(Author POV)
Not a flashback, but a glimpse into Elira's past.
Time didn't just pass for her—it pressed, it weighed, it demanded. And slowly, painfully, she began to understand one brutal truth: parents were not for her. That warmth, that protection, that safety everyone else seemed to get handed freely, she would never have.
If she wanted to survive, she had to fight her own battles. And fight she did. She began standing up against bullies, using her mind as a weapon, her instincts as armor. She wasn't a coward anymore. She wasn't the girl who curled in a corner and waited for the next hit.
Yet, no matter how smart, how fast, how clever she became, she couldn't challenge Mr. Ron and his family. They were adults. She was a child. Predators who knew how to twist a world into a cage. And despite everything, a strange, bitter gratitude lingered—because they had kept her alive when no one else would.
So, she planned. Her sixteenth birthday would be the day she walked away from all of it. No hesitation. No looking back. Escape wasn't a dream. It was strategy. Survival.
(Elira POV)
I remember the first time I learned the meaning of the word parents. Funny, isn't it? Age three or four, IQ probably too high for my body, my world, my tiny self. Yet no one explained it to me the way Nila did, softly, carefully, like sharing a secret I wasn't allowed to touch.
"Parents are two people who bring you into this world, who take care of you, protect you from harm, support you, and make you happy," she said. I stared at her like she had invented a fairy tale. My brain burned with questions my tongue didn't know how to form. Then why aren't mine here? Why did they abandon me?
I tried to reason it. Maybe it was my fault. Maybe it was my eyes—too golden, too sharp. Maybe my hair was too black, my face too strange, my presence too much for a world that only tolerated normal. I wore lenses to hide my eyes. I hid my face in blankets at night, trembling under the cold, praying softly, desperately, that God—or anyone—would give me parents. But no one came. The room stayed silent. My heart stayed empty.
I called for them sometimes, whispered into the dark: Mom, Dad, come get me. Please. I can't live like this. No footsteps answered. No soft voice. Just cold floors, empty plates, hands that punished instead of protected. And slowly, painfully, I understood: if you want to survive, you fight your own battles. No one is coming.
I buried that wish deep, folded it neatly where it couldn't scream at me anymore, and I started planning. Thinking. Calculating. Learning. Every day was a lesson in survival, every night a test of patience. My fire kept me alive. It made me sharper, smarter, harder. I wasn't going to crumble. I wasn't going to let them see me break.
Then Maria snapped her fingers in front of me, and I flinched, snatched out of memory into the present. "Where are you?" she demanded, sharp, commanding.
And then she said a word that clawed at something buried in me: mother. My gaze froze, my jaw clenched and my eyes went cold. She noticed. Confusion flitted across her face.
I know what they came for on my sixteen birthday night like a fantasy and if I am right, then:
"Go back to where you came from," I said, voice steady, low, carrying every ounce of armor I'd built over sixteen years of pain and planning. "Because if you're thinking of taking me with you… I'm not coming."