Pretty Little Graves

I was eight when I met the boy who told me he would find me if I ever left Saint Mary's.

Mikhail was supposed to be nothing. Just another damaged kid in Saint Mary's with a file full of warnings and eyes that made adults nervous. They said he was a problem. I thought he was the only thing in that place that could keep me safe.

Then I was taken.

Not saved. Not placed somewhere better. Taken, like I didn't belong to myself anymore. And after that, I learned how quickly a person disappears when no one is looking for them.

Years later, I don't ask questions. I don't fight back unless I have to. I survive quietly, carefully, like something already half-buried.

Because hope gets you punished, but the past doesn't care what you stop believing in.
It still comes for you.

I don't know what Mikhail became after I was gone. I only hoped that he wouldn't forget his promise, and one day he'd come searching for me. But what I didn't realise was that the boy who once promised to find me wasn't just a boy anymore.

Whatever he is now... it isn't something I was meant to survive twice.