LEFT BEHIND

Chapter 40

Third person pov
14 years ago

Alessia was starving. She had been locked in her room for two days now and no one had come to check up on her. She was beginning to believe her brother's were actually very angry. She had thought that maybe they had just put her in time out for a little while. But she had banged on the door for hours with no reply. Maybe they had gone out and forgotten about her. Maybe. There's no way they heard her and ignored her right? No of course not. They loved her. Of course they'd be back for her. Sandy promised he'd never leave her. He pinky promised.

Alessia was far too hungry though to be sitting there waiting for Alessandro's rescue. She had been getting by by drinking the water out of her toilet bowl. She had no other choice as she couldn't reach the sink. Her daddy always helped her. But he wasn't answering her either. Alessia's mother had explained to her that when someone dies they go away to heaven. Alessia would simply wait until her father came back from heaven. She knew that as soon as he came back he would help her. He had to.

Right?

Alessia let out a small cry as she clutched her stomach desperate for just a little bite of something. Why was sandy ignoring her? Alessia had never had a time out for this long before and she wasn't quite sure how to go about it.

She decided to take matters into her own hands looking all over her room for anything she could eat. An unfinished packet of biscuits or perhaps a cookie that had fallen under her bed anything. Anything at all.

Straightening after not finding anything Alessia scanned her eyes over the room eventually landing on a box of tissues. Her daddy had once read her a book about a boy who ate everything including tissues. So surely she could aswell. Alessia hesitantly approached the box reaching up on her tip toes to reach it. She pushed until she could finally graze it with her finger tips but she still couldn't reach it. With a groan she opened the first drawer and tried standing on it like a ladder. She pushed herself up holding on to the top of the short drawer. Finally getting up onto the first drawer she reached out again this time reaching the box successfully.

She climbed back down taking her place on the ground before sitting cross legged opposite the dresser. She set the box down Infront of her before taking out a single tissue. She stared at it for a moment before simply shoving it in her mouth. Perhaps it was the hunger. Or she was simply exhausted because she couldn't help but think about how sweet the tissues were.

She found she could barely swallow though. The rough and dry texture made her want to cry as she forced herself to push it down. Alessia ate one after the other before stopping as she didn't want to finish them all. Just incase she got hungry again. So she put the tissue box down before returning to her bed and forming a small ball. Alessandro had taken her blanket and her pillow as well as all of her toys. Her room was barren.

Alessia hugged herself in the middle of the bed that now felt uncomfortably large just for her. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she tried to lull herself to sleep singing the song Emilio used to sing for her all the time. She then sat up looking around for the purple teddy bear she had managed to save and found it by the edge of her bed. She quickly picked it up before lying down in her same position. She then brought the mouth of the teddy to her forehead pretending her daddy was kissing her goodnight. Alessia finally succumbed to sleep by lulling herself into a fake sense of security.

*******

PRESENT

Andrea looked out the window as she recalled all her brothers had done to her. She only got more and more agitated as she did. They had brought her to the point of having to eat tissues to survive. They had left her in that room for almost five days. Eventually the tissues had run out and she had resorted back to banging on the door for food. One of the maids finally heard her after they had all been banned from that section of the house. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. The princessa that was once spoiled so much was sat there covered in her own fluids starving and alone. The workers hadn't been told what had happened but the shift in the household was most definitely noticeable.