We were not the only ones curious. Children clustered at the entrance, watching us as though we were rare animals entering a new cage.
Among them was a boy who looked slightly younger than me. Something about him stood out. His eyes were unusually bright, filled with admiration and something I could not name. He followed us as we walked to our room. He tried to pretend he was not following us, but he was terrible at hiding. He kept peeking in from the doorway, wide-eyed and stiff as a stick.
Sophia finally waved him in.
He was so nervous he tripped over his own feet on the way to us. Once he reached us, Sophia gently asked his name.
He answered, "Nine years old."
When she asked his age, he replied, "Indra."
We tried so hard not to laugh when he tripped, but after hearing those mixed-up answers, we lost it completely. We laughed until our stomachs hurt, and he stood there blushing, but smiling shyly too.
Just like that, our small family grew. He fit into our lives naturally, as though he had always belonged there. Maybe it was because his past was similar to ours or maybe it was simply his gentle nature, but we bonded quickly. In the new orphanage, the world was no longer just me and Sophia. It was the three of us. Me, Sophia, and Ind.
We spent every moment together. For the first time since the train incident, joy felt real again.
A week passed, just like that.
Then, on the first day of the second week, the owner of the orphanage returned from vacation. He walked through the main door with a warm smile, speaking kindly to Sophia and me. But the moment Ind saw him, something inside him shattered.
Ind began to shake. Not a small tremble, but a deep trembling that came from terror. His eyes were wide, unblinking. And when Sophia called his name loudly the next morning, he broke into tears on the spot.
That night, he did not sleep. He asked us to lie beside him, but even with both of us close, he kept staring at the door. He did not blink much. He did not breathe deeply. He simply waited, as though expecting something awful to appear at any moment.
His strange behavior continued for days.
On the week later, the owner took Ind to his room.
When Ind returned, he did not speak. He did not look at us. He just crawled into bed and curled up, his back facing us. Even the next day, he was silent. He would not meet our eyes and he flinched whenever we stepped too close.
Sophia grew terrified. She kept squeezing my hand, unsure what to do.
The following morning, while Ind was bathing, I tried to sneak in to talk to him. I slid the door just enough to see inside.
The sight of him made my blood boil and my heart ache at the same time.
His small body was covered in bruises and cuts. Dark marks wrapped around his arms and ribs. Scratches trailed down his back. Some wounds were fresh. Others were yellow or purple, older but unhealed.
I knew exactly what had happened. I knew who had done it.
And I also knew that if I tried anything now, I would only make things worse for him.
So I stayed silent.
Even though every part of me was screaming to do something.
But a few days later, while the three of us were laughing together, the man walked straight to Sophia and placed his hand on her shoulder. His grip looked casual, but something in his fingers was hungry and cold. He leaned toward her face and, in a voice that made the air itself twist, told her to come to his room.
I knew exactly what he meant. The image of him hurting her filled my mind so fiercely that my blood boiled. He must have seen the rage in my eyes, because he paused, hesitated, then turned away and walked back to his room without taking her.
That night, while I was deep asleep, I felt my legs being dragged across the bed. I jolted awake. Sophia was gone. Ind was gone.
Panic snapped through me like a whip.
I ran straight to the monster's room.
Outside his door, Ind was crouched beneath the tiny window, trembling violently. Tears streamed down his face, and every part of him shook as though he were trapped inside a nightmare he could not wake from.
Seeing him like that, I stepped beside him and peeked through the crack.
Sophia was tied to the bed. Her wrists and ankles were bound tightly. A strip of tape covered her mouth. She was struggling and sobbing, but her voice was muffled into silence. The beast stood at a corner table cleaning a whip. The slow, careful way he polished its surface made my skin crawl.
My mind snapped. There was no room left for fear or thought.
I lunged toward the door to break it down, but Ind grabbed my wrist with both hands and pulled me back. He dragged me, step by careful step, around to the playground behind the room. We stopped beneath a small window.
While I stared helplessly at the closed frame, Ind reached forward and quietly lifted the entire window frame away. It came off clean, almost as if it had never been screwed in at all.
