As the doors closed, darkness swallowed us completely. In that terrifying blackness, the three of us sat huddled together, with Sophia cuddling against my side and Ind resting his head on my shoulder. After a while, the truck began to move. The gentle shaking must have soothed them, because soon they both fell asleep. Some time later, I drifted off too.
I woke to Sophia tugging my sleeve. She whispered urgently and pointed. A glowing butterfly was floating in the air, its wings giving off a soft blue light. That glow filled the truck and pushed away the darkness, revealing the metal walls around us.
The first thing I noticed in the light was Sophia's leg. The wound still looked raw. I ignored the butterfly for the moment and cleaned her injury as carefully as I could. Once she was taken care of, the three of us chased the butterfly together. We laughed, played, talked, even danced in circles in the back of that truck. For a while it felt like nothing had changed, as if the world outside the truck no longer existed.
But every time I saw her gown, soaked red from that night, my mind kept replaying the monster we escaped.
Luckily, the truck was filled with trays of brand-new clothes. To distract myself from the memories, I made all of us change into those fresh clothes. Somehow it helped. The bloodstained dress disappeared, and the horrible images in my mind softened.
We continued to play. We continued to smile.But I kept count of the days.
I counted each time the truck stopped and guessed morning or night from it. The strange thing was that we spent nearly an entire week inside, and yet none of us felt hunger or thirst. Not even once. We stayed energetic the whole time.
Unlike us naive kids, Ind was smart, a lot smarter than any of the kids I knew. When the doors finally opened, Ind immediately proved that. He told us to pack some clothes into the bags so we could sell them later for money. We stuffed three bags full and sneaked out of the truck.
The moment we stepped outside, hunger hit us like a hammer. It was so strong it felt as though we could have eaten a horse if we found one. Ind and I forced ourselves to endure it, but Sophia, who had lost a lot of blood, could not. She swayed on her feet, her face pale and empty.
Seeing her like that terrified us. We ran from shop to shop trying to sell the clothes. Shopkeepers yelled at us. Some tried to beat us. Some threatened to call the police. None of them believed we had gotten the clothes honestly. Still, we kept trying because Sophia looked like she was about to collapse.
Just when she could not stand anymore, a man who had been watching us approached. He took us to a small shopping mall. He spoke to the owner, sold all the clothes on our behalf, and handed us the money.
Ind and I were so busy counting the coins and feeling relief that we forgot to look at Sophia. The very moment we stepped outside, she fell to the ground right in front of us.
The pain that tore through my chest was worse than the moment I saw our mother with one hand missing and her legs crushed. It felt as if my heart stopped beating.
I screamed. I cried so hard that my throat burned. I did not even know I could cry like that.
The man who helped us, the one we later called Goodman, immediately carried her to his car and drove us to the hospital. I cried the whole time, holding her limp hand. Even after the doctors told us she was fine, I did not stop. I only stopped when I became too exhausted to cry anymore.
Goodman took me and Ind to the canteen and fed us. We could barely eat. When we tried to use our money to pay Sophia's hospital bill, he stopped us and paid everything himself.
Later, Sophia was discharged. Seeing her walk again restored something inside me. I felt my heart beating again.
For a few weeks, we survived on the money we had saved. Eventually, it ran out. Hunger returned. They both tried to endure it, but watching them starve broke me. I could not bear it.
So I began sneaking out alone to the garbage dump. I would not let them smell the stench, so I always stripped my clothes off before searching. When I found something edible, I cleaned myself, packed the food, and returned with a smile, pretending I bought it with the last of our money.
One day, the dump had nothing.
I searched for hours. My stomach burned. My legs shook. I returned empty-handed. There was no way to lie anymore. I told them the money was gone. That night, we slept on the footpath with empty stomachs.
While I lay awake trying to think of a new lie, trying to find any plan to feed us the next day, a car stopped beside us.
Goodman stepped out.
The car drove away without him. He walked to us and quietly asked us to come with him. I wanted to trust him, but after everything we had suffered, I could not trust anyone fully. Not even him.
I hesitated. Then I hid a sharp rock in my pocket and agreed.
He took us to his small home with two rooms and a bathroom. He fed us and asked us to sleep inside. We slept in the hall. He slept in his bedroom. Sophia curled on the couch. Ind curled in a chair. I slept on the floor with a knife under my pillow, a knife I had stolen from his kitchen.
The next morning, I woke to find Sophia cuddled beside me and Ind sleeping on my other side. Goodman stood in front of us.
I immediately reached for the knife, but it was gone. I panicked. Before I could react, Goodman gave us a warm smile and told us to bathe so he could take us somewhere.
That smile made something inside me relax. I trusted him. We bathed and followed him out.
He took us to the park, then to a movie, then around the city. The whole day felt magical, the first true happiness we had felt in a long time.
That night, he asked us to live with him. I agreed without hesitation. I did not know if it was trust or fear of losing him, but I agreed instantly.
Two days later, he took us to the store where he had sold our clothes and got us part-time jobs. The day after that, he took us to a school and enrolled all three of us, listing himself as our guardian. He bought our uniforms and books.
A week passed. We played in the evenings, went to school in the mornings, worked in the store when we could, and returned home to Goodman waiting for us.
One afternoon, he pulled me aside and told me, quietly, "This apartment is under my name for four more years. After that, you will need to pay the rent on your own."
I did not understand why he told me that. Later that night, I understood.
He slipped out while we slept.
He left us a note on the table.
On the piece of paper he wrote, "On the first day, I found the knife under your pillow. It made me sure that you can take care of yourself and of the two beside you. But always remember this. No matter how much you think you understand the world, there are things in it that can destroy you completely. So be ready for anything."
At the bottom, he wrote, "Do not search for me."
That was the last thing he gave us.
He knew about the knife the entire time, yet he never asked why we were like that. Instead, he gave us a place to live, food to eat, and more than anything else, he gave us the courage to trust the world again.