Fear to Let Go

Chapter 1

„Can you hear me? Hello?"

While blinking a few times my vision started to get clearer. A man was looking at me.

„Come, Little one. Gosh, you must be freezing."

Carefully he was picking me up in his arms, putting his scarf around me like a jacket. He was huge from my perspective. But truly I did feel cold, it only took me a while to realize. Soon we came into a house as he placed me onto a big something called a „sofa". As he lit up the fire in the chimney and I blinked a few times so my eyes got used to it. Then he sat down next to me, picking me up again and holding me close to him to warm me up. How strange. Even though I didn't know this person, they were so kind to me. Not long afterwards, a woman came downstairs and next to us real slow as to not scare me. Gently she moved her finger towards me, as if I'd be a little animal, before she was patting me. As comfortable as I was I closed my eyes, enjoying the moment. She looked at him. I was not quite sure what they said, but it's not like it mattered to me back then. The first few months I stayed around with the woman, whose name was Mishka. Such a pretty one, I thought. Mishka taught me about life, spoke with me, was letting me explore the outside. She even made clothing for me with her own hands. I could've watched for hours how precisely she moved her fingers just to create something for me. We three then spent the evenings together playing games or having some reading practice. I learned that my language was called „Russian" and that there were even more languages on this big world. Those happy days could've lasted forever, at least I was wishing so. One day, Mishka had to go to the hospital, but instead of being worried, my creator was rather excited. He explained that a new life was soon going to happen. Even though this information didn't really help me too much I too got excited. And there she was, only a few hours later. A little baby girl. She was so beautiful to me, like an angel. Mishka and my creator let me choose a name for this little human and I was looking at her for quite a long time, thinking about something that would fit to her. With a smile on my face then I looked at them.

„Sasha. I want Sasha."

With a single nod they agreed. So while Mishka still had to stay in bed, I helped taking care of Sasha. She was a very calm child and the way my creator took care of her left me feeling optimistic for the future. Little Sasha was growing fast and almost enjoyed the same hobbies as mother Mishka did, especially sewing. A very talented child indeed. One fateful night however we got woken up by loud bangs and screaming from outside. Terrified from the looks of angry men in weird uniforms, me and Sasha held onto each other's hands shortly before my creator came up to us and picked us up to leave down into the basement, where he put us down.

„Don't come out until I come back. Understand?"

After agreeing in fear he left and locked the door from the outside as we held onto each other again. The loud footsteps and bangs made the whole situation even worse. I lost track of how long we actually stayed in there, but we had to share what we could find as eatable. I mostly never ate anything, since it felt more important to feed my little sister than myself. She was only 4 years old. This poor child. After supposedly days I almost fell asleep as well, but got alerted fast again when someone got against the door and we heard a loud bang once again. Louder than the others. The door opened and luckily it was only my creator. He looked so tired and hurt. Still, he got to us and took us in his arms, same as we did. When we came out of the basement the house looked so scary. Everything was at least a little broken. Carefully my creator let us down as he told us to wait while he started packing a bag. Me and Sasha had the same thought.

„Where's Mama?"

He stopped any movement for a moment, then turned to us a little. He looked devastated but then kept packing. It was only sad from that moment on, everything. I was tapping into the room where Mishka would sew our clothing and was seeing that her machine for it was still there, in the best shape! Fast I asked for my creator if we could keep it. Even though he seemed to be close to tears while looking at it, he nodded, putting the sewing-machine in a carton and grabbing it with the bag he packed.

„You two gotta hold each other's hand, so you don't get lost. Scyaram, hold onto this little band here on the bag so you don't get lost. And whatever you do, don't look around you. Don't look anywhere but the snow on the ground."

We did as we were told. But of course for a little bit I looked up. After seeing this horrific situation of humans lying on the ground however I looked back down, holding onto Sasha's hand even tighter. Don't look, don't look. We came into a strange center with other people inside, even families like us were there. Some of them were wounded. A kid came up to me.

„Ey, you look really weird!"

„So do you."

My reply surprised them and he left back to his father as it seemed. There was nothing rude about my reply, instead my creator patted my head as a sign that he was proud of me, even if he didn't look at me. He was busy talking to that woman about something very important. After the talk, he let us know that we would have to take the train to get to our new home.

„A new home? Can we just make house pwetty again, Papa?"

Sasha was real sad we had to leave. He took her in his arms, apologizing. After the trip in the train, I had noticed that so many humans were staring at me throughout the traveling. I had always known that I was not one of them, but rudely staring at people just because they look a little strange was irritating me. We arrived at the new house. It was much smaller than the other one, at least it seemed that way. My creator helped us sort our things and then went downstairs to make some dinner. On the table it was quiet though, while I was only staring at the food. It felt so wrong to eat something in a situation like this. Sasha looked at me.

„Not hungry?"

Slightly I shook my head and in a dark tone then my creator started talking.

„Let me know next time if you don't feel like eating. Food is gonna be more expensive now, we're not gonna waste it because you aren't eating."

Silently I let him know that I was understanding, then was splitting the food from my plate for both him and Sasha. I looked outside.

Everything was better when Mama was still there...