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School bag in hand; a gust of a cold chill runs down Soyona’s back. Her mother had told her to bring a jacket. She must’ve woken up on the wrong side of the bed that morning, her mother having to drag her out of bed and force the fussy little girl to brush her teeth and make sure she packed her spelling homework from last night. The cold morning air must’ve woken her up, now debating maybe she should retreat back inside the house and grab her warm, cotton jacket, however her stubbornness prevented her from taking into mind her mother’s wisdom.
Was it the way her mother somehow always knew how to read her mind that startled her, or just the fact she was paying too much attention to the passing cars on the street to notice her mother standing over her? Small jacket in hand and all.
“Soyona.” Hariti’s stern yet comforting expression dug itself deep into the depths of Soyona’s mind. The small girl gingerly reached a hand out to grab the jacket as Hariti’s hands assisted in putting it on her, zipping it up, making sure her daughter was nice and snug.
“I told you to wear a jacket baby, you’re shivering!” Hariti cupped Soyona’s small, plump yet freezing cheeks, having to crouch to meet her eyes, her voice almost a whisper.
Soyona refused to meet her gaze, her throat giving out a childish, frustrated grunt. Folding her arms. Hariti would’ve been irritated hadn’t the way Soyona looked in her puffy jacket that looked almost a little too big; it took over that side of her that was telling her to scold the child for giving her a hard time this morning.
“The bus is coming soon, you don’t wanna miss it.” Hariti spoke softly as she adjusted Soyona’s jacket.
“I don’t wanna go.” She whispered back in Lhasa.
Her mom almost wanted to laugh in disbelief. “You have to, baby. You can’t just skip.”
“No.” Soyona pouted.
“Soyona.”
“No!” She threw her backpack on the ground, about to run back into the house, but she went only as far as her little legs could go before her mother gently grabbed her by the arm and scooped her into her arms. The little girl groaned in frustration, trying to break free from her mother’s grasp.
“Why don’t you want to go?” Hariti herself almost had enough of her daughter’s antics. She had to remind herself Soyona was only five years old, and emotional regulation would be tricky for a child at this age. They at least weren’t as bad as the endless crying stage. That was one of the main reasons why Hariti refused to have another child. Soyona was just enough. That and of course the fear of having another epidural fail. She definitely didn’t want to go through that again.
Soyona wanted to speak. She wanted to voice her concerns, what she was feeling, but her brain just couldn’t bring itself to form the words. She just buried her face into her mother’s neck, letting out incoherent mumbles.
“Is someone bothering you? Hariti whispered in her ear.
She shook her head.
“Is the teacher being mean to you?”
Another shake.
“Do you just not like school?” Hariti tried to keep in her laugh, but Soyona’s little grunts of protest were just too endearing. “You’re not in trouble, baby, I just want to know.” She adjusted Soyona in her arms, making her meet her gaze with hers.
“Hm.” Soyona muttered as she fidgeted with her fingers.
“Someone is bothering you, aren’t they?” A mother’s intuition never faltered.
Soyona stayed silent, but the way she avoided her mother’s eyes told Hariti enough. Hariti’s biggest fear, and always has been the second she became a mother, was her daughter being tormented without her knowledge. Young children were vulnerable. She’s heard the stories, read the newspaper. It always ended with a child driven to suicide via bullying, even victims almost as young as her precious baby was. The thought of someone hurting her daughter filled her with a sense of dread, panic, and anger. God forbid the person tormenting her be an adult, she’d end up in jail if she met them face to face.
“Who is bothering you?” She kept her voice steady and calm.
Her daughter listed a couple of names, names her mom thankfully recognized being a couple girls in her class. When Hariti pressed on and asked why they picked on her, Soyona’s response came as quite a little surprise to her mother. She had been mistreated by her fellow female peers because she seemed to like “boy things”, boy things being digging in the little sandpit on their playground pretending to excavate dinosaur fossils, just like Hariti did for her career. Those fossils being the little dinosaur toys she’d bring to school.
“They make fun of you because of your little dinosaurs?”
Soyona let out a quiet, but sad mumble in confirmation.
“Okay…” Her mother carefully ran her fingers through Soyona’s brown hair. “Do you want me to drop you off instead? I can talk to your teacher and tell those girls to stop picking on you.” She smiled as she kissed Soyona’s forehead, earning a little smile from her daughter.
“Mhm.” She giggled as Hariti booped her little nose. The comfort of her mom’s fingers running through her hair and caressing her cheeks eased the fear in Soyona.
