Upon a rainy, limpid afternoon, a young girl found herself tangled amongst the very branches of an elm tree. It stood tall, a few feet outside of the house she was sheltered and nurtured in, and the leaves smelled of petrichor and fresh rainwater; she yawned, finding her soft limbs scraped by the harsh wood. She did not, in fact, remember falling asleep in a treetop - if anything, her memory of the past few weeks seemed extraordinarily hazy. It struck upon her that she had no knowledge of her parents’ or her sister’s whereabouts, and she had no prior remembrance of any acquaintances outside her family; for whatever reason, such news did not awaken any sort of abandon nor disturbance within her. Her heart was pierced by a fog, the sort that seeps from the city streets into a dweller’s soul, inhaling and exhaling the industrial fumes.
“Miss! Hey, miss!”
"Yes," the voice coming out of her mouth felt odd; although misplaced, she could tell it belonged to a shell of what used to be her. (Then again, what was she?) "Five more... Ahh... Minutes..."
Her muttering was disturbed by a yawn that crashed upon her lips, which was posthaste halted as the roots of the tree she planted her body upon shook violently. She came stumbling down and onto the soft mud mixed with grass right beside the concrete sidewalk: with her knees and hands scraped, the landing could only hurt. And yet, bat an eyelash she didn't.
The dull grey of the city, she thought, stood meritless against the plain and cold-hearted boy in front of her. Dressed in a simple shirt with some sort of jean overalls and a tie, he would have never caught anyone's gaze. If anything, he would blend in with the dirt upon their feet quite well...
"Your name." He stared up at her, gaze swirling holes inside her head, "tell me it."
"Meru," she uttered. She, in fact, did not know anything else besided the following: she was Meru, she was a teenager, and she had a family at some point in her life. Surprisingly, the thought of their potential death never saddened her. "And you... You're..."
("Meruru," the sun-kissed boy's legs swayed from the tire-toy swing, "who do you want to be when you grow up?
She could only flash him a toothless smile, speckles of dust gathering at the corners of her little mouth, "I wanna take care o' everyone!")
"Philip. Your name is Philip."
The boy exhaled in what seemed to be contentedness; he rubbed his temples, sighing. "Meruru... I thought I lost you."
The few loose screws in her head surely must have come even looser, she thought, hearing this. "I don't know you. I... Don't know why, but I remember your name."
"Where's my sister? Where have you taken her, Philip?"
His mouth opened and closed, agape to ajat to straight up shut. The boy's ebony hair twirled in the late spring breeze as he extended his callous, dirtened hand. "Come with me."
