Chapter 1 ONE

The rushing footsteps shrieked behind me; once I turned around, a glistening moving object in the dim light triggered apprehension in the corner of my heart, prompting me to wonder what it was.

The rustling wind and the black-turning leaves in my surroundings created a more terrifying atmosphere that sent shivers up my spine. My brain warned me to flee the danger that might lurk behind the blanket of the night yet my feet were firmly planted in their place, defeated by my fear.

"W-who's t-there?" A trembling yell of words from my mouth cracked the silence of the dusk and stopped the human being-like object a few feet away at my rear.

"Do not worry. I am one of your classmates and have no bad intentions for you."

The man's voice confessed as my friend broke the fear of my surroundings.

"Why are you stalking me? Are you a pervert?

"No...no...it is not like what you are thinking about? I..."

"You better leave." My harsh, sudden response cut him off in his tracks. I didn't wait any longer, forcing my feet to collide with the pebbles paving the dark road under the dim moonlight

"My name's Reno. You are Ilana, right?" His yell of mentioning his name meant nothing to my ears other than the breeze that caressed my hair; I resumed my journey and he had no the nerve to follow, I bet.

What a pitiful life a poor girl like me had to live, born as a child in an unfortunate family with a drunkard father and a miserable mother. I never regretted my fate, but life was not always fair to me, pushing me into the ravine of hardship with no way out

Even my ragged, full-of-stitches shoes couldn't keep me from skidding and slipping into the hole that my eyes couldn't see. As a reaction to my bad luck, my mouth muttered only a groan of pain

I grumbled not because no one came to help me, but because fate had dragged me here. If I didn't have to scavenge and sell junk after school, I wouldn't have had to deal with limb fatigue or swelter all over my torso at this hour when others slurped the delicacy of the soup or chewed the tender beef. I pushed that wild imagination to the back of my mind, knowing that despite being at home at the time, I would not be able to enjoy those amenities.

As impoverished people, my parents and I resided in a tiny hut-like house in a slum area where ragged clothe inhabitants and bed-smelled rubbish were our companions. The only access to get to this area was the muddy cramped road which could slip your feet when you didn't carefully step on it

The gloomy-faced woman under the thin covering lay on the deflated mattress with her chest moving up and down in her sleep. Her mouth in a while mumbled random equivocal words while her hands in her unconsciousness clapped the mosquitoes which partied around her ears. Even in her slumber, my mother showed her sorrowful life.

An hour had passed since I arrived home; I couldn't sleep despite my exhaustion. It was not because of my mother's snore or the blood-sucking insects dancing around me; many things stuck in my mind that I could not define or express in words.

"Please...don't hurt her," my mother murmured with her closed eyes, she was dreaming. Her fingers scratched the itchy skin of the mosquitos' bites causing it to redden the area. To give her comfort and protect her from more bites, I rolled up the disheveled gauzy bedding on her body.

"Ilana...why haven't you slept yet?" In her half-opened eyes, a question erupted in her mouth as soon as she noticed me fixing her blanket. My lips formed a smile before revealing a lie.

"I just woke up, Mom."

"Go back to sleep then." I obeyed her instruction and laid my body next to her, then pulled the thin cloth functioning as a coverlet over my torso.

I had no idea how long I had dozed; my eyes were dazzled by the light penetrating through the ventilation of my windowless room which jolted me awake. I got out of my bed in an instant at my mother's call in her raised tone.

She handed me a plastic bag full of clean clothes and asked me to send it to Mrs. Ali, one of her customers. My mother made a living as a laundress but it was not kind of a big laundry corporation where she worked. She offered her service of doing laundry for the rich people door to door. And Mrs. Ali was her most loyal customer who had trusted her for the laundry for almost one year now.

With a heavy big plastic bag in my small hand, I propelled my hasty steps over the tarnished stench narrow street toward Mrs. Ali's house located in the other housing, one kilometer from the slum area where we lived. The fog still caged the area around me which required me to carefully walk the path ahead of me. The cold breeze stung the skin under my flimsy t-shirt which made me cuddle myself with one of my arms wrapping around my chest.

After a long stride, the enormous building surrounded by the tall iron fence welcomed me with its loftiness. An elegant corpulent lady about my mother's age in a lavish cherry dress who was no other than Mrs. Ali greeted me with her sweetest smile. Her plump lips motioned the word to thank me upon receiving the plastic of the laundry from my hand.

Despite being born in the same year, my mother looked older than this pretty lady; I didn't spot any flaws on her cheek, and not even a single acne dared to linger there with the beauty product she applied to it. My mother, on the other hand, sucked all the drawbacks as if fate didn't spare her a little beauty. A black spot layered most parts of her face with acne spreading here and there on her sun-kissed skin. Only a thin crumpled dress covers her skinny body.

I threw my gaze at my feet, swallowing the comparison I created in my head while cursing myself for what I did, comparing this woman to my mother whose life had been pathetic since she was a baby.

"I am sorry to keep you waiting. Here is the money. And this is another dirty cloth to wash." I saved the money in my pants pocket without counting the amount of the money for my trust in her honesty.

The drama of a fight and quarrel between two human beings, my father who just returned home after a month of disappearance, and my mother who was kneeling in her sobs, welcomed my arrival at the door of my wooden house. In a rush and with no further wait, I ran toward my weak mother whose hair had masked her countenance.

"Mom... Dad...please stop it" My husky voice in a sad tone didn't gain my father's sympathy.

His reddened eyes fell on me and in no time, one of his rough hands grabbed my shoulder harshly like I was a non-living object and shoved me to the wooden wall. Pain coursed through my back and seeped into my heart induced by his action. The corner of his eye caught the gallon of water my mother used to cook and poured it all over my body while cursing me as a jinx to his life.

"You are a curse. Why are you still alive?"

My drunkard father didn't stop there; he kicked, punched, and hit me with his bare feet and fists without bothering my wail of begging for his mercy. Even though I got used to his brutality, it still hurt and dumped me into a chasm of misery.

I surrendered under his brutal blow and collapsed to my knees. What I heard was only my mother's scream before my swoon knocked me down and turned everything around me dark.