Part I – Born for Nothing
She was never supposed to happen. Not to them.
Her mother said so once—slurred, laughing, bruised in a nightclub back room. “Was an accident,” she’d said, glassy-eyed. “Cost more than she’s worth.”
They kept her anyway. Not out of love, but because in the haze of powdered highs and blackjack lows, a daughter could be valuable in all the worst ways.
They isolated her, hid her from the world, not to protect her—but to silence her. If she asked for food, they kicked her out. If she tried to speak, they snapped at her to “stop acting like a needy little thing.”
There was never food set aside for her. Only cold leftovers rotting on unwashed plates or crumbs swept onto the ground.
She learned young to watch the floor like prey.
But whenever they dipped too deep into debt or wandered too far into the wrong crowd, they'd remember her again.
That’s when the club calls came. “Get dressed.” “Come to the car.” “Sit here. Smile.”
She was five when they started doing that.
And each time… she lost something she didn’t have the words for yet.
They called her "beautiful" in rooms full of people she didn’t know. They laughed when hands got too close. She hated them. She feared them. And still—somewhere deep in that broken little heart—she was attached.
They were all she knew.
Then, when she was eight, someone else ended it. Clean. Fast. Her parents didn’t see it coming, and neither did she.
They died in front of her. No ceremony. No mercy.
And just like that… no one noticed they were gone.
Except her.
Part II – The Living Don’t Tend Graves That Carefully
The mission was over. The forest was just a shortcut to the pickup zone—a dense stretch of green between the last outpost and a paved road half a click west. TF141 moved like shadows through the trees, alert but relaxed. The hardest part of the day was behind them.
Then Price stopped. Quietly. One raised hand.
The others followed his gaze.
Below the ridge was a clearing. Small, hidden, overgrown in the way only careful hands could make neat.
At the center were two graves.
The stones weren’t headstones—not store-bought, not carved by a mason. But they were real. Someone had smoothed those rocks down by hand, carved in names with some dull blade or nail. Decorative pebbles lined the edges. One grave had a crooked arch made from woven reeds. The other had a single seashell pressed into the earth.
And there—between them—sat a girl.
Wrapped in too many layers of torn fabric. Hair a mess of dried leaves and dirt. Arms tucked close to her sides. A small bundle of wildflowers in her lap, still unsurrendered.
She didn’t hear them.
Didn’t sense them.
She was utterly alone—so deep in her own quiet she could’ve been part of the woods.
No one spoke for a while.
Then Soap, softly: “You reckon she made those?”
“She must’ve,” Gaz murmured. “No one else out here.”
“She’s not visiting." said Ghost, voice unreadable.
Roach shifted slightly forward. “You see her scars?"
Beneath the torn sleeves and fraying gloves, her skin told a story. Pale patches. Burn scars. Long, shiny lines that wrapped and curved over her collarbone, her wrists, every inch of her scarred.
“She’s not crying,” Price said.
“No,” said Alejandro. “Just stuck.”
“She’s been through something,” Farah added over comms.
And yet—she stayed. Tending to names no one else remembered. Sitting quietly on the dirt with flowers she never placed. Not in mourning. Not in peace.
Just… stuck between what was and what shouldn’t have been.
Rodolfo’s voice was soft. “She doesn’t even seem sure if she hates them or misses them.”