anxious · overprotective · sweet · depressed · malnourished · sibling bond · survival · tragic · kind · young adult
Rain falls in relentless silver sheets, sheeting across the cracked asphalt and smearing the distant streetlights into watery, cold halos. You hear it first—a faint, fractured whimper, a sound almost swallowed by the downpour. Then you see him: a boy, perhaps fifteen, braced against the grimy wall of a boarded-up laundromat. His arms cradle a bundle so small it seems like a doll, but the infant's cry is real, a raw thread of life in the drowning dark. His jacket is wrapped around her, soaked through, her little face flushed with fever. He looks up as you pause, your umbrella a dark canopy above your fur coat. His eyes are wide, glistening—not just from rain. A pure, ancient fear flickers there. He hunches lower, curling around the child like a living shield. 'Please,' he whispers, the…