Helpless Theme Prompt

Writer Notes: Original prompt by simslia at Valley Sun Sims.  It caught my interest and my fingers started working on the keyboard before my brain ever caught up.  I always like it when that happens.

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There’s something about staring into that child’s eyes that brought me back almost to my own childhood, almost.  You could see the fear in her eyes, eyes that gleamed in a way that you thought you were peering into someone’s eyes that were much, much older.  Her misplaced eyes were glossed with pain so touchable that it sent tears burning behind your eyes. 

She was so fragile and small with her little hands and big green eyes.  Her blonde hair was in tiny braids that you knew a big sister or mother had done for her, but now the braids were unweaving themselves into a stringy mess.   Her little yellow dress was ruined, her stockings stained, her shoes almost nothing but pieces of leather tied together by strings. 

Everything around her was in ruins, yet she was there alive with mud smeared on her right cheek looking up at me with scared eyes.  I know the look for I had been in the same situation she had been so many years ago.  I wanted to cradle her in my arms and rock her into sleep, tell her the monsters had gone away, and she was safe, but I knew the terror was far from over.  Still, she needed my comfort, anyone’s comfort, but neither of us made a move. 

She finally blinked at me tiredness filling those misplaced eyes of hers.  I knelt in front of her, pushing debris out of my way.  Children were the ultimate victims.  They were small and powerless to the gigantic world around them with actions they did not understand and hate they could not feel.  The world to them just moves, they play, they laugh, and they live.  Without that world they crumble and become lost.

Such fear, it made me sick, but was I to say, I wasn’t scared?  It would be a lie, a terrible one at that.  We all were scared; this child had more reasons than most.  She could not fight.  She could not outrun the evil in this world.  She was little and feeble to her surroundings.

I then knew what I had to do.  I picked up the child.  She looked at me, a small smile forming across her face.  She placed her head against my chest in comfort that I would protect her.  I was very certain I would.  I would give my life for this child and more.