“Do you want your dinosaur?” Hariti combed through her hair, parting it behind her ear. She knew Soyona couldn’t really get through a school day without her small dinosaur plush-doll. A little triceratops she’d keep in her backpack, pocket, or even in her arms as she was doing her work, or even sitting on the little reading carpet listening to her teacher read the class a picture book. Soyona of course nodded in response, already itching to have the dinosaur in her arms.
Lucky for her, Hariti had noticed before. Soyona was walking out the door of their small house while the triceratops was still sitting on its own on her bed. Her mother immediately grabbed it the second she noticed its absence in Soyona’s hands, knowing the girl would probably start freaking out and be in a mood the whole day if her triceratops wasn’t with her. She slowly pulled it out of the pocket of her own jacket and let Soyona desperately reach for the plush, holding it tight against her chest as she buried her face in the soft fluff of its material. Her own, familiar scent on the plush providing a sense of comfort.
Hariti placed her daughter in the backseat of her car, taking her backpack and placing it on the seat right next to her. Securing the young child in her booster seat, giving her a quick kiss on the nose before she’d shut the door. As she stepped into the driver’s seat, she couldn’t help but sneak a glance at Soyona in the rear view mirror, watching as she fidgeted with the triceratops in her lap. A smile made its way on her face as she backed out of the drive-way.
“Mama.” Soyona called out.
Hariti looked back at her daughter through the rear view mirror. “Yes?”
“I love you.”
Hariti smiled to herself, clutching the wheel a little tighter. “I love you too.”
Usually at this time she’d wave goodbye to Soyona as the little girl stepped onto the bus, watching the doors close. An odd melancholy feeling would brew in her chest as she watched the bus pull away with her daughter inside. She had to admit she found herself a little too attached to her child, but those days spent in her early days of pregnancy kneeling at the shrine in her living room, muttering the words under her breath, praying to be blessed with a daughter was not all for nothing. How she dreamed of being a mother to a beautiful baby girl for so many years, even before her marriage. Her family knew, and they weren’t surprised that Hariti burst into tears the second the baby’s gender was revealed. She spent every day, even after Soyona had been born, thanking the gods at the shrine in her home, for giving her the daughter she’s begged for time and time again.
Even if the first time she’d see her daughter in years would be in shackles.
The untreated bruises and cuts all over Soyona’s body did not help in easing the anger and hurt brewing in her stomach. A prosthetic arm to the face definitely wasn’t helpful to her already aching jaw and nose. Everything almost felt like a blur. Her ears ringing from the impact of the prosthetic, a lost tooth and a swollen lip in return. She could already feel the lump forming on her forehead from The Handler’s attempt at being one with the Stygymoloch. Hell, maybe that’s why she always kept those bangs short; the better to absorb impact, Soyona thought to herself. Maybe the random thoughts in her head was just a sorry excuse for a coping mechanism. After losing everything, her power, her status, her money, her business, Brooklynn, and even to her disgust, The Handler, the numbness began growing into unease, shame even. She wasn’t ashamed of her actions, she was ashamed of the fact she was caught, and worst of all, played by a little girl.
The French Intelligence agents shoved her into the back of their vehicle, locking her in with her cuffs still tight around her wrists, feeling like they were cutting off her circulation. Thankfully they had parked near the entrance of the colosseum so that they wouldn’t have to deal with the current rampage of the dinosaurs loose in the city, but even through the thick glass of the vehicle, Soyona could still make out the screams and roars of people and dinosaurs. The drive through the city was already humiliating enough, watching all of Soyona’s assets just roaming freely. She even caught a glimpse of the remaining Atrociraptors joining in on the havoc. She wasn’t sure, but she could’ve sworn she had made direct eye contact with Red. That hungry expression on the raptor’s face peering into Soyona’s soul through the moving vehicle sent a slight chill down her spine.
They had eventually made it to where a couple airplanes were parked. Soyona remembered this spot, it was where she escorted Maisie Lockwood, and now she’d be the one escorted. They forced her out of the vehicle and into one of the airplanes along with a few other smugglers that F.I had caught along the way. She took one look back and could make out three figures from a short distance. The Atrociraptors were watching her from afar. They had followed the vehicle to watch Soyona be taken away. As if she wasn't ashamed enough. She had completely lost the trust of the raptors, and now she had to watch them gawk at her as she’d be man-handled into the airplane. It was almost like they were laughing. They knew they got their justice, their freedom. And now they’d make good use to humiliate the woman who had used and abused them for so long. Who killed not just their sibling but their mother. The trills resembled that of a hyena, and they’d make one final screech in unison before an Intelligence agent would shoo them away.
