Surviving on the street as two kids of barely fourteen was tough. Especially having to take care of soone like Claus.
An aristocratic brat that only ate fancy food all his life wasn’t the type to go dumpster diving, steal or beg. Prideful and whiny, Claus was a bigger challenge than the street itself.
I knew how to fight, to claw and to use my scent to eliminate any threat that might have co around us. Any last one of them.
I found an abandoned dumpster. Big tal thing, heavy.
I pushed it with all the strength I had, my bones feeling like they would snap. It scraped the ground and made a sound that cut through the night.
I thought soone would hear.
No one ca.
I kept pushing until it was far enough from the street, hidden behind a pile of junk and so broken walls.
I tore at the side with a piece of sharp tal until my hands bled.
I cut out a space big enough for to crawl through.
Took all night.
When I was done, I found a thick old tarp in the trash.
I dragged it back and hung it over the hole to keep the wind out.
That was ho.
Cold, but better than sleeping on the ground.
Claus crawled in and curled up. He didn’t say thanks.
He just closed his eyes.
I wasn’t done.
We needed fire.
I searched all night until I found a rusty barrel by a factory fence.
It was heavier than I thought.
I rolled it down the street, my arms and legs shaking.
Every bump felt like it would break . I didn’t stop. Miles of dark streets. My hands numb on the tal. When I finally got it near the dumpster, I thought I would fall over and never get up again.
Fire ca next. Wood from broken pallets. Bits of trash that burned slow. Smoke that stung the eyes.
But it gave heat.
It gave light.
We sat close, our faces red from the flas.
Safe, for now.
I stole what I could.
A mattress from a store when no one was looking.
I dragged it through alleys until I thought my back would snap.
Blankets too.
Old and thin, but they kept us alive on nights when the wind howled.
Food was worse.
We ate what others threw away.
Rotten vegetables from dumpsters behind markets.
At first, they made us sick.
Then I learned.
Boil them long.
Cut away the black parts. Add a little salt when I could steal so.
Rats were harder.
The first ti, Claus almost threw up just looking at it.
But I skinned them, cleaned them, burned them on sticks over the fire until the at didn’t sll so bad.
If you cooked it right, it wasn’t that bad.
Sotis it even tasted good.
But that could be just the hunger talking.
Claus wouldn’t eat at first.
He just stared, his stomach making noises you could hear over the fire. I told him nothing.
I just kept cooking.
In the end, hunger won.
He chewed slow, like it was poison.
But he ate.
Days turned into weeks.
We stayed alive.
The dumpster kept out the wind.
The barrel gave us fire.
The rats gave us at.
Rotten vegetables gave us sothing in our stomachs.
I got better at stealing, better at cooking, better at making things work.
I don’t know how many nights passed like that.
Too many to count.
We were ghosts in the city.
Two kids no one wanted. Two kids who refused to die.
I think it was our second year on the street when I heard the commotion.
Screams.
Sharp, weak, like they were tearing through the empty air.
It ca from a building everyone had left a long ti ago.
I froze, listening.
Another scream.
Then nothing.
I ran.
I have no idea why.
The streets we have lived on so far were always full of fights and drugs and violence.
So I don’t know why I ran the way I did.
My feet hit broken concrete and trash.
The building was dark, windows smashed. The sound had co from inside.
As I got closer, I saw a man coming out fast, head down, jacket pulled tight.
He didn’t look at .
He just kept walking, then running.
I didn’t care about him.
The air started to sll wrong.
Thick, bitter smoke.
I climbed the stairs two at a ti, my chest burning.
The screams were gone now. Only crackling sounds. I reached a door that was open. Heat pushed against like a wall.
Inside, fire was crawling across the floor, biting at old newspapers and rags.
In the middle of the room, an old woman was lying on her side.
Her eyes were closed.
Skin pale, hair stuck to her face.
Flas were moving closer, eating everything.
I ran to the bathroom.
Turned the sink on.
Nothing at first, then a slow stream.
I yanked the tub faucet.
Water started filling.
I didn’t wait.
Grabbed a bowl from the floor and dumped water on the fire.
It hissed and spit but didn’t die.
I kept going.
Back and forth, throwing water until the bowl cracked in my hands.
