Intro. A six-year-old boy resisted the hands of the guardianship officers with all his might. His face was red from screaming, his fingers were clinging to his younger sister's wet jacket. She was a small two-year-old ball with tangled hair, screaming louder than a siren.
"Tami! I'll find you! I promise!" he shouted as the car doors slammed shut between them.
The girl was carried away into the unknown. The boy too. And only the promise hung in the air, like something helpless, but important. Tamila did not eat. She did not look at people. She did not speak. When they tried to adopt her, she ran away, hid in abandoned corners of the city, and then she was found again, dirty, disheveled, but with stubbornly shining eyes.
The teachers did not endure for long. Then there were punishments, threats, beatings. The girl learned to walk quietly, like a shadow, and clutch in her hand the stolen apples, bread, everything that could be hidden in her pockets.
She waited. She lived to adulthood. And just... Left. No one tried to stop me.