The moment he freed the opening, I climbed inside.
The beast had already begun climbing onto the bed.
I did not know what he planned to do back then, but seeing Sophia crying and twisting helplessly beneath him filled me with a terror so sharp it turned instantly into fury. My eyes landed on a vase. I grabbed it with both hands and smashed it into the back of his skull.
He collapsed.
Before he could wake, I yanked the ropes free and pulled the tape from Sophia's mouth. We were halfway off the bed when he punched me hard in the face. Both of us fell to the floor.
I turned my head and saw him standing over us. Blood dripped from the wound I made, running down his temple in slow, thick trails. Yet he smirked. The expression on his face was inhuman. It was the smirk of something that enjoyed suffering.
The sight made me shiver. Sophia trembled beside me.
Then, suddenly, her trembling stopped.
I glanced at her and saw her holding a sharp shard from the broken vase. She lifted it, her hand shaking, and aimed it toward him. It was the bravest thing she had ever done.
He looked at her trembling grip and grinned wider.
"A deer is always a deer, no matter what it holds or how many they are. A deer is always prey to the lion."
I did not understand his words at first. Then I felt Sophia's hands shaking uncontrollably. I understood what he saw. He believed we were powerless.
I refused to accept that.
I took Sophia's hand in mine and steadied it. Together, we pointed the shard at his throat.
He grinned even more and began stripping his pants, as if he were proud of what he thought would happen. As his blood dripped, he became aroused, but the horrifying thing was that it happened while he looked at me, not Sophia.
The sight of it, the shape of it, the sick anticipation on his face, became one of the worst memories of my life.
He lifted one leg. His pants limited how far he could raise it, yet he put all his weight into the stomp. His foot crushed my leg. I felt the bone crack. Pain shot through me like lightning. I screamed.
Hearing me cry out made him even more aroused. More blood rushed to that part of him, and he hardened fully.
At that moment I understood. He was not a man. He was not even human. He was a monster wearing human skin.
I nearly lost all hope.
But then a loud bang echoed behind him.
Blood burst from the back of his skull.
Ind stood there, small and shaking, gripping a heavy wrench so tightly his knuckles turned white. His eyes burned with a fury I had never seen in a child. They did not look like human eyes. They looked like the eyes of something pushed too far.
Even with his skull cracked open, the beast did not die. He staggered, turned slightly, and tried to lunge for Ind.
Before he could fully turn, Sophia kicked him on the leg.
He barely reacted. He looked down at her and muttered, "You filthy bitch."
That was enough to push me over the edge.
I yanked my leg from beneath his foot, ignoring the sharp pain, and kicked him as hard as I could. He lost his balance and fell on top of us. His weight crushed the breath out of our lungs.
We tried to lift him but could not. Yet something felt strange. His body twitched, then stilled.
When we finally pushed him enough to roll him to the side, we saw the shard of vase lodged deep in his throat.
While we were staring at it, his eyes snapped open.
Sophia screamed and yanked the shard out. Blood gushed from the open wound like a fountain. She panicked and pulled back, and his body collapsed onto us again before sliding to the floor.
He did not move after that.He did not breathe.
We killed him.
We did not speak. We did not cry. We did not look at each other.
We simply ran.
We escaped through the playground and into the woods behind the orphanage. We did not know where we were going. We did not know how long we would survive. But even as we stumbled through branches and thorn bushes, breathless and terrified, we were together.
That was enough for me.
Sophia eventually tripped and hit her knee on a tree root. She fell and cried out softly. I ran back to lift her. Ind ran back too, trying to help me carry her. For a moment, seeing both of them like that, I felt something warm in my chest. Even though we were running for our lives, we still had each other.
Sophia smiled weakly when she saw Ind running back to us.
We kept running until our lungs burned. After what felt like an eternity, we reached a massive building. A truck was parked beside it with its back doors open.
We crawled inside without thinking.
A few moments later, a man stacked trays into the truck, closed the doors, and sealed us in the darkness.
We huddled together, breathing hard, waiting for whatever came next.