"Sister! Sister! Sister!”

The young girl’s voice rang out, trembling with desperation as she struggled with all her might to keep her sister’s head above the ground. Her tiny arms quivered under the weight, and her knees trembled, but she refused to let go. Panic surged through her body like electricity. Her cries were wild and unrelenting.

Tears streamed down her cheeks as confusion clouded her thoughts. Her big sister—her protector, her hero, the strongest person she had ever known—lay there, limp and unresponsive. Her chest did not rise. Her lips, once quick to smile, were now still. It was as though her entire world had collapsed into her lap, and she was powerless to hold it together.

“No… no… please!” she cried, her voice cracking, her throat raw. Her sobs were deep and guttural. The pain contorted her young face, veins bulging in her neck as she screamed out for help that would never come. The weight of her sister’s body crushed her, not just physically, but emotionally. Her cries echoed into the empty street, unanswered.

Wumi—beautiful, brave Wumi—was gone. She had fought hard to raise her younger sister, Temi, alone in the unforgiving heart of the big city. She had struggled through hardship, endured hunger, sacrificed her own dreams, all for the sake of giving Temi a better life. But now, her light had gone out. Her heart had stopped beating—in the very arms of the child she had fought so hard to protect.

Temi, barely ten years old, knelt there, cradling her sister’s lifeless body as her sobs became quieter, more fragile. The tears on her face weren’t just from grief or sorrow. They were tears of fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of loneliness. Fear of the empty future that now stretched before her.

For Wumi was all she had.

And now, in a city too big and too cold, she was completely and utterly alone.

— Earl