Worth Is Measured In Love

Chapter 2

The boy walked into the hopeless winter night. Lost, freezing, and starving, desperately searching for warmth. But all he found was more frost and ice. Then suddenly he spotted something in this distance. He rushed toward it quickly, hoping that it was someone who could help or perhaps maybe an animal he could kill for food. Yet his hope quickly turned to horror when he discovered that it was two lifeless bodies buried in the snow. A poor young couple had lost their way and the cruel cold had claimed their lives.

He knew it was wrong. He knew that it was disgraceful and wretched, and it frightened him to have to touch a corpse. But he was close to death. He had to do whatever it took to survive. So he began to search the dead man's pocket for anything of value. Money, a pocket watch or a pipe to sell, food, a match, basically any item that could help him survive this night. The man's pockets turned out to be completely empty though. There was absolutely nothing inside.

However that did not mean that there was nothing precious to find. Suddenly there came gasp and he saw something move between the dead couple. The boy moved closer to see what it was. He discovered that the dead woman had her arms tightly wrapped around something, or rather someone.

"My God." He thought when he saw her.

It was a little girl. The most tiny and frail looking girl he had ever seen in his life. He thought surely such a small and delicate female had to be dead by now. But she wasn't. He learned that when he saw her shiver.

"You're alive?" He said in a voice of disbelief.

At first the girl thought that she was dreaming when she heard his voice, but then she heard footsteps. It hurt so much to move, but she willed herself to wriggle out of her dead mother's embrace and lift her head up.

"Is...Is someone there?" She stuttered, her voice as frail as her body was.

The boy froze dead in his tracks, not sure exactly what to do at the moment. She started to slowly rise from the ground and look for him, he waited to hear her scream in utter fear once she saw his horrible face. No scream came.

"Why..." She paused, feeling all of her strength leave her body due to the cold. "Why is it so dark?"

She started to collapse, the boy caught her before she hit the ground. For a moment he feared that she might instantly dissolve in his touch like a snowflake since she was as light and fragile as one. Then he realized how foolish that fear would have been. This was no snowflake. This was a living child of flesh and blood, like him. That is, if she still lived. She might have died right then and there.

He placed his ear to her chest and listened for a pulse. Her heartbeat fluttered like a bird. She still lived, but not for much longer if she stayed here. So the boy scooped her delicate frame into his arms, held her to his chest to warm her with his body heat, and carried her through the storm.

"I don't know what I'm thinking." He wondered to himself. "It's not like she'll have a better chance at surviving with me. It's nothing but endless snow, ice, and wind from here on out. We'll both be dead in mere seconds. I probably should have just left her."

Yet he couldn't bring himself to do it and when the girl felt herself in his arms, she stirred for a moment. The faces of the two children touched each other, and the lips of the girl sought the cheek of the boy, as if she had expected him to be someone else, and then she slept. First kiss of those two souls in the darkness.

The boy was surprised that she had done that and had not shrieked. Just what was the matter with this girl? Then he figured that she must've been delirious or something, and didn't realize whom exactly she had kissed, and he was half right. She didn't know who's cheek her lips had touched. But it most certainly wasn't due delirium.