A Choice No One Should Have To Make

The words became heavier, as though each line had been written with effort.

“I tried to resist. I really did. But when I turned, one of them was already holding Lila’s hand, smiling at her like they were playing a game, and in that moment I understood that any mistake, any noise, would cost her everything.”

Evelyn pressed her hand to her mouth, her shoulders trembling.

“They put us in a truck, drove us through roads I couldn’t recognize, and brought us to a place so far removed from everything we knew that it might as well have been another world. They made it clear that if I tried anything—anything at all—they would make me regret it through her.”

The ink grew uneven in places, as if written during moments stolen from exhaustion.

“We were moved again and again. Months blurred together. I lost count of how long it had been since I had heard your voice.”

The Man Who Chose Mercy

Evelyn wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and kept going, unable to stop now.

“There was one man among them—an older one named Walter—who looked at Lila differently, like he saw his own granddaughter in her. Because of him, things changed just enough that we were allowed to stay in a remote town in the mountains, still watched, still controlled, but no longer treated like we were disposable.”