Unlikely Friends: Volume Two

Chapter Twenty Eight

Two years ago

A little girl stood beside a tall hooded figure, just barely reaching her knees. She raised her tiny fist and tightly clutched a handful of the figure's long coat as voices fiercly whispered above her head.

She waited patiently as her tall companion angrily argued in hushed tones with a hooded stranger. The little girl quietly wondered if her friend was okay when she heard a soft sniffle. She looked up at the figure beside her as they wiped at their face for a moment, stalling. After a moment of hesitation, the tall figure put a gentle hand on the little girl's back and reluctantly pushed her towards the stranger.

What was going on? Had she done something wrong? The little girl did her best to prepare herself for the grand plan. Had she not done well enough? The little girl felt a sudden sense of dread. Was she throwing her away?

Her mind drifted to when she was a tiny child and had broken her Barbie doll bed from excitedly jumping on it every night. She was terrified she'd get scolded and barred from watching the bowl. But the kind woman only chuckled and bought a new bed for the dollhouse. The damaged one was thrown into the nearby trash can, forgotten.

Was she a damaged doll? She had thought of the kind woman as some sort of family, her only sense of home. The little girl always liked to imagine the tall woman felt the same.

Another memory of when she was a tiny child floated through her head. She was watching an erased memory in the kind woman's bowl of a boy who constantly complained of leaving his family behind. The tiny girl looked up, eyes wide in wonder.

"What's a family?" the soft voice had asked. The kind woman smiled sadly as she pat the child's head and tried her best to explain the different family members humans had. The tiny girl was amazed as she listened intently, tiny mouth slightly agape."Do I have a family?" she asked, trying to imagine the possibility. She only knew the kind woman and the two hooded strangers. Everyone else she had seen was just memories in a bowl of water. The tiny girl felt suddenly alone.

She looked up at the tall woman above her, wondering what they were to each other. She stayed quiet with a slight pout, too afraid to hear the real answer. The tiny girl would rather imagine herself growing up and going on an epic adventure. She'd reunite the lost hero and the kind woman so they could all be a happy family.

She spun around, confused and scared, facing the person who always took care of her. The little girl lifted a tiny hand towards the hooded figure, begging her to hold her once more. Why was she throwing her away? Tears welled up in her glowing green eyes as she willed her only piece of family to hold her. The hooded figure simply turned away from the girl, choking back a sob.

Without even a goodbye, the hooded stranger casually bent down and firmly picked up the frightened girl, dragging her away. As they exited the room, she frantically looked back at the hooded figure through her wild orange hair. Tears freely poured down her whiskered cheeks as she watched the kind woman fall to her knees, sobbing.

The little girl's glowing green eyes dimmed as she was carried away.