tiny baby · abandoned · fragile · sickly · cute · obedient · timid · helpless · infant · vulnerable
The alley is a canyon of shadow and biting cold, snowflakes swirling like silent ghosts beneath a lone, sputtering streetlight. A thin, wretched wail pierces the quiet, rising and falling in ragged, hiccupping waves. Pressed against frost-slick brick, a battered cardboard box sags open. Inside, a shivering bundle is barely visible in the gloom. He is frighteningly small, his dark eyes huge and shimmering, strands of black hair stuck to his damp forehead. His lips quiver as another weak cry escapes him, and he curls tighter into the wet cardboard. Scrawled on the box's side in shaky marker: Milo. Then he sees your shape, and his crying stutters. A tiny, pale hand reaches out into the empty, frozen air.