People call him Asel, a boy with thin appearance and look slightly malnourished, short hair because he is to lazy to do anything with it, and a small pair of bright eyes, who betrayed how his actual condition really are.
Ten years ago a poor widow, saw a newborn baby with his umbilical cord still attach was dump in a garbage pile.
Although she has her own baby, she doesn't have a heart to let the baby die, and decide to bring him to her small house, raising him along with her little daughter as if it is her own son.
Ten years later, at present, Asel sat on the low step outside their house, the widow house, bare feet pulled up to his chest, chin resting on his knees.
"Asel!"
He saw Talia, the only daughter of that widow who save his life, a daughter who grow up with him since day one.
They always do things togather, with Talia being the small little sunshine that she is, always giving warmth to asel cold little world.
Talia's voice hit first, then Talia herself — hair wild, shirt crooked, sprinting around the corner so fast she nearly crashed into the water barrel. She skidded, pinwheeled her arms, regained balance, then pretended none of that had happened.
"You're awake!" she announced, breathless.
"I'm usually awake."
"No you're not. Yesterday you were asleep outside. The day before that you were sleepwalking. The day before—"
"I wasn't sleepwalking."
"You were standing in the street without shoes."
"That's standing. Not sleepwalking."
"Standing at four in the morning."
He didn't have an answer, so she grinned like she'd won.
Without asking, she shoved half a warm bun into his hands. The top was shiny with egg wash; the bottom was slightly burnt. Her mother's baking always tasted like she was fighting with the oven.
But that is the food cooked with a love from a single mother to her precious daughter.
Talia always feel that's the best food in the world, which is basically this remote little town, far from the complexity and dark heart of humankind and Asel, that's Talia Whole World.
Here everything is simple, Talia world is simple, and so does Asel's.
Asel tore the piece in two and gave her the larger half. She didn't thank him.
She didn't have to and he didn't expect her to.
"Let's go," she said. "Kesh said he'll buy brass for double."
"He says that all the time."
"No, he says he MIGHT buy it for double. Today he said WILL. Did you hear it?"
"No."
"That's because he doesn't like you."
"He likes you?"
"He likes our mother. That counts."
Asel followed her, still chewing.
Talia walked the way she existed—far too fast, too loud, too full of opinions and elbows and reasons that made sense only to her.
After short distance walk from home, they are stood in from a broken stall with old men sitting behind the simple table.
He is Kesh, a kind of junkyard traders, he bought miscellaneous junk from anyone willing to collect it, this morning this two little children, are his client.. a regular one.
Kesh's scrap stall leaned against the wall as if the stall itself was tired of being alive. he sat behind the clutter, chewing something fibrous, looking unimpressed by the existence of children.
Talia dropped the brass hinge onto the table with a flourish.
"Two coins," she declared.
"One," Kesh grumbled.
"One and dried fruit."
"Done."
He flicked the coin toward her with two fingers, tossed a small dried fig toward Asel. Talia pocketed her coin like a tiny thief feeling morally justified. Asel took the fig without hesitation. It tasted like dust and old sweetness.
They turned back into the lane, then Talia pointed at the scene and cackled.
"He's faster than you," she told Asel.
"No he's not."
"He is."
"You're just saying that."
"Yes."
She darted forward and poked his arm. "You walk so slow. Why do you walk slow? Do your legs hurt? Are you cursed?"
"I'm not cursed."
"You look cursed."
"You look loud."
"That's not an answer."
"It is."
"That's cheating."
He shrugged.
They passed the laundry yard, where sheets hung in rows like giant ghosts waiting to be folded. One sheet puffed out as Talia walked by and slapped her face cleanly.
"OW!"
"What?" Asel asked.
"It attacked me!"
"It's a sheet."
"It's a violent sheet."
She hit it back. It hit her again.
She hissed at it like a cat.
A woman hanging socks watched them and shook her head.
"Troublemakers."
"That's not fair," Talia said. "He's
quiet."
"He's with you," the woman replied.
Asel hid his smile behind his sleeve.
They kept walking.
Talia spotted a chalk doodle on the wall — a lopsided animal with one giant eye.
"Oh! Look, it's your drawing."
"I didn't draw that."
"It feels like you drew it."
Asel bent closer.
"It looks like it's dying."
"It looks like your face in the morning."
He nudged her shoulder lightly.
She shoved him harder. He shoved her back.
She stumbled and laughed like falling was her hobby.
They walked through the market edge.
"Hey!" the baker's boy called, waving a roll with one burnt end. "Trade?"
"For what?" Talia asked, her innocent little eye full of curiosity.
"Show me that weird thing you do."
She immediately made a ridiculous whistling noise, tried to cartwheel, failed halfway, and popped back up like nothing happened.
The boy slapped the roll into her hand.
"You're terrible," he said.
"I know," she said. "Give me another one tomorrow."
"No."
"Yes."
a red hue start climbing to back of his ear, and Talia cheerfully chuckled, while asel can only watch and sigh.
They turned toward Their house, the lane narrowing around them.
Talia hopped over a stone, then another, humming something that sounded suspiciously like the baker boy's voice.
Her mother, Mareth, was outside stirring a pot.
The kind that meant dinner was going to be better later if it was ignored now.
"You two," Mareth said. "Hands."
"We're clean," Talia lied.
"You are never clean."
She shoved both their hands toward the water barrel.
The water was cold.
Talia yelped like she'd been stabbed by winter.
Asel dipped his hands without complaining.
Talia splashed him. He splashed back.
She gasped like he'd committed a crime.
Mareth smacked Talia's arm with a wet rag.
"Stop drowning each other. And stop stealing food later."
"We don't steal food," Talia said.
Mareth raised a brow.
"We don't steal your food," Talia corrected.
Satisfied enough, Mareth waved them out of the way so she could stir.
They walked back out into the morning light, crumbs still on their fingers.
Talia hopped down the steps, landing with a satisfying thump each time.
One.
Two.
Three—
She paused.
Her heel pressed on something that didn't feel like a stone should.
Asel blinked at her.
"What?"
"I think the ground's—"
The stone cracked, then a sharp, clean sound — like snapping a twig.
It was so fast, too fast for a children eyes to see or understand.
Before her brain caught up, a thin seam opened under her foot.
A pale shape flicked upward.
And a hooked limb sliced clean through her ankle.
Talia dropped and saw blood splatter from her missing ankle, for a second she does not register what is going on.
Then pain come, rapture in all of her sense, it feels excruciating, the kind of pain a ten year old girl should not feel.
"AS—!! It—IT HURTS—!!"
Her voice broke halfway through the word "hurts," pitching high and thin like something tearing.
She sucked in a shaky breath to scream again—
but her face slackened midsound.
Her eyes rolled.
Her fingers twitched.
The rest of her went still as shock dragged her under.
Asel was petrified, he didn't shout or run, he didn't understand what the hell is going on.
His mouth hung open,
but nothing came out.
He was ten. And the world had just done something horrible to an innocent little girl, his only friend, right in the front of his own eyes.