They never gave Soyona the time of day, nor gave her the time to adjust. It was interrogation after interrogation after interrogation. Trial after trial, and before she knew it, she’d be asked if she’d plead guilty. She knew with all of her charges, there was no reducing her sentence even if she did plead guilty. She was sentenced to life in prison with no parole and was eventually transferred to maximum security. Upon arrival she’d look around at all the other convicted women around her, asking herself if she really belonged here. They’d take her belongings. When asking about sanitary and hygienic products the only answer she’d receive is to purchase them at commissary. But with the now zero funds she had, how would she even obtain them? They’d tell her about the work programs within the facility, but of course they were limited. The correctional officer would escort her and the other new prisoners to their cells where Soyona would now share a confined space with three other women.
Soyona would spend weeks a husk. She didn’t cry herself to sleep the first night like most new prisoners did, not like she could’ve slept as her roommate on the top bunk of the other bed snored like an Allosaurus with nasal congestion the whole night. She simply stared up at the ceiling of the bunk above going through the events of the months leading up to her arrest. She thought about her penthouse in Dubai and how everything in there was either taken away or destroyed when they were doing their search for evidence. They have also started a case on her handler from the information she has given about the dead woman in her interrogations.
Because of the fact The Handler was no more, her case was assumed to be closed, but there was the apparent excavation of her remains from the Carnotaurus. As to Soyona’s surprise, the dinosaur ended up swallowing her whole, and she ended up getting stuck in its esophagus, and died minutes later from asphyxiation. The dinosaur went into surgery to safely remove her body that came out in one piece besides a few fractures and broken bones. It certainly shocked the system to its core. Once they went through with her autopsy, her case was eventually reopened, which led to a bigger investigation with Biosyn. To Soyona, it was almost embarrassing how her handler somehow received more media attention than she did for her case, even in death. Maybe that was her own fault for relying on delegation for most of her career. In return, netizens labeled Soyona as someone cruel, unjust, and was someone who should’ve received the death sentence. They labeled The Handler as someone crazed and psychotic but someone who needed mental help, someone who was better off dead not just for the safety of the public, but for her own good. They knew Soyona was the mastermind anyway.
The months spent away felt like years. Soyona felt like a caged animal. Maybe this was the ideal punishment for her. Go through what she put those dinosaurs through. Living the same routine everyday for the rest of her life really only fueled that almost zoochosis-like mentality in her mind. She’d spend most of the time in her cell anyway. Not like she really had anywhere to go or to do other than the job she miraculously got her hands on, which was the only thing she’d look forward to at this point. Her roots have grown out, the blonde dye in her hair now back to the dark brown she was born with. The COs never really paid any mind to her as much as they did with the other prisoners. Not like they could since Soyona would spend the free time she had laying in her bed if she wasn’t doing her scheduled yard time, or at work. By pure luck her cooperation ended up doing her a favour. Not only did she end up with more privileges, but even got a better job, which in turn made her more of the little money she had for commissary.
Despite her cooperation, Soyona would end up finding herself being called from her cell by a familiar CO, the same one which got her situated when she first arrived. Confusion and dread filled up her mind. She had never been called away from her cell before, hell it was the first time a CO had spoken to her in a long while. In prison she became a shadow; the complete opposite of what she once was before things would take a turn for the worst, before she decided to put her trust in the wrong person. Trust in general was what got her in here. It never came easy to her, and yet, when she finally decided to let her guard down, it became her undoing. There were only two people she came to trust in her career, but one chose animals over success, the other had Soyona completely wrapped around her finger before knocking her to the ground, quite literally. She’s been a silent shadow since her arrival to prison, and she wasn’t keen on making friends or alliances with these women any time soon.
The CO led her to a room. On the way there Soyona assumed they were taking her in for another interrogation. She hadn’t had one since before she received her sentence, but because of how big Biosyn’s case had become, and Soyona’s ties with Dodgeson himself, it was surprising they didn’t take her in for more questioning sooner. But the room she was led to wasn’t for interrogation. There were other prisoners sitting in a line, a large glass screen in front of them. This was for visitation. But who would visit Soyona of all people? Could it be Brooklynn? Probably not. And if so, Soyona definitely wouldn’t hesitate to jump through the glass and strangle her to death. The CO sat her down at an empty booth, upon even making it a few short feet from the chair, she felt her breath catch in her throat. The hairs on her arms standing up, but not with fear. This was a feeling far from fear.
