She pulls the syringe out of the dog’s neck and checks its chest.

Nothing.

She sighs again and places the stuffed blue dog back on the floor. She takes care to rest it nicely on its side so that it’s comfortable. Even if it does not thump like her, she believes it deserves to be comfortable.

She fiddles with her thumbs, rolling them around each other, and turns to the gray walls that form her room. Her eyes find the large stain she once thought of as a horrifying creature trying to slither its way in. Trying to open its jagged teeth to birth her nightmares. Only to learn that the stain is nothing but an inanimate pattern she can study and trace and love just like the cracks she finds along the walls. A stain that kisses her fingertips with brown water. Brown water that tastes the way her metal door smells. Dirty and metallic. A stain she plays with until boredom takes over and she hopes for a new stain to appear.

But the walls all look exactly the same. There is no new stain.

She lies down, her hair spreading out on the floor around her like a crown, and stares up at the ceiling. It’s lined with a few familiar cracks she has already gawked at until she yawned. One of the cracks leads up to the single lightbulb in the room that hangs from the center of the ceiling. It’s held up by a piece of silver duct tape that keeps the bulb from dipping close enough to the floor for her to reach. She watches it cast a flickering, sterile white light across the cracks.

She frowns and closes her eyes so she can rest her vision behind the cool darkness of her lids. She pats her hand around her body and around the floor, eventually finding the drum in her tiny fingers. She picks it up and brings it to her chest to listen.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

It is a while before anything else happens.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

There is a knock on the door. She does not move when she hears it. She is too busy listening to the sound of her chest to be bothered.

“My sweet?” a voice like thick liquid says from behind the metal frame.

She doesn’t respond.

“My sweet, I’m coming in. Daddy has a present for you,” the voice sings.

The lock snaps and the door creaks open. Heavy footsteps. The door shuts and the lock snaps again.

“Now, what are you doing on the floor?”

His footsteps approach and she opens her eyes. His shadow blankets her. Big, white hands reach down and scoop her up off the floor. They carry her to the mattress and lay her on their lap.

His face is above hers but the details of it are darkened by a shadow. All she can see is the shiny silver hair, the bright blue eyes, and the glistening grin.

“Daddy?” she whispers.