Abandoned

9

After years of being locked in a small space with no knowledge of anything regarding self care the girl was obviously filthy.
She needed a bath.

However the first step to the plan the doctor and psychologist had created was to document the conditions that the child was in.

After another 30 minutes of bubbles, doctor waters entered the room with Tage following close behind. They spoke calmly to the wary girl and kept their distance as much as possible whilst discussing how the next few minutes would pan out.

"I can try and remove the jacket from her and get her to sit still. I'm not sure if she'll cooperate though." Zareya inputs.

"Ideally she needs to have as little clothing as possible so we can get clear images of her injuries." Doctor waters says.

The psychologist begins to take the jacket off of the girl who looks up at her confused.
"Sorry darling, I know it's comfy isn't it. You can have it back after, we just need to take a little look at you, okay."

Of course there was no answer from sienna but the gentle voice managed to reassure her and keep her calm whilst the clothing was removed.
Without the jacket on, sienna is more visible however she is still wearing the tattered shirt.

Taking a deep breath the psychologist begins to lift the shirt of if the girl.
They were all unprepared for what they were about to see.

Dark, bumpy scars trailed across the length of the girls back. Some from slashes and others from burns.
Her torso similar however some rough stitches were visible poking out of inflamed and swollen skin.
An angry rash covered the child's thighs with painful blisters dotted about.

It was horrible.
With the girl now completely naked everything was easy to see.
The scars
The infections
The unaligned bones

"Oh sweet baby" is heard through the silence of the room as Tage finished up with the documentation.

"What now?" The psychologist asks.
"I know we planned to give her a bath but with the level of infection, is that really a good idea?"

Doctor waters assures Zareya that a bath is the best course of treatment and that the wounds can be dealt with after before proceeding the start the water.

Not feeling convinced Zareya turns her attention back to the child who was now chewing on the ear of her new elephant. She looks over the heartbreaking sight once more before she turns away to grab her jacket and covers the girl with it once again.

When the officer and doctor leave the room Zareya knows it's bath time. She had been dreading this moment since it was mentioned. Surely the water will sting her wounds, she thought.

"Come on gorgeous." She says to the girl as she picks her up and carries her into the connected bathroom.

That's when the peace of siennas calmness comes to an end.
As soon as she sees the body of water and the woman approaching it with her in her arms she screams and again thrashes around.

"What is it? What's wrong sweet girl?" The psychologist asks.

She puts the girl on a towel on the floor but as soon as she can, the child shuffles as far away as possible from the water.

The psychologist catches on to the girls fear. He must have punished her with water of some form, she thinks.

Whilst the child is frantically rocking back and forth as a way of self soothing, Zareya approaches the tub.

"Sienna," she calls out gaining the girls attention, "look darling, it's okay. It won't hurt you, see." The woman plays around with the water for a while trying to get the girl to trust it.
She doesn't.

Sienna stays far away from the tub and shows no interest.

Another 30 minutes passes by and although the girl has now calmed herself in the corner of the room, the psychologist decides that she's had enough of pushing the poor child for one day.

She allows the now cold water to drain before re filling it slightly with warm water. She then takes one of the spare towels and submerges it in the water before squeezing it out.

She turns towards the girl who is not chewing on the jacket sleeves.
"Look, feel this, it's nice and warm." She tells the girl as she slowly rubs the wet towel on her hand. Sienna has no reaction to the towel so the woman moves it up her arm and around her shoulders.

After cleaning up both arms and legs the psychologist quickly gets a fresh towel before she tackles the wounded areas.

Starting with her back and working her way down Zareya gently wipes around the wounds. When that's done to a satisfactory level she very cautiously dabs at each individual scar and injury.

The entire time the poor child doesn't react. The pain is a constant for her, it's all she's ever known. The familiar sharp stings and dull aches are comforting to her.

When it comes to her torso it's a different story. The psychologist is able to wipe around the wounds but when it comes to dabbing at then and trying to clean them the pain is too much for the small child to contain.

At first she just twists in discomfort.
Then she makes some unhappy sounds.
Finally she shuffled away from the woman who takes that as the final sign to give the child a break.

"Good girl Sienna. You're doing so well, should we do bubbles."

Zareya blows bubbles for sienna and tries to distract her from the pain she was previously feeling. This works for a while until the psychologist has to finish wiping her over.

She gets another fresh towel and wets it before bringing it over to wipe the girls face.

"There you go all nice and clean." She comments as she strokes over the girls cheek.

Zareya now had to finish cleaning over the girls torso and stomach area. She started where she last finished and gently dabbed around all of the wounds whilst comforting the small girl consistently. She now only had to clean the visibly infected one that had stitches roughly keeping it together.

Holding her breath she apologised to the girl and started to clean the area.

Sienna instantly screamed and tried to get away from the pain. Zareya stopped what she was doing immediately and tried to offer confort to the girl.

Sienna began to sob, the pain was too much. The not bad person did bad. Although Sienna couldn't explain how she felt, the psychologist knew from the look in her face that she felt betrayed. Any trust she had in the woman was now gone.