“Mother?” She choked. Her voice hoarse from being unused all this time.
Hariti sat there on the other side of the glass, a solemn expression on her face with a hint of relief, maybe even disappointment seeing Soyona in that orange uniform. “Soyona.” She whispered back, pressing her hand against the glass.
Soyona didn’t know what to think. She could only stare at the woman in front of her as a million thoughts ran through her mind. Why was her mother here? How was her mother here? She hadn’t seen her in a little over twenty years due to her smuggling businesses, which first started out as only fossils and exotic animals before the dinosaurs made it to the mainland.
“Can you believe it took me this long to get approved?” Hariti laughed, her hand still longingly placed upon the glass, itching to feel the skin of Soyona’s now calloused hands.
“Approved?”
Hariti cleared her throat. “When I got word you were…sent here, I immediately got to work on getting approved for visitation.”
“Why?"
Hariti’s brows furrowed. The question leaving her almost caught off guard. Why wouldn’t she want to see her daughter? Why would that even be the question? “Because you’re my daughter. Why wouldn’t I want to see you?”
“You never cared to visit me before, so why now?” Soyona’s tone came off as more hostile than she wanted it to be.
Her mother’s hand slowly pulled back away from the glass. “You told me that you wanted nothing to do with me; I still fail to see why…”
Soyona’s teeth gritted. She never had a proper reason to show disdain for her mother. Hariti had always been there for her, to support her, but that was her problem. In Soyona’s eyes, she was too supportive. Her always being there to have her back made it seem like she didn’t trust Soyona to be independent. That she was some fragile little baby that needed all the support she could get or she’d break.
“I just needed time for myself.”
“ Time being twenty years?” Her voice was almost a whisper.
“I had a business to take care of.”
“Of course, that business being illegal fossil and animal smuggling.” Hariti scoffed. “And apparently live dinosaur smuggling–seriously–was the second those animals came to the mainland your first intention was to exploit them for profit??”
Soyona had never actually told her mother about the smuggling she’d done before the dinosaurs, hell her mother had no idea about the dinosaur smuggling at all. In Hariti’s perspective all she saw was her daughter growing more colder and distant as the years passed by. She tried to appeal to her. To spend as much time with Soyona, but the more she seemed to push, Soyona would only pull further back, until the day she’d leave. The day Soyona cut all contact with her was the day Hariti’s entire world collapsed. She’d stay up at night crying to herself wondering what it was she did wrong. Did she push too hard? Push too little ? Was her daughter hiding something that Hariti was too blind to even notice? It seemed so.
“I was building our legacy.” That was a lie. Soyona had no intention of sharing her success with her mother, or anyone else for that matter. From the start she wanted it all to herself.
“ Legacy? ” Hariti scowled. “Does this look like a legacy to you?!” She gestured to Soyona’s cuffs and her bright orange uniform.
“I had a contingency for everything .”
“And yet it wasn’t enough. I taught you better. To appreciate life and see it as something to protect . Something beautiful but all you saw was something to make you money.” Her voice cracked.
Soyona fists clenched within their restraints. “And you wonder why we lived so poorly? It was that exact mentality that made you weak. Digging up bones surely wasn’t enough to get by; you convinced me to start selling my art to pay off your debts, but now?” She laughed. “I was sitting in one of the most luxurious penthouses in Dubai making art for FUN. I could afford to have fun . You couldn’t afford a fraction of what I’ve worked for.”
Hariti stared deadpan at Soyona, almost an almost unrecognizable look in her eyes. “Do you have any idea what I sacrificed for you?” Her voice was low, a singular tear ran down her left cheek. “How much I loved you?”
Soyona wanted to scoff, but that use of past tense in her mother’s words filled her with a small sense of unease that even she couldn’t ignore.
“Do you understand what I went through when I received a phone call to an officer telling me ‘Ms. Santos, your daughter has been taken into custody’. When I asked why, he told me ‘Illegal trafficking and smuggling of exotic animals and prehistoric wildlife’. I’d never guess that murder charges would soon be brought up.”
Soyona felt stuck, but the sight of her mother crying in front of her only made that knot in her stomach turn tighter.
“Who did you even kill…?” Hariti whispered.
