Little girl (Extra chapter #2)

Inside of a worn down house, where you could hear the sound of metal rattling against itself by the effect of the wind, in a room where the only things inside worth of mentioning were the mold growing on the walls, a window letting the sunshine in, an old chair that might as well be considered trash by the poorest of commoners, and a famished little girl of about 4 years sleeping on it, with her head dropped to one side, drooling.

Outside the room, muffled grunts and Tak Tak sounds of two people fighting could be heard. this place is the houses' kitchen, living room, guest room, and much more— the house had three rooms: the one with the sleeping girl, the place where the couple was fighting, and the room where the couple slept in. the house had no bathroom, and whenever the people in the house wanted to relieve themselves they had to go to the latrine outside.

The couple fought day and night, mostly because of their of funds: the two people met years ago, decided to start a relationship, then the child came to be. The man, not wanting to have a child, decides to raise her to such an age that would allow her to be sold to some pervert. The woman, instead, wants her to be rented to some pervert.

If only they were smarter.

And so they fought over meaningless things like these to avoid facing the reality of their situation— That the guy hasn't had a proper job since the moment the woman became pregnant, or that the woman, having had a complicated delivery, making her unable to work either.

They probably fought over meaningless stuff to avoid facing their reality, really.

"No, no, no! I'm telling you, all you have to do is go and get a job! we groom her and then we can live off of her earnings!"

"Easy for you to say, woman! It is easier if we just spend the minimum. I tell you, she only needs two more years until some Viscount will want to buy her, and then we can have some easy years!"

"And then what!? Don't kid yourself, you barely work as is and you think after having some easy years you will want to work again!?"

"Yes, of course I will! after having it easy for those years I will be completely recharged!"

"Ha! nice joke you bastard"

"What did you just call me!?"

"I called you a bastard, what will you do about it!? you scrawny bastard can't even beat a woman!"

"If I don't show you your just medicine tonight I will cut my balls off myself!"

Tak Tak

While the people outside begin their fifth fight of the day, the little girl slowly, just ever so slightly, opens her eyes. She can hear the fight coming from outside, as the doors are not made out of the best wood, and thus can't block much of the sound, even if the fighting couple don't scream at each other when fighting, and are more of the 'silent' type of fighting couple.

She gathers her being and slowly, very slowly, straightens her back while opening her small eyes, bit by bit. her child body hasn't had the best bed out there, and as such, her butt and back are hurting. even so, she doesn't complain, as if all this didn't have a thing to do with her. defense mechanism? Perhaps.

Her stomach begins to growl, and so the little girl stands up and walks towards a small corner of the room, where she takes off a small piece of the wooden wall, revealing a little plate that has some rye bread, also called black bread. she gathers her strength and grabs the bread, then takes small bites off of it, making sure to eat slowly to appease her stomach as well as she can.

The couple outside continues to fight, and today, they reach higher grounds. The male, having completely lost himself to the rage of having is virility defied, grabs the small lamp which was sitting on a small table that was used to hold the lamp, to eat, and to sit in if necessary, and throws it at the woman while cursing.

"Eat this, bitch!"

"What the hell are you doing!"

The woman dodges as best as she can, but not being in a condition good enough to do, the lamp hits her on the leg, making her fall down. She screams in pains, while the man grumbles like a little child, refusing to plead guilty over his actions.

When she calms the pain down, the first thing she does is curse at the man

"Bastard, look what you've done! you've spilled all the oil in the lamp, now we can't even see at night!"

"It's your damn fault for being a pain in the ass"

The woman slowly stands up, after which, she begins to walk towards the counter, inside of which are the few utensils in the house. the man, not knowing what she will do, just stands there with a puzzled expression. She slowly opens the counter, before taking out the single cooking knife. a knife with almost no edge, filled with rust, but enough to stab the man to death.

"What are you doing, what are you doing!"

"Out! you either leave with your legs, or I leave you inside a ditch instead!"

"Calm down, p-put the knife down, woman!"

"I said OUT"

"w-where do you expect me to go!?"

