[Original] Cold Hallelujah - Short Story

So this was done as some "mood writing" as I call it, where I'll find music that fits a mood I'm in and listen to it on loop while I write. While it's extremely short, not even a full page, I think it's good.

Cold Hallelujah

“Daddy? Daddy, are you there daddy?” the little girl asked as she curled in her bed, her feet up against her chest, her eyes glimmering in a strange melancholy of fear and hope, the sound of footsteps echoing throughout the room.

She wanted to get up but her body wouldn't move, something told her to simply stay put. She waited for the door to open, but it didn't. She felt the tears forming on her eyes as she asked again: “Daddy?”

The footsteps were heard again, slowly up and down the hall. Why was her daddy ignoring her, why was he just walking outside? Why would he not go and comfort his baby girl, his darling Elizabeth? Her blue eyes closed and she whispered something to comfort herself the best she could as her dirty blond hair slowly fell down her face, and she trembled.

“Hallelujah.”

The word was cold and broken, as she opened her eyes. She wanted to see her daddy, but in her depressive voice the hints of a song betrayed her to the world, revealing her to the evilest of demons and banishing her from the holiest of angels up above.

“Daddy?” she breathed, hoping for her father to open the door and save her from the overwhelming darkness, her tiny frame shaking under the sweater and the jacket and the book bag that she threw to the side and the headband, the ponytail and the long dress with the flowers, and the teddy bear that just sat by her, her arms instinctively grabbing it and pulling it towards her as she lay down on the bed with her bear.

Something told her that the footsteps weren't what they seemed like, but she watched the door behind her tear-filled eyes. Her eyelids flashed fast, and she let out a breath in sob.

“Are you there daddy?” she let out before burying her face in the pillows, the moonlight slowly peeking in through the window.

This time, her world was cold and broken as the sobs escaped her lips, her tears escaping her eyelids, every breathe she drew a delay of the inevitable.

She slowly closed her eyes, the sound of silence lulling her to bed. The footsteps she knew weren't really real, they were just the sound of the floorboards creaking.

She was alone, the darkness of the night overwhelming her senses as she cried herself to sleep, the night around her never going to end as long as she lived. The sound of the floorboards fooled her into thinking her father had come back, that he was there and tucking her in when in reality nothing tucked her in except herself.

The cold slowly ensnared her, the little girl without her daddy falling off to sleep. She'd be seeing him when she awoke, the cold so bitter and devastating.

Her body slumped a final time, her ultimate sob being let out.

And from her lips she whispered: “Hallelujah.”

And then the cold was gone.

Hallelujah.

Ah wow this one cuts right to the bone
I loved it. I loved how so very little actually happened in the story yet you could still feel it so strongly. You could really feel the desperation and vulnerability in the girl.
I liked how I could kinda guess he was already gone, since the beginning, but you eventually just outright saying it kind of gave it a climax.
I didn't really understand the ending though, about the cold being gone? It is about her now willingness to accept that her father is gone and grieve? Or what.