All Soyona could do was pause, remaining unresponsive for almost a good minute before her mother’s voice once again brought her back to reality. “There was the attempted assasination of the Nublar Six kids. Then Lang, Sarr, my handler, and probably others I just can’t…” She paused. She honestly had no idea why she was suddenly spilling all of the details to Hariti.
“You lost track of them…of course you did.”
The disappointment only fuelled the knot tightening in Soyona’s stomach. Something about that look in her eyes sparked a sudden change in Soyona’s demeanour, enough to seemingly lose most of the ego.
“I wasn’t the one doing most of the killing-”
“What? You think orchestrating it isn’t as bad as doing it yourself? You paid that handler of yours to kill people, and then, you killed them.”
“I didn’t kill her, she was foolish enough to kill herself, she just couldn’t go two seconds without those animals, when one of them dies, all of a sudden her life is over. Now she has to play ‘hero’ and kill herself for the lives of those raptors.”
Hariti wiped a tear away from her puffy eyes. “That’s just what mothers do. They’d give their own lives for their children. I knew I would’ve.”
Soyona’s breath involuntarily hitched. “You know or you knew?”
The slight pause in Hariti’s voice almost filled Soyona with a sense of fear.
“Mother, answer me.”
Hariti’s gaze met hers. Her expression was enough to make Soyona’s breath catch in her throat. “I don’t even know anymore.”
Her daughter’s eyes went wide. An all too familiar, unwelcome lump forming in her throat. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Silence was all she was met with.
“I’m your daughter.” Soyona’s voice wavered.
Hariti stepped back from the glass, standing up from her seat, towering over Soyona.
“I don’t have a daughter anymore.”
Soyona felt like her brain just stopped. The lump in her throat growing even further, along with that knot in her stomach fully tightening that she felt nauseous. It only got worse as her mother began picking her stuff up.
“Mother?” She called out for her. “Mother–please–I’m sorry.” She too stood up from her seat, a CO behind her was on alert, in case Soyona would try to do something reckless.
Hariti walked away from her, not daring to even look in Soyona’s direction.
“Mother. I’m sorry. Please, don’t go..” Soyona couldn’t believe what she was saying. In all her life, she’s never been one to beg, or plead, or negotiate. She was always the one with the upper hand, with power, but right now, she didn’t feel powerful. She never did the second she got sent to prison. Especially now that her mother was now the one walking away from her .
“Mother!” She called out once more, only to see her mother talk with one of the CO’s who began escorting her out.
“Mama!” Soyona practically shouted at the top of her lungs the second those doors closed, and her mother was now out of sight.
The CO immediately grabbed Soyona’s shaking arm, and walked her back to her cell. Her steps were staggered, her breath shaky as the CO returned her to her cell, uncuffing her. Her roommates weren’t here, probably busy with work. She wouldn’t have cared as much as she did before, but now, all of a sudden, the idea of loneliness only nauseated her even further. She face planted into her bed and curled up into fetal position, recounting the events of that entire interaction. The more she thought about it the more she wanted to scream and let all her frustration out, but, was it her mother she was frustrated of? Or herself? For pushing her mother away, even before that visitation, before the businesses, before everything .
Before she even knew the pain of the real world.
Hariti finally finished with her weekly deep clean of their small house, and found it was a good time to just sit back and relax. Maybe finish that soap opera she’d been putting off ever since her colleague had lent her the DVDs. That morning after dropping her daughter off, she ended up having a longer talk with her teacher than she thought she would. She had to make sure they’d do something about the girls who were teasing her. It was fairly common for teachers to ignore the pleas of parents and students when it came to bullying, but Hariti was relentless. She’d make school a safe place for Soyona if it’s the last thing she’d do.
A quick glance out the window, she saw the school bus approach their neighbourhood. She could feel a small smile creep up onto her face the second she saw Soyona hop off the bus, but her daughter’s expression and the way her head hung low made that smile immediately dissipate. Hariti jumped out of her seat and swung open the door before Soyona could even knock. That look on her baby’s face she could read like a book. Something was terribly wrong.
“What happened?” Her concerned, yet assertive tone was somehow enough to have Soyona burst into tears. Hariti scooped Soyona into her arms, holding her close against her chest as she closed the door behind them, bringing the sobbing girl in her arms to the living room. “What happened?!” She repeated softly as she slowly sat back down on the couch, holding Soyona in her lap.
