Condemned

3 - Dawn

CHAPTER 3: Dawn

She was doing the hair thing again.

I watched, frustrated as she constantly either tugged on a strand of hair or wrapped it around her finger. Even worse was when she would make a clicking noise with her tongue and teeth.

After she woke up, the girl had freaked out, until I gave her some food.

Now she was attached.

She was mostly silent, at least verbally. She hadn't said anything, and I hadn't either. But she seemed to find the need to fill the silence with mindless noises, irritating me incessantly. I was regretting picking her up now.

We had started walking soon after sunset, keeping to the roads mostly. Walking for an hour, two at most.

And yet she was becoming exhausted.

I could tell with the way her feet were beginning to drag and her noises were becoming less constant and loud. She was also slightly falling behind. Sighing, I turned around after she had dropped back a metre, and scooped her up in my arms.

A startled squeak escaped her and she clutched onto me tightly, but I didn't stop.

After a while, she relaxed against me, staring up at my face with droopy eyelids. Her chocolate brown eyes held surprising innocence, considering the times we lived in. I briefly wondered how she'd managed to survive this long.

She was in a light sleep by the time I stopped, instantly waking her. She peered up at me with curious eyes while I put her on her feet. She only barely came up to my midsection. She was tiny. I had stopped her at a neighbourhood. Abandoned, obviously. I approached one that looked a bit sturdier than the rest, the girl hurrying behind.

I swung the wooden door open with a soft creak. Testing my weight on the inside of the house, I drew my katana from it's sheath strapped to my back. The girl watched in wide eyed fascination, taking in the blade and the inside of the house. We moved quickly through the house, looking for supplies. We entered a faded pink bedroom, looking like it once belonged to a small girl.

The girl all but jumped into the open closet, looking through the hanging clothes, and the ones on the floor. She pulled several out, holding them against her to see what it looked like. I sat down on the old bed, the springs protesting under the sudden weight. She turned to me, excitement dancing in her eyes as she gestured to what she was holding. We stayed there for a bit, me shaking or nodding my head to what she held, making a small pile of what she wanted to keep. Finally, after her clothes had been selected, I moved to a set of drawers, pawing through the contents while the girl took my place on the bed.

I tossed her some thick, wooly socks for when it got cold, along with some seemingly clean underwear. I gestured for her to put on some socks, and she complied, although questioningly. I searched through the bottom of the wardrobe, finally finding what I was looking for, I came back to her with an armful of clothes.

She wiggled and jumped on the bed excitedly as I kneeled in front of her, taking her feet in my hands, trying on the different shoes. We chose three, tossing the rest back. 

Looking through the rest of the house, we found a few old energy bars, five canned foods, and a few sealed bottles of water, all making her eye's gleam happily.

For the rest of the night, we looked through the houses, ending up needing to bring bags with us to carry everything.

We entered a forest near the houses we'd just left behind, stopping at a running stream that ended into a small lake. She was confused as to why we stopped here, and was even more so when I tossed her into the lake, where emerged with her teeth chattering and her arms crossed over her chest. I shed all my clothes except for my underwear, keeping all the necessities covered, and joined her in the water.

I scrubbed at her skin with the soap we had found in a bathroom, bringing tears to her eyes when I either re opened a cut or got soap in one. Even through the pain, she remained silent. I massaged into her scalp, before gently running my hands through her hair, before sending a comb through it, tugging out the knots. I took away her rags, leaving them in a wet lump on the ground next to the lake, and then got out, holding a towel open to her, still shivering in the water. She ran into it, and I wrapped it around her, before drying her off.

After drying myself with the slightly damp towel, I searched throughout our bags, looking for clothes. I threw the girl's new ones at her, and then dressed into my own with my back turned to her.

After I finished, I turned around, seeing the girl struggling with the zipper and buttons of her jeans. Helping her, I then slipped a thick jumper over her head, covering her new butterfly shirt in a dark blue wool. The jumper hung off her small body, the sleeves falling way past her hands, and the bottom falling almost to her knees. I rolled and tucked the sleeves over wrists tightly, making sure they wouldn't fall. I put her new sneakers over her sock covered feet.

Once finished with everything we sat down near the water while she hungrily slurped down the opened can I had given her, while I combed and braided her long light brown hair down her back. Finally, with the sun touching the horizon, we laid back, her tightly bundled in blankets and snuggling into my side. She poked me lightly in the side, gaining my attention.

I looked down into her big, round, almost doe-like brown eyes.

"My name is Samantha." she whispered, curling into herself and looking down. I paused for a second, looking out at the almost completely still water, besides the few ripples, and then the lightening sky, now painted in tinges of orange and pink across the blue.

"I am Dawn."