Oriel and Collin were alone in the ripening night and a deserted road was all that surrounded them. In reality, both of them were frightened but Collin looked at the puerile face of Oriel and realized that he couldn't afford to let his fear show as he was trying to protect her.
"Daddy," Oriel cried for her father, squinting her eyes to release tears.She was hurt from rolling on the rough road surface and had blood oozing out from the fresh wound. "Don't cry,I will take you to your dad."She stopped crying on hearing Collin's voice and looked at him with her round eyes. "Where is the handsome boy who was sitting beside me?" She asked in her chipmunk voice."I am him... why?" Then all of a sudden, she began to cry again. "You're not handsome," she sounded even sadder this time."You're so mean, I am leaving you alone if you don't listen to me."She stopped crying before suddenly raising her voice on him, "You can't leave me, I heard you promise my dad.""But you will have to listen to me and stop crying... okay?" sounded Harry.She wiped her tears off and consented to obey him. Collin saw her injured knee and crouched for her to get on his back. He struggled and grunted when carrying her at one moment but it got easier as he started walking.The two began their journey walking down the lonely road on his short legs. The full-moon glowed upon their heads, and they directed toward the faintly visible mountain in front of them.Collin was already tired of carrying her on his back and needed a number of stops to rest in between."Look! that's moon, it's so beautiful and big," Oriel pointed toward the full-moon and said.Collin was panting from the exhaustion but still responded to her gleeful praise of the moon. "It's not, it's so small compared to the sun.""You don't know anything, Moon is bigger. It looks bigger than sun." She gazed at the full moon emerging from the clouds."How old are you to not even know that moon is not bigger than star? Have you ever seen how giant our sun is?" he constantly corrected her misunderstanding.
"Moon is better because you can look at it no matter how long you want. But my eyes hurt when I look at the sun," she stood firm on her belief."
Collin no longer bothered to explain it to her. "You are so dull for your age." He crouched for her again, "now get on my back, we are almost there."
He was taking her to the hospital nearby, in search of his father. Oriel got on his back again, and he toiled the journey and succeded to find it.In the middle of a vast dark region, the sign of the hospital glowed like a lighthouse for the ships. Collin seated Oriel on the bench lying outside. "Stay here! I will go and find our Dads." He instructed her, and she obediently nodded and swung her legs while sitting on the bench.Collin stepped inside the hospital and examined the faces of the people, looking for Oriel's father. He came across a nurse, who was coming out of a ward with a tray carrying someone's possessions in her hands, it aslo contained articles familiar to him."Excuse me! That belongs to my father." He pointed at a wallet and a watch belonging to his father, distinctively told apart by Collin.The nurse turned to look at him. "Are you certain?" she asked.Suddenly, the door to that ward opened and an intern walked out pushing the wheeled bed with a person on it, covered with a white sheet. Collin was perplexed and stunned to find the nurse and the dead body coming out of the same ward. The kid had his imaginations haunting him, and he drifted away from it.The nurse comforted him, "Do you have the contact number of you mother, or any other adult we can call?"Collin's mind was blank, he couldn't think of anything else. "Is it really my dad?" he asked while reaching to remove the sheet from his face. His little hands grasped one end of the sheet and hesitantly pulled it off. But the face under the sheet belonged to George. His face was barely recognizable by him. It looked as if the shards from the shattered windshield had carved their shape till deep down his facial muscles."A sigh released from his mouth; he was relieved to not find his dad in there. "He's not my father. Was there anyone who was brought with a stab wound?" He inquired the nurse."Yes, there was someone who came with him." The nurse's eyes widened when she recalled his father. "He got his wound treated and after having a blood transfusion, he discharged himself, just now.""Where?... Where did he go?" Collin forgot about Oriel and the dead George; he only wanted to meet his father. "He must be outside..." The nurse could only proceed to this when Collin rushed out to look for him, leaving the body of George alone.He ran through the crowded corridor while bumping into people, out of breath and exasperated. Suddenly, a figure resembling his father's came in contact with his view. Collin followed him, which led him to