“No Mariel, this idea of yours is -that- bad. She’s one of our kin, and if you’ve forgotten… Our kin is being hunted down, mistreated and placed in camps.” Siravin sighed. It had not been long until he had caught wind of the visitor. In fact, he claimed to have simply walked past and noticed a slight odour that was not common to him. He had caught her red-handed while clothing the frail body. His appearance had frightened the child to no end, and it had taken no small amount of convincing to calm the girl down.

“We could at least find her parents…”

“Mommy and daddy are both gone. Daddy was dragged off by soldiers for having done something bad… And mommy left through the gates a while back.”

“Dead then… Great…”

“Siravin!”

Realizing his mistake, he visibly braced for another round of comforting, but the girl merely returned to him a blank stare.

“Why don’t we give her some serum too?”

“Sure… Every drop you waste, shortens our workable time… And there’s no way they’ll let a child come along with us… Also. Did you consider what could happen? We don’t even know if her body can even handle the changes it brings.”

“I have an idea.”

They both turned to look at the child, whom smiled at them both in turn. “Can you get me outside the city gates?”

“Sure we can.”

“But you’ll die!”

“Mhm, but it’s as you said, they are both dead… so, if I die too, I will see them again right?”

“N…” Mariel was just about to say something, but Siravin gave her a light kick in the shin to distract her.

“That’s right… Do you want to go right now?”

“I do!”

“First, let me just talk to him outside, okay?”

They both left the child alone and headed outside. A few passers-by threw them strange stares as they spent a good while shouting at each other. A few guards also stopped and asked about the ruckus but they both deflected them before continuing.

Exhausted, cold and finished with shouting, they just stood there staring.

“Why do you want to kill that child?”

“Because, she can suffer as life slowly leaves her, or immediately. There is nothing left Mariel. Nobody will take her in, nothing can help her. I too think that life is precious… Sometimes. But right now. If she wants to let go, like her parents did, then that’s how it is.”

“So her life doesn’t matter?”

“Not to us… No. And we have no means of doing anything for her. Her only way to survive, is to be bought as a slave… And even then, they’ll probably just kill her anyway. Stop dreaming… The world we used to live in is done for… There are new rules now, and we have to adapt, or fail.”

“It’s… Just too cruel…”

“It’s how it is… And I’ll do it alone, if you can’t.”