I'll See You In Nirvana

BRAVERY IN COWARDICE

Let's see... Where should I start... I know, a day I nearly forgot even happened from a life I barely remember anymore.

For as long as I could remember, I was alone. As far as I knew, even my parents were absent from my birth and the rats on the street raised me. I lived in a poor town that didn't know what to do with me, even if they cared.

I survived on handouts from a local church that acted as an orphanage with too many other children to count, but I managed to stay alive with what little they could give. The orphanage was where I slept, but that's all I did there. That was until the church and orphanage burned down.

Since I was never a brave kid, in fact, I was a coward, even if stealing crossed my mind, I would never act on it even if I was hungry, but a week after the fire, I was starving. I watched other orphans steal and either get away or get caught. While I admired their bravery and willingness to brave the steep consequences, I could never do it myself and since I was always quiet and anti-social, I had no one willing to do it for me.

I spent a few days around the market looking for someone I could steal from but never acted on it once I saw an opportunity. Even approaching the shops was daunting, let alone taking anything even from one of the unsuspecting patrons. In the end, I'd always end up approaching someone upfront and begging for food even though it never worked. No one had anything to give to a hungry orphan in a starving town. Remnants of scraps were all I could come by.

Eventually, between the grumbling and pain in my stomach, I finally became blind to my fear and approached someone with some intent to steal.

It was a man in a long coat carrying a small bag of something that smelled edible. I reached for it as fast as I could, but he was faster and caught my hand. Before I knew it, he was holding me in the air by the back of my neck like a stray cat and demanding to know who I belonged to. One of the shop owners nearby told him I was an orphan and he looked at me with a mix of disgust and curiosity. I just looked at him with apathetic eyes, blinded by starvation.

"I'll take it," said the man.

I didn't even have the mind to object as he walked out of town with me still in his hand. No one bat an eye as he did so. No one had anything to gain from it.

"What is your name?" The man stopped just within the tree-line of the nearby forest before asking.

Barely understanding the question, I shook my head. I had no name.

"Understandable. Are you a boy or a girl?"

I looked at him listlessly and he proceeded to lift the tattered potato sack I wore as clothes and rummage through what little fabric clung to my skin underneath.

"Well, aren't you a brave little girl, stealing from a big, scary man. Aren't you scared of what could happen if you got caught?"

I simply nodded my head.

"Good, you should be."

The next thing I remember was crippling pain from everywhere and being pinned to a tree for a long time. That and being fed something that my starving body was all too eager to swallow.

I awoke sometime later in a cage on a carriage with shackles clasped around my neck, wrists, and ankles. This was something I only heard of up until then. I had fallen into the hands of human traffickers.

From then on, my life felt more like a fever dream than anything else. I was sold and traded from captor to captor. I was forced to do things that I forced myself to forget and things were done to me that only my body remembers to this day.