The rain had stopped, but the mud still clung to our feet as if the earth wanted to swallow us
whole. My twin brother and I stood outside the broken hut we called home, staring at the sky.
Gray, tired, and wide, just like our lives.
Our sisters, barely eight and six, sat huddled under the torn blanket that once belonged to our
mother. Her smell was long gone. So was she.
Ten years had passed since we lost our father in that fire. And now, our mother had followed,
taken by the sickness we couldn't name and the help we couldn't afford. That left the four of us,
children with no one, nothing, and nowhere to go.
But we had one thing: a story. A story our mother used to tell us before she died, about a city
beyond the hills. A place where people wore shoes that didn't let in the cold, where food came
every day, and where there were big buildings filled with kind strangers, strangers who looked
after children like us.
An orphanage. That was our hope. Not for us. We were already old enough to carry the weight.
But for our sisters.
"We can't stay here," I said.
My brother nodded, his jaw tight. "We won't. We'll get them out."