"I don't care, I'll count to 3 and if you don't leave using those wimpy feet of yours, I'll feed you the little girl"

"Fuck! fine, it was about time I left you two pieces of garbage"

"3"

Along with the words leaving the woman's mouth, she begins to walk towards the man. The man, terrified at the thought of dying, decides to quickly leave the house, but not before screaming a few more curses in the general direction of the woman while closing the door with all his might.

The moment the woman is left alone inside the room, she drops to the ground and begins to cry. 'What did I do to deserve this' she thinks.

The woman who is now alone in the room stands there with a blank expression on her face, the knife still pointing in the direction of the door. She stays like that for a few minutes, before slowly, ever so slowly, lowering the knife. her arm goes down, and when her arm can extend no more, the knife drops, issuing a dry sound when it impacts the moldy wooden floor. when the sound of the metal stops, she begins crying, before she drops on her knees to the ground and continues to cry like that.

the clock ticks away and the woman stops crying. she walks towards the counter and takes out a small cigarette, one of the few vices the couple spent their money in. She lights the cigarette with a matchstick and takes a puff. the cigarette is slowly being consumed, and when it is at the halfway point, the woman coughs. her cough gets stronger and stronger, probably due to the woman's poor health, and soon comes a point where she is out breath. she drops the cigarette to the ground and pats herself with both hands to try and bring air back into her lungs.

in the meanwhile, the cigarette that was still burning drops on the floor and slowly begins to approach the spilled oil. and then, with a hiss, the oil catches on fire.

the woman, who has by this point already started to scratch her throat with her fingers out of sheer desperation, has her face red, eyes out of focus and her lips are beginning to turn purple. soon after, she loses her consciousness.

The fire that had started just some seconds before, begins to spread slowly, due to the high humidity in the air due to the poor ventilation, and the moldy floor. nevertheless, smoke begins to gather, and soon after the smoke enters the room with the little girl inside.

Whenever the couple used to fight, the little girl would completely turn a deaf ear to it all and instead look outside the window, completely zoning herself out of everything happening ever so closely to her. the smoke creeps towards her, and she manages to catch the scent of the smoke. The little girl turns around to see the smoke creeping in between the door crevices. she has by now started to pay attention to whether there is any sound coming from the other side, and after confirming that no sound comes from outside the room, she decides to walk towards the door.

she approaches the door step by step, not wanting to be heard by a possibly sleeping couple in the room next door, and when she is in front of it, she opens the door. As soon as she opens the door, smoke begins to stride in, making her cough. she bends her small legs to avoid the smoke which by this point is at the height of the little girl. The little girl catches back her breath and looks outside of her room. the worlds divided, one side her room, the other side a blazing inferno, the little girl doesn't panic.

she quickly realizes the impending danger and so turns around, towards the window. she hastily runs towards the window and tries to open it, at first to no avail, as the window is just as old and unkempt as the rest of the house, in turn making it be stuck. she walks towards the chair, intending to lift it up to break the window, but alas, her small and frail body lacks the strength to lift a chair, no matter how crappy it is.

With no more options, the little girl stands there, intending to face her impending demise and accept her fate. she probably would think 'how unlucky' if she were a little older, and had had a better education which had allowed her to form such complicated phrase for a small child.

"Child!"

She hears a cry coming from the direction of the window, to which she slowly turns around. Outside the window, a man in his thirties wearing a jacket signals her to move, while crying the same intention with his mouth

"Move, I will break the window open!"

The girl grasps the message the man wants to convey, and moves towards the wall on the side, at the same time standing as far away from the fire as possibly can.

Bang Bang Bang

the savior outside hits the window thrice with a rock the size of a fist, breaking the window in multiple sections. he then uses the same rock to remove most of the left-over window, enough to allow the little girl through. he then removes the jacket he was wearing and throws it in front of the little girl's feet

"Cover yourself in that jacket, and come to me so you don't cut with the glass"

The girl grabs the jacket with her little hands and covers her body as best as she can, before walking towards the man on the other side of the window. when she is close enough, the man grabs her and pulls her through the window, bringing her to the world outside, but not content with this, he carries the little girl away from the fire that has at this point started to consume the little girl's room as well.