LIfe's Too Short

Chapter 5

The caramel-haired girl plunged into the river, being swept along the river.

"Hey!" Levi jumped into the river after her, Isabel and Farlan following them on the bank.

Levi grabbed her and carried her with one arm while trying to stop himself on the rocks that his feet barely touched at the bottom of the river.

Damn my freaking shortness!

The girl made no attempt to struggle, but at the same time no attempt to hang on to him. The cold water shocked him, his 3DMG weighing him down. He desperately grabbed at a large, pointed rock at the edge of the bank, scraping his hand, but still held on. The other two pulled him and the girl onto land, the three of them breathing heavily.

The girl they had saved had lost consciousness from the coldness, laying down on the ground motionlessly. Levi placed his ear on top of her heart, to hear a steady beat. He sighed in relief.

"L-Levi," Farlan panted. "Why'd you do that? We already got the necklace."

He held up the copper locket in his hand.

"Yeah," Isabel agreed. "That was really dangerous! You could've drowned!"

Levi looked down. Why did he do that? Was it only because she reminded him of his late mother? It felt almost like an instinct. The moment she hit the water he jumped after without hesitation.

He said the only conclusion he could come to. "I don't know."

They all observed the girl on the ground. She looked to be around their age, 16 or 17 maybe. Her face looked placid and calm.

"What's in the locket?" Levi asked.

Farlan flipped the heart open, a picture of a lady with long caramel hair and dark eyes on one side, a boy who looked like the the girl in front of them on the other heart. He flipped it over.

To Petra

Was engraved on the back in cursive.

So Petra was her name.

"We could sell this for at least $40 dollars," Farlan observed. "It seems to be made of copper, which isn't all that valuable. But, it was handmade, which gives it a bit of worth."

Isabel pondered over this. "$40 for all this..."

Levi held out his hand to Farlan, who dropped the necklace into it.

He lifted up Petra's head and clasped the necklace together, draping it onto her chest.

"No one would buy it," Levi said, standing up. "It'd be of little use as a necklace to anyone but her, and it would be very hard to melt down, given the brittleness of the material."

The two seemed a bit skeptical at first, but then nodded. They never questioned Levi.

"Let's leave her closer to town. Maybe someone will come looking for her."

They left her leaning against a stack of wheat next to the bakery, hoping that she'd be found and returned back home. They found out through the grapevine a few days later that she had been beaten by her boss, who had been constantly whipping her and was promptly arrested, and was now staying with her father all the time. Apparently she had never said a word about the river or the trio, saying that she had ran away until she fell asleep behind they baker's.

The world is cruel, she had said.

And he agreed.

For the first time, Levi recalled, guilt crept into him like water trickling into soil. Of course, he knew that what he was doing was wrong, but he never thought about what the victims of his robberies were thinking behind their fearful expressions.