"It's going to be okay, kiddo. Just let it out," Glenn told Leya, one hand holding back her hair so it wouldn't get any vomit on it. "You're going to be fine."
"She any better?" Maggie asked as she stepped outside into the field, where Leya had been throwing up the last few days.
Glenn shook his head. "Third day in a row. What was she eating?"
"Powdered milk. She really doesn't like that stuff." Maggie remembered, recalling the girl's look of disgust when she had taken her first sip. "Wait, Glenn, when does she get sick?"
"After breakfast and supper, usually," Glenn relayed back to her. "The only thing in common between the food is that there's milk and meat, usually."
Maggie sighed. "It's probably that. She was raised on nutrient slop. Pure vitamins and macros." She ran a hand through her hair, then bent over to check on Leya, who had ceased retching for the time being. "Hey honey. Feeling any better?"
Leya shook her head, but straightened up anyways and wiped a hand across her mouth. Turning on her heel, she began to stumble away as if she hadn't spent the last seven minutes puking her guts up.
"Where do you think you're going?" Glenn asked, catching up to her. "You're sick!"
"Chores," Leya said simply, as if it was obvious.
Glenn looked to Maggie. They couldn't just have her sit around all day; she was notorious for not being able to sit still after spending ten years restricted in movement, plus there was work that had to be done.
"Just.. be careful, okay?" Glenn told her, and with a nod, Leya disappeared around the corner.
Glenn turned to look at Maggie, who had an odd look of resignation on her face, and he gave her a small smile. What were they going to do with their rambunctious psyonic child who had no sense of when to stop? There certainly weren't any parenting books about this.
x-x-x-x
Leya sneezed again as she swept out the cell, the dust kicking up into her face. She shook her head from side to side to rid herself of the tickling feeling that lingered after sneezing. She frowned at the pile of dust on the floor. There had to be a word for being surrounded with this sort of stuff.
"Dusty, huh?" Beth asked, stepping out of the cell adjacent to her. "I remember when we had to clean out the attic when I was young, I always got these terrible allergies. I was sneezing every five seconds!" She laughed, remembering the spring cleaning. "It sucked, but I grew out of it eventually."
"Suck-ed?" Leya asked, repeating the word slowly.
"Yeah, sucked," Beth confirmed. "When something bad happens, things suck."
"Like dying?"
"Um, not like that exactly." Beth corrected herself. "It doesn't suck. When people die, that's sad. Don't say that death sucks when someone talks about it, okay? Just a tip."
"Si," She replied, and got back to sweeping. Her bangs, though, were getting in the way. The uneven strands of hair kept on obscuring her vision and tickling the tip of her nose. Huffing, she blew at them to get them out of her face, which they did for a whole three seconds.
Scowling, she took the pieces of greasy hair and tucked them behind her ear. Having hair was weird. When she hadn't eaten much in a while, sometimes little clumps fell out, but as soon as she got food in her belly again, everything was fixed. It draped over her face when she rolled around in her sleep, which she never did much of, anyway, and sometimes bits of it would get in her mouth when the wind blew. Overall, though, she preferred having it to not having it. Sometimes, she could even pretend that she looked like her mother.
YOU ARE READING
United We Fall
Fanfiction"You look at her and you think, wow, that's one young kid, but then you look in her eyes and you realize... that ain't how a kid should be behind it." The world as it was known has come to an end, but for one, it has only begun.