come outside where he had left Oriel to sit tight on the bench.The man he was following disappeared from his sight when the corridor diverged into two, and Collin had lost the track of the last turn he took. He had missed his trail and came outside in disdain, finding Oriel, who was fanning her hand in the air to chase a butterfly that was flying over her head, "Uh! go away!"Collin suddenly veered his priority after seeing her. He was struck by a guilty conscience for leaving George alone to find his father. He gazed at her smiling face and pondered upon various ways to tell her and turn that beautiful smile into tears."Please! Make it go away... it is trying to hurt me." Oriel was adorably fighting the butterfly which kept coming back to her. "It is not trying to hurt you... I think it likes you," said Collin."But I don't like it! chase it away from me." Oriel pleaded with displeasure on her face.Collin came forward and swung his hand to scare the butterfly off, "Is it fine now?""Yes." She nodded and flashed her bunny teeth with the spread of a smile. Collin was unable to muster up the coldness and tell her about George."Oriel!... that's your name right?" He clenched his fingers to make a fist and poured all his strength into it. "Who else do you have in your family? Do you remember their phone number now?"Oriel took a pause trying to remember something before saying that. "No one! It's just me and my Dad.""How is it possible? You must have someone, what about your mom?""Oh! Yes, I have a mom." She jumped on her feet in ecstasy and pointed her finger at the starry night sky, "Look, there she is, the biggest star up there."Collin couldn't take it and his neck released the strength in it for his face to lower in dismay, "Oriel! Can you please forgive me?" He begged.Oriel stood by the lifeless body of her father, not knowing what death meant. "Dad! get up! Dad!" She shook him to exhaust all her strength, expecting him to wake up any minute. Collin, who had witnessed the same feeling earlier that day, could communicate with her pain. "Oriel! try to understand." The nurse who chaperoned the kids in the morgue was constantly telling them to leave, but Oriel had her tiny fingers interlocked with her father's. "Dad! come with me," she cried. The nurse forcefully brought the kids outside, near the desk and yelled at Oriel, who kept trying to sneak inside. "Hey! you... behave." Her hand was firmly clutching her arm, and Oriel groaned from the pain of a strong grip. Collin came forward and released her hand from the nurse's. "I will keep an eye on her, she will behave." "Oh god! What crappy day?" spoke the agitated nurse. "Now, you little demons better tell me the number of some adult in your family." The nurse had the receiver in her hand and a fi
"Alright, she can come with us," she had her hands tied and was left with no other option. "But... only until they find her family." Collin's mother named Bella, had failed her first marriage miserably due to the financial crisis that always surrounded Bob, which had also made him resort to excessive alcohol consumption and despicably swearing before the eyes of the little child. She saw glass shards lying on her path and made a detour to look for a paved flowerbed, and succeeded. She married a man who provided her with all the riches and comforts of the world, but couldn't make her forget her only son, who was still growing up under his father's negligence and suffering. Then one day, her wish was answered in the face of Bob's defeat and now she was dreaming to have a perfect life along with her loving and well-off husband, and her beloved son. Oriel's involvement didn't seem much of a big change for her and she agreed to accept the condition offered by her son. "Oriel, come wit
When the day that felt longer than eternity ended, Oriel and Collin woke up together in their new home. They felt unfamiliar to open their eyes in that room and they looked at the clock."Oriel! get up, it's 9 am already," Collin told her.She didn't know how to read the clock, and while stretching her little arms the air, she rose and sat up on the bed. "My school is at 8 am. How much time is remaining?" she asked."You can't even tell time?" Collin asked in bafflement. "You say that moon is bigger than the sun, and you can't read time also, what do you even study in school?"All of a sudden, Bella barged in through the door. "Collin," she shouted as she fervently marched to him. "What are you doing here? Come with me, Roger wants to meet you."Collin was dragged by Bella, holding his hand to take him outside of the room, "Oriel!" she called. "You should come too."Oriel went nervous, reluctant to get up from the bed. But she didn't have any other choice except following what Bella h
