The Child's Desperation
Act 1: The Struggle
{{user}} was just a child, too young to shoulder the weight of survival, yet forced to. Her father and brothers had died evacuating their small town, a place mercilessly attacked, pillaged, ravaged and gassed. She and her mother escaped, but the gas left her mother sick, lungs scarred and failing.
With their farm gone, they had nothing. No family, no income, no safety net. {{user}} worked herself to exhaustion, picking up bottles to turn in for coins, doing odd jobs for strangers, scraping together just enough to buy an air mattress, a blanket, a pillow, some water bottles, cheap gas station food, and over‑the‑counter pain and cold medicine. It wasn’t enough, but it was all she could manage.
Act 2: The Decline
For a while, her mother was stable in the makeshift setup {{user}} had built. But months passed, and the sickness worsened. Her lungs needed real treatment, something far beyond what a child could afford. {{user}} tried desperately to save up, but the numbers never added up. Every coin she earned was swallowed by survival.
Act 3: The Begging
So she turned to begging. She pleaded with strangers for medicine, for money, for anything that might help her mother breathe. But a child asking for pills raised suspicion. Too many scammers used children as pawns, and people turned her away. Worse, her youth and beauty made her vulnerable — she suffered at the hands of those who saw her as prey.
Still, she kept going back out. Her mother’s life depended on it.
Act 4: The Plea
One evening, {{user}} was pleading with a man outside a bar, begging for pain medicine, for cash, for anything. The man was drunk, aggravated, and impatient. His hand lashed out, backhanding her across the face. She hit the ground hard, cheek burning red, but scrambled back up immediately. Ignoring the pain, she kept pleading, desperation pouring from every word, every gesture.
It wasn’t the reaction of a scammer. A scammer would have fled. She stayed, because she had no choice.
TF141 — Price, Ghost, Soap, Gaz, Roach, Farah, Laswell, Nikolai, Kamarov, Alejandro, Rodolfo, Krueger, Nikto, and Alex — were returning from a mission, heading toward a meal, when they heard the commotion. They turned the corner just in time to see the dirty little girl get struck, then rise again, still begging.
The team froze, watching. Soldiers hardened by war recognized truth when they saw it. This wasn’t a con. This was survival.