an uncomfortable position and tried to wake him up, calling out to him with a voiceless croak. Her throat was parched, and she desperately tried to gather saliva in her mouth to sooth the burning, swallowing fruitlessly and only making her cough, sending waves of pain flowing through her body.

The weak coughs startled Ryder awake, and he shot up in his chair, his eyes taking a moment to focus before realising that Lyssandra was awake.

"Lyssa," he breathed, relieved to see she had finally opened her eyes, before quickly helping her take a few sips of water.

As she quenched her thirst and settled down from coughing, Ryder could only stare at her with woeful eyes. The little girl in front of him looked so weak. With several limbs wrapped in casts, needles in her arms, and bruises that covered every inch of her skin, his heart ached for her.

They even had to cut her long, beautiful hair off so that they could operate on her head injury, so only tufts of uneven hair could be seen peaking out from the bandages that were wrapped around her head.

Lyssandra looked up at him and wanted to ask about her parents, but her voice refused to come out. He could tell what she wanted to say, however, through her desperate eyes.

The eyes that he had always thought were the exact same as her father's, were rimmed red and glistened with tears as her mouth moved like a goldfish, making no sound.

She wanted him to tell her it wasn't true. That she hadn't seen them burn in the explosion.

Ryder couldn't look her in those pleading eyes. He took in a ragged breath before slowly shaking his head.

Lyssandra trembled, her body convulsing in rejection towards the news he had confirmed, ignoring the throbbing pain the action brought.

No. No. No.

It wasn't true. It couldn't be true. They...

Her body shuddered as she shut her eyes and a single tear slide down her cheek.

Her parents were dead. They hadn't survived the crash, let alone the fire, and she knew it. She would never see them again.

"I'll let the doctor know your awake," Ryder mumbled, his own voice hoarse with grief at losing his best friend and childhood friend. "You've been asleep for three days now. I contacted Leah. She said she couldn't get any tickets to come home any faster than next week, but she's trying to come back as quickly as possible."

He told the girl silently crying on the hospital bed, before leaving the room to call for the hospital staff. The after image of the poor child being swallowed by the hospital bed, covered in black and blue haunted him as he walked down the corridor.

Alone, Lyssandra sobbed. She cried for her parents, who's lives were cut short, for the pain that was wracking her entire body, for her sister who was not by her side. She cried until the doctors interrupted the mournful silence as they walked through the door.

The doctor's heart felt for the poor child in front of her as she went through the standard checks, before asking the girl to tell her what her name was.

As Lyssandra tried to speak, no sound other than croaking came out of her mouth, making her throat burn once more and she scowled at herself.

She was frustrated at how she couldn't even cry out loud, let alone scream and release the pain and anguish bubbling inside her tiny body.

The doctor told her to open her mouth as far as she could, as she shined a torched down her throat. Her eyebrows wrinkled as she sighed,

"I'm afraid your vocal cords might have been slightly damaged during the incident. This could have happened because you were too close to the fire and you burnt your throat, or due to how hard you were shouting and crying. In this case, it might be a combination of the two, so you won't be able to talk until they recover." She explained, the nurse beside her taking notes and Ryder taking Lyssandra's hand as he looked up at the doctor.

"How long would it take before she can talk again?" He asked, concern in his voice as he glanced between the doctor and the girl on the bed.

"Her throat is in pretty bad shape. I'd say, about four to five weeks." The doctor frowned as she spoke, shaking her head. Then she went through other checks and tests to monitor Lyssandra's condition before walking out of the room with Ryder.

"She has a moderate concussion, which needs to be moderated for the next two weeks, a fractured calf on her left leg, dislocated left shoulder blade, a fractured pinky finger on her right hand, several lacerations all over her body, and a burnt throat. I'm afraid she'll have to be monitored here at the hospital for at least two to three months before she'll have healed enough to be discharged."