Bella visited the hospital in the suburb again, taking Oriel with her. On reaching there, Oriel once again attracted towards her queries and pitiful gazes. "Do you not have anyone else in your family?" they asked."Poor girl, orphaned at such a young age," they pitied."What happened to her father? I heard he was driving under influence to smash his car against a tree," they speculated.Bella was giving her attention to the formalities at the desk, while seating Oriel on the bench inside the corridor teeming with some people ill from all kinds of diseases and some bleeding from wounds and impaled skin. Oriel couldn't stay still; she swung her legs from one side to another while waiting for Bella. She was expecting to see her father once again, not knowing that the pen in Bella's hands had just allowed the hospital to cremate him.She was unaware of the ways the world worked, not told of the things that a signature on the paper was capable of. Bella was signing as a guardian of the ber
Bella had received a fervent plea from Bob: to identify the dead body of George as his, so that he could emerge out of the dangers and threats that circled that name. Bella, although reluctant and unyielding at first, wavered at what Bob offered her in return: he convinced her that he would never try to find Collin."Are you telling the truth?" she asked taking the first step toward consenting to do as he was saying. "I won't leave you alone if you're lying."Bob talked Bella into his plan and she gave in to the conditions profiting for both of them. "Okay! now all I have to do is to identify him as my ex-husband, which means you."After hanging up the call, Bella went inside the hospital and approached the same desk, asking for an alteration in the documents stamped by her. "The body belongs to my ex-husband Bob Hastings," she changed her claim from the one she made previously.The nurse at the reception was suspicious when she saw Bella flipping from her words, "Mam, didn't you say
Roger came back home with delightful treats for the kids. He brought chocolates, candies, toys, and some pretty outfits in several bags that the hands of the servant carrying them were getting tugged down by their weight. He gestured for the house helper to place the bags on the table, and he put them down."I don't know if you will like any of these but I just thought of you and bought them on my way back."Neither Collin nor Oriel seemed any excited or uplifted on receiving those gifts. Roger was awkwardly looking at them, accepting the gifts with straight faces. Bella was also beside them, prodding them to act pleased. "Wow! Collin, you love this superhero figure, don't you?" she took out from the bag a plastic model of a character and showed it him, trying to stimulate a reaction out of him. "Oriel! a barbie doll for you."Collin took the notice of her mother's actions and realized that even if he was feeling uncomfortable accepting those gifts, he was not supposed to show it on
After the sun went on its short hiatus, Bella returned home by herself. She had walked out taking Oriel but seeing her coming back without her, Collin poured his queries out."I was able to find someone from her family: I think it was her uncle. They told me that they had been out, finding her for the last two days. They took Oriel with them and were very happy to see her again. They also told me how grateful they are to us for taking care of her," said Bella, smiling till her teeth flashed and a voice that didn't waver while spewing the lies."It is great that she has returned her home, back to her family. Although, I really wanted her to stay with us," Roger spoke in a slight letdown.Meanwhile, Harry was not convinced by her story, "It's not possible. She told me that she didn't have any relatives or friends in this town. She had only recently moved here.""Collin," Bella spoke. "Are you saying that I have lied to you?""Honey! Collin didn't mean that. He was just trying to clear a
The night that Oriel had put her hopes in, ended. That night she had almost gotten kicked out of the party, been the date of the handsome host, and also stumbled upon a face from her past. Nothing of this was ever fathomed by her. At the end of the night, she was left with Rever, who was brimming with alcohol down his throat. He needed her support to even walk out of the farm house. Oriel became lifeless even at the thought of bearing him till she manages to find a cab. "Lord! will there ever be a day when I won't regret being alive?" she muttered to herself while Rever leaned on her shoulder that was too frail to handle his weight. She tried walking straight and coordinated his steps with hers. She collected the stares of the guests who were on their way outwards. Just as her mind veered to the embarrassment that she was facing because of him, she couldn't maintain her balance and Rever almost tripped with his head on, but Collin came lifting him from the other side and saved his sk