I looked closer at the blue screen that just showed up out of nowhere. It was something that was hard for me to describe. I looked around in the alley that I had found to hide in for the day. I could see a couple of doors that led into the huge buildings surrounding my new spot. There were three dumpsters against the buildings' walls. Higher up on the buildings surrounding me, there were metal ladders climbing up the building and a number of windows that made me realize my new hiding place was not nearly as private as I had hoped.

  I could see all of this clearly with my eyes, but I could also see a blue screen right in front of me. It was like I had a second eye that was looking at something else, but I did not have a second eye. Domingo had made sure that was the case. It did not make sense to me, but that was not the only thing that did not make sense to me right now. The blue screen that had appeared in front of me was also a mystery to me.

  It felt like nothing made sense anymore. Why was I in an alley? How did I get here? Why did I have a constant fear of being found? I needed to get somewhere out of sight before someone saw me. I needed to be dead. I ran over to the dumpster and jumped into it. For some reason, this smell did not seem that bad, almost familiar.

  The blue screen was still in front of me. There were a lot of letters on it. I felt like I learned all my letters forever ago. I decided to try my hardest to remember what each letter on the screen was. I thought that if I could read it, then there might be an explanation about what was happening.

  The first letter was tricky because it looked like one of those big letters that always started things. Those letters sometimes looked the same as the smaller letters, but sometimes they looked completely different. I hoped this was one of the ones that looked the same. I thought I remembered some of the letters having sharp, spiky lines like that one had. There was one upside down and two right side up. I could not remember which one was which. I remembered that the two were right next to each other on the alphabet. I remembered they were “N” and “M”. I did not remember which was which, so I decided to guess again. “M” makes a hungry sound like umh, so if I try to sound out the first part of the word, it would be “umh” then

  The blue screen just disappeared. I was in the dumpster, and I could smell something good in it, but the smells were not all I was feeling. I had been getting thirstier and thirstier. It felt like it had been forever since I had gotten a drink. I tried to remember back to when I had drunk something … I was so thirsty. I decided to start prioritizing finding something to drink. The extra good-smelling things needed to hold off for a second while I searched for something that would help with my thrust.

  I did not know what I was looking for, but I knew I could not last much longer without drinking something. I started ripping open the trash bags surrounding me with more care. I did not want to spill even a drop of water if it was in one of these bags.

  The first thing I found I could drink was a crushed styrofoam cup with just a mouthful of sky-blue liquid. I carefully tipped it into my mouth, and it felt like it only made my need for something to drink stronger. After that bit of liquid, I felt like I got the sense of what I was looking for, and I used my nose to really track down what I needed in the rest of the trash bags.

  The blue screen that popped up was just a distraction in my pursuit of what I needed to survive. The splitting headache that showed up out of nowhere was just a distraction as well. I pushed the part of me that was feeling pain into the emptiness. It was still there; it was just farther away, so it did not hurt as much as it should. This was the first time I felt like I pushed the part of me that was feeling the pain out, not left myself. I wasn't sure how I'd done it, but I wanted to do it more.

  The pain seemed like it was getting worse, so I just endured what flared over from the void. I was still on a mission, though, and I was smelling my way to each little scrap of water I could find. By the end of my constant scavenging, I had sated my thirst. It was impressive how much stuff people threw away. I did not like the taste of most of it, and some of it had made me feel like I was going to throw up everything that I had drunk already, but I kept it all down. It was hard to see what I was drinking with the dumpster lid closed, so I just drank it all.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  The pain seemed to be coming from my stomach. It was not the same type of pain I had been feeling, but it was a new, different one. It was so frustrating to argue with myself over how different certain pains felt. I tried to push the feelings that my stomach was feeling into the emptiness, but it did not go. It was like I could only divide myself so many times before something terrible would happen. I knew this in the core of who I was. I decided to keep myself together and live with the pain that was radiating from the center of my body.

  I decided to renew my search for whatever was so tantalizing about the random bits of trash that I had been finding. I found a couple more things before the pain started to gradually go away. I was feeling incredibly tired. I knew that I must have been doing something that got me to this state … I just could not think of what had been happening today, so I just fell asleep in the softest section that I could find in the dumpster.

  I woke up not knowing where I was. There was a horrible sound that seemed to be vibrating my skull, though. I was terrified, but I had to know what was happening so I could figure out the best way to get away from whatever was making that horrible noise.

  I built up all my courage, then pushed my head up out of wherever I was. The lid was heavy, but once I pushed it aside, I knew I did the right thing. A huge metal wall was right next to me, and there were some metal arms grabbing my sleeping place from either side. I could feel the arms latching onto my sleeping spot, and I crawled my way over to the edge of the container. I started feeling myself being lifted up into the air, and I felt like I was about to be eaten by some metal monster, so I jumped over the edge of my bed.

  I ended up falling a long way down to the ground. I tried to land on my feet, but in my panic to get free, I had not gotten out of the … dumpster cleanly, and I ended up falling on my side. The shoulder that had always been a problem popped out of position once again. I had misjudged the distance from the ground and had put out my hand to catch myself way too early. It felt like my disabilities were compounding upon themselves to make me far less capable than just one or two of them would have done.

  I struggled to my feet and ran away from the metal monster that turned out to be a trash truck. I could remember seeing trucks like them on the street when I was living with Grandma and Mama. I had no idea they were such terrifying monsters when they got that close to you. I had no idea how I had ended up in a dumpster, or why I felt a huge sense of loss when I saw all the contents of the dumpster fall into the top of the truck. Did I have something of mine that I had left in there?

  Looking at the sky, I could tell it was getting into the afternoon; the light from the sun was still warm, but the shadows of the building were getting long. I just kept running away down the alley until I found myself on a new street.

  It felt like the last thing I could remember clearly was when Domingo had been talking to me in the empty room. I was so confused and scared about everything around me. There were people trying to look away from me as I stood there on the street, trying to understand what I needed to do.

  I don’t know what to do. Everything around me was different from what I expected. I am so lost, and I don’t know what to do. I wish Carlos were here; he would know what to do and could help me. Domingo took him away; he is going to become some sort of soldier for the Falcons. I don’t believe it. I need to find him and rescue him so that he can help me.

  Why was I here on this street? There were so many people. Why did everyone move away from me, and look away when I tried to look at them? I remember walking with Grandma to the park. I could smile at anyone we saw along the way, and every single person, even the grumpy grandpa, would smile back and say hello. I tried to smile at a pretty woman walking by. She did not even look at me. She almost ran into me, but then she made a disgusted noise and swerved around me.

  What was I doing here? What was this place? I don’t know anyone here. Why are there so many people here? I don’t like this place, but where can I go to get away from here? Mama once told me that no matter what happened, I could go to her and she would protect me. I don’t know where Mama is, so I can go to her.

  Wait, where am I? I don’t know this place. There are so many people around. I don’t think I have ever been somewhere with this many people.

  Someone grabbed my hand. I looked down to where our hands connected, and I saw a dirty, dusty hand covered with calluses. It had the index finger missing most of it, and all the other fingers were gnarled and swollen like Grandma used to be. I followed the hand up to an arm covered in rags. That arm was connected to the dirtiest old man I had ever seen. He was looking down at me when he said some nonsense like he expected me to speak goboldy gook

  “You daft igit, they've been looking for you for the last day, why are you standing there like some statue. You have just been looking around, standing in the same place for the last 20 minutes. You need to be getting away from here. There are too many eyes and ears out there. They probably are already on their way.”

  I had no idea what he was trying to say, but he started tugging on my arm, so I decided to follow him. He had my grandma’s hands, so that must mean he was a good person.