Ryder rubbed his eyes as he listened to the doctor's briefing, his heart breaking for the nine year old child inside the small hospital room. After sorting out the paperwork and payment for hospitalisation, Ryder walked up to the door of Lyssandra's hospital room and stared through the little glass panel at the small, damaged girl.

Something flashed in his eyes as he resolved himself to support the now orphaned children of his two best friends. He would take care of the two girls, helping Lyssandra recover, and Leah organise the funeral.

He would investigate the crash himself and find the bastard that had killed the two people that he had grown up with like siblings. He would grant Vincent and Lydia justice, for the sake of their daughters.

He swore it.

Taking a deep breath, Ryder slid the door of the room open and sat in the chair by Lyssandra's beside, taking her tiny hand in his.

"I'm going to help you, Lyssa. You're gonna get better, and you're gonna leave this hospital in a few months healthy, but you have to make sure you try to get better yourself, okay?" He spoke to her with a trembling voice as he patted her hand softly.

The girl only stared out of the window blankly. Her entire being felt empty. He couldn't even see a reflection of the room's lights in her eyes as she was lost in her own thoughts.

"Lyssa, you need to promise me that you'll get better. Please." Ryder begged, seeing the dullness of her eyes and getting hit by a wave of worry. "You can't give up on yourself. You're not alone, you still have Leah, and I'm here to help you too. You need to promise me you'll get better. It's what they would want too."

At the end of his sentence, Ryder's voice cracked as he broke down in tears.

Turning her head to face the crying man clutching her hand to his forehead, Lyssandra felt her nose sting once more as her vision became blurry.

What Ryder was asking for was so hard.

So, so hard.

But she knew that she couldn't leave Leah alone after losing their parents.

Sighing with difficulty, Lyssandra gently squeezed the hand Ryder was holding and he looked up at her face. She nodded slightly and Ryder broke out into even heavier sobs, thanking her for not giving up.

For a whole week, Lyssandra laid in her bed at the hospital and allowed the staff and Ryder to take care of her. When not being monitored and tested, or while Ryder was at work and helping to organise the funeral, Lyssandra would spend most of her time staring out the large window of her hospital room, or watching TV on the monitor since she couldn't hold a book to read yet.

She spent that week alone with her thoughts and memories, waiting for her sister to come home and visit her. She missed her sister so much, and she just wanted to see her as soon as she could, so that she didn't have to suffer from the loneliness and emptiness alone.

She missed her parents, replying the last scene she saw of them before the wreckage had exploded over and over again in her mind, torturing herself with the image of their bloody, limp bodies staring at her as she was dragged out of the car.

After a week, Leah finally arrived back home and instead of going to their empty house, she came straight to the hospital with all of her luggage. The teenager was practically a living pile of bags as she sprinted towards the hospital.

"Lyssa."

Lyssandra turned her head at the breathless, trembling voice to see her sister, pale faced with dark circles under her eyes.

The two of them stared at each other for a moment, before Leah dropped all of her bags by the door and ran towards her little sister on the bed. Grabbing her uninjured hand, Leah bawled as she hugged her stomach as lightly as she could, careful not to move Lyssandra too much in case she hurt her.

Leah had tried everything she could to be by her baby sister's side even a moment faster, but when she finally saw the frail, battered and bruised girl laying in the hospital bed, her legs felt weak.

How much did her baby sister have to suffer alone without her? It was a guilt she would never live down.

When she first heard that her family had gotten into an accident and their parents had passed away in the crash and explosion, Leah had broken down.

She had begged her teachers to let her take a three month leave to go and take care of her sister, the only one to survive the crash, and was only granted permission because she was the top student at the police academy.

She had pulled together every penny she had saved while staying at the boarding school to buy the earliest ticket back home, yet it had still taken a week. She had left Lyssandra alone in that hospital room for a week, who couldn't even speak, to suffer alone and in silence.

"I'm sorry I'm late, baby," Leah sobbed into Lyssandra's stomach, repeating her words over and over again as the two sisters cried together.