Archer looked into Hannah’s eyes.

She was still smiling, the innocent smile that one her age ought to have.

But the blood coursing through her veins was black.

"Hannah, I have to survive, don’t you want to survive too?" she asked Archer.

Archer fell silent for a moment, then said, "I’m sorry."

He reached out, lifted Hannah off the table.

The little girl only reached up to his chin.

He could see her fluffy head top just by bowing his head.

"It’s okay, I’m not mad at you," she smiled, lifting her head and lightly touching her eyes.

The meaning was clear without words.

Archer obediently squatted down, head lifted, eyes downturned. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Sunlight filtered through the window.

Sunlight after the rain.

Warm and dazzling.

Hannah reached out, gently touching the young boy’s long eyelashes.

"So beautiful," she said.

The youth’s eyelashes trembled, kneeling on one knee, fists clenched on his thighs.

For Hannah, Archer was her favorite doll.

Obedient, submissive, occasionally showing his own little temper.

...

With new gains, James and his group no longer focused their attention on Hannah.

As the weather grew colder, fewer people ventured outside.

Some had dug out large plastic sheets from the garbage heap behind the mountain and wrapped their rudimentary homes again and again.

Yet even so, it was still hard to fend off the biting cold.

Some couldn’t endure any longer; their frail bodies were dragged out of their houses, leaving a long trail of blood on the ground.

Hannah pulled the curtain closed, blocking Archer’s view.

This was the norm in Bree.

Archer shifted his gaze to Hannah’s face and asked her, "Did you also experience these things before?"

Hannah blinked, her elbow on the table, her palm supporting her chin, "You mean being treated as food?"

Outside, it was snowing, and it was very cold.

Inside, the wood in the fireplace was burning.

The glow made the little girl’s dark, shiny, round eyes all the more warm.

But her words fell like a cold boulder.

Archer felt a heaviness in his chest, his throat sour, yet the little girl’s gaze remained pure, leaving him no choice but to nod and say, "Yes."

Have you also been treated not as a living person?

He suddenly feared hearing the answer, yet lacked even the courage to divert the topic.

"Yes," Hannah knelt on the chair, her body swaying, not seeming upset at all, recounting it like a story.

Those people had built a fire beside her, debating whether to start with the legs or the arms.

Or perhaps the head.

"What happened then?" Archer’s emotions sank, turning to a deep inky darkness.

Hannah, oblivious, smiled, "Then I ran away."

"Archer, do you think I am very impressive?" She smiled happily, tilting her head to look into Archer’s eyes as if waiting for his praise.

The boy tried to speak several times before he found his voice again.

He said, "Very impressive."

His voice was slightly hoarse, the words seeming to stick together.

Hannah moved closer to look at him.

At his eyebrows, his eyes, and then his nose.

"Archer, are you feeling unwell?"

She lightly touched the young man’s forehead, then touched her own head.

"I’m not sick," she murmured to herself.

The wood in the fireplace crackled, and the hot air continuously surged upward.

There was warmth in the room unlike outside.

Archer thought, if it weren’t for meeting Hannah, he might not have survived this winter alone.