The baby's shrieks explode in a panic of his own.
"Why?! WHY?!"
He pleads to the child, flailing and crying on a shipping crate.
But an eight-month-old holds no answer towards the malice of adults.
"This has to be a dream. This has to be a dream, right? There's no way they tried to kill you."
But the putrid stench of dumpster oozes off the child, a nauseating reality check.
"They really... tried to kill you."
His shoulders tremble, standing before the shrieking infant on the crate. Her screams make his ears consequently scream back, and his fists at his sides scream too.
His body, just as much as the child, is screaming at him.
'My hands...'
It takes him a moment to realize his nails were dug too deeply in his palms and have steadily been drawing blood. He brings his hands before his eyes. Thick, sticky blood pools in his cupped palms and trickles down his arms to his elbows before dripping down to the cold ground at his feet. His eyes pierce these hands of blood, then dart back to the baby on the crate. He felt nausea overwhelm him from the inside, and it took everything he had to stop himself from vomiting right there. To cope, he murmured crazily in reassurance to them both.
"They tried to kill you, but they didn't. You're not dead yet. You're not dead."
Her shrieks only get louder.
"You're hungry, right? You need..."
His sticky hands grip back into hot fists.
'Hunger, murderers, and illness. Three times over she'll die.'
"WHY?!"
He pleads to the fragile body on the crate.
"Why is it like this?!"
This fragile life is in his trembling, bleeding hands.
He lifts the bottom of his dirty grey t-shirt and uses it as a rag to wipe the sweat off his brow, then the blood on his hands and arms. With smeared, dirty hands barely cleaner, he reaches for the wailing baby and takes her off the crate into his arms. The infant struggles against his chest for a bit, then resorts to screaming even louder, which he hadn't known was possible.
'The pipes on this kid!'
The sound could easily shatter glass.
He tries to gently bounce her up and down and shush her, but he doubts she can hear him over herself.
He makes a sound that is half a frustrated sigh and half a cry of his own.
Then, out of desperation, he recalls the lullaby his mother used to sing to him. Gently bouncing the baby up and down, he recites;
"Little white rabbit, don't you run away
Little white rabbit, come out and play
Little white rabbit let me learn your name
Little white rabbit don't you like this game?"
__
"Little white rabbit, today is your day
Little white rabbit, you'll soon turn to grey
Little white rabbit do you hear their call?
Little white rabbit you'll go join them all."
It was a horrible lullaby, and yet, even after three years it's still the only one he knows. His mother sang it to him, and now he sings it to his sister. It was fitting, at least, by the unique white hair the siblings share. And by how close death can be.
But they avoided death that faithful day, and three years later, they continue to do so.
He strokes the sleeping toddler's head of white silk-like hair.
"Sleep well, Eve."
He exhales inaudibly, soaking in the quietness of the room and the bliss of the picture-perfect child.
Her small face looks peaceful, resting cozy on the white pillow matching her hair. Her big eyes are softly closed shut with long white eyelashes, and small hints of rosiness sprinkle her pale snow-like cheeks. She looked as if she were the precious child of the Goddess of Winter.
'There's more colour in her face today.'
That was a good sign.
There is not a sound in the hospital room as he sits on the edge of the bed watching the toddler asleep in the covers.
From being on the verge of death at the all-too-delicate age of eight months, to the steadily growing, flush-cheeked three-year-old before him was an incredible switch, nothing short of a miracle.
The only thing keeping her from living a mundane life with her older brother was the hospital bed she sleeps on, and the tubes in her arms she sleeps with. With more time, his money from working two jobs, and the strong efforts of the hospital, this too will be nothing more but an expired memory.
Lost in thought, his eyes drift around the small sterile room before landing on a clock on the wall.
3:00.
The evening had crept up on him all too fast while lost in the presence of the gift of life before him. It was Sunday, so he had the day off from his office job to spend with his little sister, but his second part-time vender's assistant job was still on from 4:00 to 9:00.
He wanted to groan in displeasure, but didn't for two reasons. One, it might wake up Eve, and two, this job still makes him some of the money that keeps her alive.
Still, it was employment hard to face with a bright smile and sunny attitude he had come to adopt with other work. After three years, he's concluded it's impossible to become fully desensitized to his crabby old fart of a boss and the repulsive smell of fish.