I followed Big Brother Wu all the way home. Brother Wu was silent the entire time. We didn’t hold hands or stand close to each other. It was me who trailed behind him by five meters, taking in the sight around my neighborhood.

The house wasn’t in good condition.

It still looked normal from the entrance. It sounded like the average bustling streets of China, in other words, noisy and occupied. After we arrived, Big Brother Wu started to type in the password. Standing behind him, I struggled to stand on tiptoe. 4,1,1,0,6,0. I memorized. The door opened with a click.

There was the sound of something breaking. Brother Wu shut the entrance door again. A small scream sounded as he did so, making me realize our house was actually very soundproof. Was it planned? The sounds of our house were lost in the vast neighborhood, and a random person passing by would assume little out of the ordinary.

“Daughter of a whore!” Brother Wu’s face was blank as he finally stepped into the house. He took a deep breath. I wondered what ‘whore’ meant. Probably nothing good. Brother Wu closed the door in my face, and so I also typed in the password and walked in the house.

Something wasn’t right. I tensed, my toes shrank into their places as if they were trying to grip onto the ground. Another clatter sounded, and I jumped. I ran as quickly as I could into the spot behind the sofa, my senses on alert. My brother had probably escaped into his room. The door was closed.

Mom was in the bedroom, I could hear her. I couldn’t see her, but I knew I didn’t want to meet her. Whatever had made her hysterical last evening, the woman still hadn’t gotten over it. It was best to avoid idiots and crazies, and the woman currently qualified as both. My stomach growled.

It was a soft growl, one that signified that I didn’t have anything to eat today. I weighed the consequences and benefits of quickly going into the kitchen to look around for anything edible, then decided it was too big a risk. I could always go there after it was dark. Going now would only bring me problems. I wasn’t about to risk high to earn little.

Curled up in my little spot behind the sofa, my ears pricked up as I heard the sound of the bedroom door opening. I shrank even smaller in my spot. Just by closing my eyes, I could imagine my lifeless form replacing everything that the woman had broke, filling my throat with something that was about to overflow.

“LiMei.” My dad called out in a soft voice.

“Stop calling me that.” The woman’s voice was crude and contained hints of bitterness. I was only glad it wasn’t directed at me. Not today, luckily.

“LiMei, I promise I love you and Haotian more than anything.” The man’s voice was as sweet as honey a venus flytrap trying to lure in its prey.

LiMei screamed. 

“I promise, LiMei. That… thing, you just have to pretend she doesn’t exist. She’s nothing to me. If it wasn’t for Mother’s will…” I imagined he was gritting his teeth. Goosebumps lined my skin, and the tiny hairs on my body stood up. “I wouldn’t have even brought her here.”

“You’re not sending her to school.” LiMei said.

School? Wait, I wasn’t being allowed to go to- A small gasp escaped my lips. The conversation stopped. My body chilled. It was as if my blood was turning into ice. I shouldn’t have said anything.

I clamped down on my mouth, hoping nobody noticed. The conversation carried on,

“It’s the law. She’s already eight.” Jun said.

“Just say she has a mental illness or something.” LiMei said. “You saw the child. She’s half crazy, anyway.”

I wasn’t crazy. Or so was my opinion. But my opinion didn’t matter.

“If she’s at school, you won’t see her for most of the time.” Jun said. “The school will give her free meals, so nobody would say we didn’t care for her. It’ll be like she doesn’t exist.”

LiMei didn’t sound any bit appeased. “You saw the child.” She hissed. “If anything happens I’ll be  the talk of the town! A laughing stock.

“You should have just left the slut to die.”

The man sighed. My mouth tasted bitter.

“Maybe,” he said to himself. “Where is she, anyway?”

Oh no. At his words, my body stiffened. I didn’t move, not even an inch, afraid that they would sense me. There wasn’t even the rustling sound of my backpack, not anymore. My breathing slowed down and became smaller, until I couldn’t hear any signs of my own breath. I couldn’t control my heartbeat, though. My heart was trying to beat out of my chest, and I hoped nobody could hear me. I hoped I was unnoticeable.

I had to be unnoticeable.

I heard the sound of something breaking again. Doors were opened and closed. Things were looked through. Sooner or later, there wouldn’t be much else to break in this house. Except maybe me. Except maybe I was already broken.

The sounds quietened after a while, but I didn’t let loose my guard. I didn’t let myself be seen. There was the taste of iron on my tongue, and I swallowed something into the back of my throat, where it could never be seen or heard. I didn’t know what it was. It has never come out, you see. I just knew it couldn’t ever be let out.

Every second was torture. Footsteps sounded, and then it was quiet.

“Found her.” It was Brother Wu’s voice, filled with apathy. My heart sank. So Grandma didn’t lie. There was nobody to trust after all. Run or hide. Run, or hide. But I had been found. So there was only running left. I sprang up to my feet, which was much more difficult than I had anticipated, only for something to crash into me.

I didn’t know what it was or how it looked like- pain was the only thing that occupied my mind. My voice swallowed itself. My sight became blurry, and everything was red. It hurt. Everything hurt. My body collapsed, and I felt myself being carried off somewhere. A room? Yes, it was something like a small room, or so I guessed. There was a dusty and rotten smell permeating the entire place. I felt as if I could barely hold on to life. My consciousness was blurry.

“I’ll make dinner.” Jun said.

Dinner was quiet. It wasn’t done in the kitchen, and I didn’t know that by sight. It was through simple logic. The kitchen table was broken, therefore the family could only take out a smaller dining table in the living room. I wished they would just go and eat out. But dreams rarely come true.

 I couldn’t see anything, but even if there were light, I suspected nothing would change. My face was cold, clammy, and wet. The sound of soup being slurping and rice being eaten echoed, along with the sound of scrabbling paws and tiny feet. My heart softened at that. It was a sign I wasn’t alone.

My limbs were starting to hurt from being curled up for so long. Inside the tiny room, there was absolutely nothing. I glanced at the door cracks shining with light, then thought, no. I wasn’t willing to go out. Again, risking  something big to get something small was not smart.

My back felt oddly light. It must be a figment of my imagination, I thought. It felt as if a huge weight had dropped from it. As if something attached to my back had been taken from me.

This time, it was very difficult to keep the voices inside my throat. I had to force it in as if I was pressing with a high quality pressing machine. I had to stop it from coming out, as if I was swallowing a live rat trying to claw out of my throat. My throat felt raw, as if it was bleeding, though I had barely said anything. 

My backpack was gone.

I could still get it back, I told myself. It wasn’t gone forever. And if Jun never opened up my backpack, then I could probably steal it back somehow. If he didn’t open my backpack, that is. If he opened it, there was no telling what would happen.

Maybe I would die today. I hoped that wouldn’t happen, but my eyes were getting sleepy, and I didn’t feel very alive today. I had to be alive, but I just didn’t feel it.

The apocalypse.

In two years. In two years I would be free, regardless of the apocalypse. Free or dead, but that wasn’t me. That was the Wus. Maybe my brother would make it, I thought apathetically. Jun held a higher chance of surviving compared to the idiotic LiMei. But even he wasn’t a likely candidate in my eyes.

Well, that wasn’t important. I should stop thinking about useless people.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw myself inside the house of before, with the world back in order. I wondered if it would be possible to escape from the apocalypse into this world. Though I didn’t know much about the world, I still thought it was better than the one I was currently in. I had nothing, anyway. After a bit more research, if the world was suitable, I could move.

Yes, I decided, satisfied. DubbAlina could probably answer that question. And I should ask her.