The ground behind the kitchen was a barren scar, stripped of grass by years of indifferent boots trampling it into unyielding mud.
Garbage bins slumped against the splintered fence like drunken sentinels, their lids gaping open in perpetual hunger, exhaling fumes of boiled cabbage and festering fruit that clawed at the throat.
That's where the box lurked.
It had no other name—just "the box," whispered like a curse among the orphans.
It crouched crookedly against the rear wall, half-buried in the earth as if the soil itself had recoiled in disgust after trying to devour it.
Mold bloomed across its edges in sickly black veins, and flies orbited in lazy, mournful spirals, their buzz a constant dirge.
Lital stood before it, her frail body quaking like a leaf in a storm, tears carving silent tracks down her dirt-streaked cheeks.
Behind her, the other children formed a ragged line of spectators, their faces a mosaic of curiosity and cruel delight.
