[Warning!!! : The past is Dark. You can skip ahead the chapters Tilted Lital to skip it and continue. Or you can skim them.]
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They called her Lital.
The name clung to her like a scar, stitched in faded red thread on the inside of her tattered coat—rough, unraveling letters against the grimy gray fabric.
She couldn't remember why it was hers.
Maybe it had been whispered by a mother she never knew, or slapped on by some indifferent hand at the orphanage gates.
It didn't matter.
At Ashbrook Orphan House, names weren't gifts; they were labels, like the numbers etched on prison cells.
Assigned. Forgotten. Erased.
Lital spoke in whispers, if at all.
The other children learned that quickly, circling her like wolves sensing weakness.
Her voice was a fragile thing, soft as crumbling leaves, her eyes forever glued to the floor.
