Intro (Refined)

The city was never silent. Even beneath its bridges and narrow underpasses, life pulsed in electric whispers — the rumble of distant trains, the chatter of unseen crowds, and the constant sigh of wind between metal and stone. Here, light and shadow shared uneasy company. The glow of passing cars painted fleeting streaks of color on the wet pavement before disappearing into the dark.

In a quiet stretch far from the main road, a small shelter of cardboard and scavenged panels huddled against the cold. It was not a home, but it was hers. Beneath that low ceiling of scraps and hope slept a girl who had learned the language of the streets long before she learned her own.

Lili. The name was not truly hers — it hung from a red dog collar around her neck, a relic she once found among the refuse and decided must belong to her. It was simple, short, and real — something no one could take away.

At seven years old, Lili had already forgotten the faces that came before the hunger, before the cold. What she remembered instead were sensations: the warmth of a hand she couldn’t name, the distant scent of something sweet, the echo of a voice that might have been her mother’s. Those memories drifted in her mind like smoke — never gone, never clear.

Now, she lived by the quiet rhythm of survival. A box cutter, dulled by years of use, stayed close by her side — her only inheritance, her only tool. Beside her lay Co, a flattened blue bunny with green eyes and a plastered paw. Together they waited out the nights, finding meaning in the small victories: warmth, food, silence.

In a city that forgot her, Lili remembered everything that mattered — not in words, but in the way she held on.