--- 14 years old ---
Ba-Dum* 'Cold…' Her heartbeat is ringing in her eyes only to be deafened by the roaring frigid gale wind around the two of them. Lost and adrift in an icy tundra with only a few pines in sight. Slumped on their knees shivering in the raw snow she embraces her one and only friend as if her life depends on it.
--- 5 years old ---
"Get your filthy thieving hands off my produce!" SLAP!* Thud* The man sighs. "Damn street urchins ruining my business." He spits on the small girl sulking on the pavement, waving his hands like he is chasing a wild animal away.
--- 14 years old ---
Ba-Dum* 'We can't stay here…' She weakly shakes her snow covered friend, trying to wake her up.
--- 8 years old ---
"You poor thing. Would you like some food? Come with me and I'll make sure you're never hungry again." He asks the starving small girl with an outstretched hand. A glimmer of hope lights up the small girl's eyes as she takes his hand.
--- 14 years old ---
Ba-Dum* "Liz..?" With a burning throat, she barely makes a whisper asking for her friend.
--- 8 years old ---
"Just sign your adoption papers here and here sweetie, and we will take care of the rest." She says with a sweet voice. The illiterate small girl nods with a smile and does as told.
--- 14 years old ---
Ba-Dum* "Stop sleeping Lizzy, we have to keep moving…" She encourages her friend, trying to ignore her own freezing body to not discourage her. Words playing on repeat in her mind: Hungry, nauseous, tired.
--- 9 years old ---
"Get to work girls, those pants won't sew themselves!" A Man yells fiddling with a wooden rod in his hands. The small girl sits in a large room with a few dozen other boys and girls, her hands sting from constant irritation of handling the rough fabric, worried that she might bleed on her work.
--- 14 years old ---
Ba-Dum…* "..." Her friend is still unresponsive, she wants to say something but barely a sound comes out. her sight is getting blurry.
--- 11 years old ---
"I promise we will get through this." The small girl's new friend said at the end of their nightly whispering. Both of them snuggled under their thin bed sheet made out sewn together leftover fabrics trying to keep warm in the cold warehouse.
--- 14 years old ---
Ba-Dum…* 'Liz I trust you, we will get through this…' Her thoughts are slower, trying to hold on to her only pillar in her weakening arms.
--- 12 years old ---
Swish- SLAP!* "AAARGH!" The small girl screamed with agony in a small enclosed room, multiple bloody red lines running across her naked back and fat tears streaming down her cheeks. "Don't slack off next time" A man said in a dull voice as if he'd done this a hundred times.
--- 14 years old ---
Ba-Dum…* 'Don't leave me…' She wants to tighten the embrace on her cooling friend, but none of her muscles responds with barely more than a twitch.
--- 14 years old ---
"Come on girls, get in the car. We don't have all day" A man beckoned the small girl and her friend, both of whom are now 14 years old. They all get in and drive out through the snowing landscape.
--- 14 years old ---
Ba--Dum…* 'Liz… cold… don't… go…' With her remaining strength draining, her eyelids and arms relax unwillingly, but are both frozen in place.
--- 14 years old ---
"Selling young girls to some horrible fate. I always need a day's break after these" The man in the driving seat sighed. "I don't want to hear it. I hate it too, but you know we have to keep our own family fed somehow… Fucking government!" The other man swears, slamming his arm on the armrest in frustration, making the two girls in the back jump.
--- 14 years old ---
Ba---Dum…* 'Liz… Liz…' She keeps repeating that word over and over again, the only thing that has any warmth left for her.
--- 14 years old ---
"RUN!" Her dear friend yells with a voice clearer than she has ever heard from her before. They sprint for their freedom and life into the snow, with their fists clenched tightly around this miraculous chance that has been given to them. The small girl can't help but worry about the red streaks running down her friend's neck.
--- 14 years old ---
Ba----*...
…
With newfound freedom, two friends find their end in each other's embrace longing for warmth in their cold and dark world.