With a series of sickening cracks and a few seconds that felt like a lifetime, her small mouth had split into a perfect line across the width of her face and as her lower jaw dropped to her chest he finally realised that his daughter was long gone. All those months of caring for a vaguely child-shaped creature in the hope that it would somehow fill the void where she had been, now laid bare before him as an utter and agonising failure.
Still, he'd taken the child-creature from its home (well, presumed home out by the old tram depot where he'd been... recreationally freeing himself from his grief) and taken her into his own home so the burden of raising her right was now his until her own flesh and blood found her and took her away. But that was a bridge he'd likely not live to cross.
Now as the reality of his actions glared balefully at him from within the blanket fort they'd spent the afternoon creating, as he felt hysteria bubble in the back of his throat, he asked himself what else fatherhood could possibly be at its simplest other than raising a child to be the best person they could possibly be.
Even if that person just ate the hamster they'd spent two months begging you to buy.
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