Prologue:

The girl cried.

She cried in her sleep. She cried whilst awake. Nothing could sooth her, or sedate her. During the long nights in the hospital bed, the six year old shed silent, but relentless tears as her pain increased. The doctors did not know what was wrong with her, only that her body refused to absorb the nutrients it needed and that her bones were becoming brittle enough to break simply by transferring her to another bed.

They also knew, though decided not to tell the child, that she was steadily growing blind. While she cried, the girl would only look up at the ceiling with her milky eyes, ignoring those surrounding her bed.

She could tell that she was losing her sight, despite the doctors' reluctance to tell her. Everyday she'd gaze at the ceiling, staring down the long hospital ceiling light, examining the several dead wasps trapped in its casing. And every day this same sight became dimmer.

She wasn't daft. She was aware of the doctors' concerns. They'd tried everything they could think of but it'd changed nothing. And nobody expected her to live.

But how long? She wondered as the lights in her ward went out.

A kindly nurse had given her a small yellow teddy bear for company a couple of days after she was admitted to the hospital and, as she squinted at the darkened ceiling, she clutched the stuffed toy in a weak grasp, her bony little fingers clinging to the fabric. It had become harder to get to sleep. Every waking, moment the girl felt as though her veins where ignited, her blood pooling into the fiery inferno in her chest. The girl had learned to ignore the sweat that clung to her pale, clammy flesh, but the pains that distracted her would give her little leeway to sleep.

However, somehow, she managed to drift off, one hand grasping weakly at the teddy bear while the other gripped the unfamiliar hospital bed sheets.

That night the girl should have died.

So why didn't she?

"A miracle", the doctors would say.

"A mercy", her care workers would say.

There was only one person who knew exactly what caused the girl's sickness to fade overnight. They knew exactly why her limbs became strong again, while her flesh gained its colour and her veins lost their fire. And that girl saw them as she sat up the next morning, for the first time in months, and stared at her reflection in the mirror across from her bed. She stared into her eyes. Her clear, deep brown eyes. And, unknown to her, someone else stared back, with sadness and with gratitude.