Flashbacks [Phan]

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Dan was forty nine.

The dim theatre lights slowly came on to light the dark room he was in. To one side of him sat Phil, his glasses down near the bottom of his nose as he slept on Dan's shoulder. To his other side was his daughter, Harmony. They had just finished watching a movie Harmony had been insisting they go to for ages, although it had ended up being much less exciting than anticipated.

Still, as they shook Phil awake and made their way out to the lobby, she smiled away and started chatting about the film they had just seen, trying her best to point out all the good things about it rather than talk about how disappointing it had really been. Across the road from where he was standing, listening to Harmony, Dan noticed a small ice cream store and pointed it out to Phil. Once he noticed it, he nodded, and Dan tapped Harmony's shoulder gently before leaning down and saying, "want to get some ice cream?"

She shrieked in happiness and started running towards the shop, not realizing that she had to cross a road to get there. Without even noticing, she had run out right to the middle of the street.

"Harmony'!" Phil called out to her. "Come on! Come back!"

She seemed to be unable to hear him as she stepped out into the next lane; directly in front of an oncoming truck.

"Harmony! No! Move out of the-!" Dan was cut of by a squishy sounding thump as his daughter's body flew a few feet away from the vehicle, only to have her legs run over by its tires.

He stood there, frozen. The only thing that brought him back to reality was when Phil finally ran out across the street, yelling their daughter's name. As soon as Dan was shocked out pf his stupor, he sprinted to catch up with Phil beside Harmony. By the time Dan got there, he was already on his phone, presumably calling for an ambulance. As he did that, Dan knelt beside Harmony, trying not to gag at the sight of her deathly pale skin and blood dripping from random parts of her body.

"Harmony? Harmony, please wake up," he said, shaking her as he fought back tears. "Please, please don't die on us." The useless pleading went on for about ten more minutes before an ambulance came along to take her to the hospital.

In the chaos, Dan and Phil were left behind, holding each other on the side of the road and hoping she was alive.