The night Iana was born, the world decided she wasn't wanted.
No warm blanket.
No gentle lullaby.
No mother's arms.
Instead, she was tossed away like a secret no one should ever know.
In the backstreets of a small town in Country A, her tiny cries echoed from a pile of garbage. Forgotten. Unloved. Alone.
An old man passing by stopped in his tracks. His hands shook as he lifted the bundle of rags. A baby. A girl. Barely breathing.
He should have walked away. She wasn't his problem. But something in her forest-green eyes, so alive, even then made him carry her to the orphanage.
The orphanage wasn't kind.
Iana grew into a little girl with soft, flowy red hair that caught the sunlight and eyes like emerald flames. She should have been beautiful. She should have been adored.
But beauty couldn't erase where she came from.
"Garbage girl." That's what they called her.
The children laughed. The caretakers scowled. She was always blamed, always ignored, always unwanted.
She learned to smile through the pain. To stay quiet when the world pushed her down. To accept that she was cursed because how else could she explain being thrown away at birth?
Yet, deep in her heart, Iana held onto one truth.
The garbage girl wasn't meant to stay garbage forever.