Corey, a twelve year old boy with a scar above his left eyebrow, once a loyal member of the "Street Kings" gang, now lay battered and bruised on the cold pavement. His former comrades had turned on him, their anger fueled by his betrayal.
Corey had stolen a valuable package from their leader, Vic, hoping to use it to escape the gang life and start anew. But Vic's wrath was unforgiving, and Corey past loyalty didn't spare him from the brutal beating.
As the gang dispersed, leaving Corey for dead, he struggled to move, his body screaming in agony. He managed to crawl into a nearby alley, where he collapsed, exhausted.
Hours passed, and Corey's world darkened. Just as he thought all hope was lost, he heard tiny footsteps approaching. Three small faces peered down at him, concern etched on their young features.
"Hey, mister, are you okay?" asked the eldest, a 7-year-old girl with big brown eyes.
Corey forced a weak smile, and the children hesitated, then began to help him up. Their small arms doing their best to hold him up as they guided him towards the worn down abandoned building nearby.
They guided him in before dropping him on the cold cemented floor. "Nala, please go get me some water and a rag." The girl who looked the oldest of the group spoke softly to one of the young girls that accompanied her, the last of the girl still kneeling by her side peering down at the injured boy beneath them.
"No worry. It gonna be fine. Nala always makes things better." The young girl smiles giving him a toothy grin which has him doing one of his own but he was sure with the way he was battered.. it probably came out more as a grimace than an actual smile.
The young girl who Corey now knew to be Nala soon returns with a bottle of water and a rag, not the cleanest but not the dirtiest either.
"Sorry we don't have a lot here. I'm just gonna try to clean the blood, okay?"
Corey couldn't do anything but let out a pained smile as the young girl behind to clean up his painful looking wounds.
"There all better now." The young girl smiles once she's able to wipe all the blood off "I know it still hurts but you'll just have to bare it for awhile."
Corey just nods feeling uncomfortable on the cemented ground. It was just then he'd taken a look at his surroundings.
An abandoned incomplete building. There was no windows, but a door. The children used dirty card boxes as make shift windows to ward off mosquitoes although it would be nothing against robbers.
There was a blanket spread out on a big cardboard sheet. With a small bowl of water by the side and a loaf of bread too although not much still remained of it.
"You can stay here with us. If you have nowhere to go?" The little girl offers causing Corey to smile at her kindness because he truly had nowhere to go after being kicked out of the only family he'd ever known.
As the sun set, Corey realized that these tiny strangers had become his unlikely saviors. Little did he know, their kindness would be the start of a new journey, one that would change his life forever.
______
Thoughts?
©2024 by o_writezz
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FROM STREETS TO DREAMS
General Fiction"From Streets to Dreams" is a heartwarming story about a group of street children who form a tight-knit family to survive on the streets. Through struggles and triumphs, they learn to rely on each other and trust in their own resilience. As fate in...