Soyona could barely speak through her tears; every time she tried to even utter a single word, her lungs would push out another sob. All she could do was reach into her bag and pull out the small Triceratops plush-doll, which was ripped in half from the torso, presenting it to her mother as Hariti stared at the doll with a solemn gaze, full of disappointment.
“Did those girls do this?” She parted Soyona’s hair behind her ear, her hand on Soyona’s tear stained cheek, making her meet her gaze with hers.
Her daughter nodded vigorously as her tiny body shook from the sobs that escaped her throat. Hariti took the ripped plush doll from her hands, setting it to the side, her attention focusing on Soyona, and Soyona alone. Her arms wrapped around her body, holding her close as her daughter buried her face into Hariti’s chest, crying her little heart out as her mother whispered words of comfort into her ear, a hand rubbing her back to soothe the little girl.
“You have nothing to worry about, baby.” Hariti’s voice was like a blur in between Soyona’s harsh sobs. “I can fix him for you! He can be fixed. There’s nothing to worry about.”
That was a blatant lie. Of course it was something to worry about. The faculty didn’t listen. They failed to protect Soyona. They screwed up the one job they had, and now a five year old child had to pay the price. Her daughter was here crying in her arms because of the decisions these adults who were supposed to protect her made.
Soyona lifted her head up from Hariti’s chest the second her mother mentioned that the little Triceratops could be fixed. She picked up the two pieces of him and brought them to Hariti’s face.
“Make him better mama…” Her voice was hoarse, and shaky from the amount of crying she had just endured.
Hariti took the two pieces from her, gently and attentively so the stuffing wouldn’t fall out, bringing her attention back to Soyona, cupping her cheek with one free hand, wiping her tears away. Her thumb moving slowly across her skin, lingering there even after the tears had been wiped away. “I’ll fix him for you. He’ll be all better soon!”
Soyona giggled through her sniffles as Hariti booped her on the nose. She slowly laid her head back down on her chest, needing her mom’s comfort more than anything in this moment. A small exhale left her airways as she felt Hariti bury her own face in Soyona’s hair, quietly inhaling her scent as she rocked the small child back and forth in her lap to further soothe her.
“No one will hurt you after this. I’ll make sure of it.”
Maybe that’s what Soyona needed the most as she lay there alone in the hard cushions of her prison cell; her mother’s arms around her. She constantly told herself time and time again that she didn’t need Hariti as much as Hariti needed her. Her mother was nothing but an obstacle, weak, pathetic. She never gave time to let Soyona spread her own wings.
But now, as she felt nothing but the cold air of the cell, with nothing to shield herself from. The small grey blanket was nothing like the warmth of a mother’s embrace. No matter how much Soyona tried to pretend as she draped it over herself, hoping it would at least give her that same sense of comfort, and yet, she still felt cold. Hollow. Empty. She wrapped her own arms around her body, as if it would trick her brain into thinking someone was holding her, but her rough, dry hands were nothing like the soft, supple skin of her mother’s hands caressing her face. The more Soyona reminisced and pretended the more she felt that lump in her throat grow. All this time she convinced herself she needed no one, that emotions would only get her killed in a world like this. She’d constantly push the people away that cared about her, her mother being one of them, then her handler. There was always a pattern of turning the people that stood beside her against her. Maybe that was her issue; she pushed and repelled the ones who have done nothing but show her their utmost support; took their love for granted.
No one in this universe had shown her the unconditional love that her mother has. Even despite her crimes, she still came to see her, and yet just like before, she has pushed her away, only this time it was for good.
The more she remembered her mother leaving the visitation room, refusing to look back at Soyona as she called out for her. The words “I don’t have a daughter anymore” that played back like a record in her mind, the more she felt that lump grow before her throat would give out a shuddering breath as the first tear she’d ever released in years fell. It was one after another; small gasps for air as she silently begged in her mind for the tears to stop. But a part of her knew she needed this. She curled up with the thin blanket around her, sobbing her broken heart out like she did when she was a child, only difference, her mother wasn’t there to hold her. To rock her back and forth and tell her everything was gonna be okay, that she wouldn’t let anyone hurt her, having no idea the only person that would hurt Soyona was herself. She needed to hear those words and feel her mother’s touch more than anything, but now she was gone. She pushed away the only person who ever truly loved her; now she was cursed with suffering alone with nothing but a cold blanket to give her the warmth since her mother couldn’t.
Emotions get you killed, Soyona used to say.
But if embracing the unconditional love and letting herself be vulnerable meant certain death, she’d gladly take that leap than live to see the ones that once loved her leave her.