I grabbed another, then a mug, then a cooking pot from the kitchen.
Turned on that sink too. Both sinks running, tub running.
Water spreading across the floor.
The smoke made my eyes burn.
My throat felt like it was full of nails. I could barely see, but I didn’t stop.
I threw water until my arms shook.
The fire kept trying to rise, but the floor was wet now.
The flas hissed and shrank.
Pieces of wood fell apart in black chunks.
I went to her.
Lifted her under the arms.
She was light, almost nothing. I dragged her toward the bathroom where the air was less black. Her breath was weak but still there. I laid her down by the tub and went back for more water.
Fire was still chewing at the edges, but smaller now.
I dumped water on the walls, on the floor, on the last burning piles.
My hands were blistered. My clothes slled like smoke and ash.
I kept going until the only sound was water dripping and my own breathing.
The fire was dead.
The room was a ss of steam and black walls.
The old woman didn’t move. She slled weird. Rotten. Dead, but she wasn’t.
I haven’t thought that much about the stupidity of my actions when her skin started decaying.
I just scrubbed it off
Layer by layer. Piece by piece.
I knew what I was doing.
After years in that institution, I could easily recognize an overdose. And whatever she absorbed, it was absorbed through skin—
Making it rot and spread the infection deeper and deeper.
Skin, muscle, organs, death.
I left her in the half-filled bathtub to find so white clean bed sheets. Thankfully, the fire only affected the kitchen.
I grabbed so alcohol the old woman had in her display - straight vodka - and ran back at her.
The water was cold and dark now.
I grabbed a half-empty bottle of alcohol from the floor and poured it over them.
The sll cut through the smoke.
I twisted the sheets until they dripped, then wrapped them around her tight.
Her skin was hot under my hands, breath thin but still there.
I lifted her, bones like sticks, and laid her back on the bed.
The mattress was damp from the fight with the fire, but it would hold.
She didn’t move.
I sat there for a while, watching her chest rise.
Nonetheless, with that half-dead woman inside, and Claus had a proper ho.
We moved in and took care of the house, of the lady, of ourselves.
It was not cold anymore. Not as cold as outside. And the rats wouldn’t chew our skin at night anymore.
After a few days, I found out what the man had tried to steal. Stokes and docunts of property.
The woman was the founder of a small dical company. An old one. Yet, still important enough to be rembered.
And most important yet—
This was her will.
It was a single sheet, yellow at the edges, folded twice and tucked in a cracked leather folder.
The handwriting was shaky but clear. At the top, in bold letters, it said LAST WILL AND TESTANT.
Below, her na, date, and the words:
"I leave ownership and full controlling interest of my company, Greens Pharmaceuticals, to the first person who signs this docunt after my death. No conditions. No exceptions. This decision is final and binding."
At the bottom, there was a blank line for a signature and a space for the date.
Nothing else.
No lawyers.
No witnesses.
Just that.
Our ticket out of hell.
The first brick of my empire.
Maybe it was the mory of that stranger I never even got to talk to that made save Tom like that.
Nonetheless, the woman died shortly after. It was arrogant of to think I could have saved her. That I could have treated her wounds or cure her.
I was just a child.
But now I am not anymore.
I don’t know why fate gave the chance to crawl out of that misery. Out of that life, but all I did—
All I want to do is change that. So nobody will be left to starve on the streets just because of their secondary gender.
That old woman’s insanity— that stranger’s weirdness of fate in the unexpected, that was where my life truly started.
There I draw the line of what is important to .
Yet, since Luther appeared in my life, the line beca blurred.
And I feel trapped in the cold dumpster again. Lost and hungry for more that I can have.
Look at !
Getting back to save the filthy scum that dared to lay his hands on my puppy.
I could just let him die. Use the wrong chemicals and shrug my shoulders telling my wife that I did my best.
I could even play hurt that I wasn’t smart enough to save him. Knowing him, he might actually console .
Yet, I am carrying Tom’s body through the warfare of pheromones, holding this annoying tumor glued to my wife to get him treated and back on his feet.
As I got close to the car, my stomach turned. I dropped Tom and ran as fast as I could.
Luther collapsed on the ground, with blood in the corners of his mouth and out of breath.
Did-Did my pheromones did that?
"Help ..."
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