The room has wooden floors.
Not warm wood, just flat boards that echo when someone walks across them. There is an empty bookshelf against one wall. No books. Just shelves collecting dust like they were once meant to hold something important and never did. A wooden bed frame stands in the corner with a thin mattress stretched across it. Near the center of the floor is a small dark hole. Leia never touches it. She does not know what is inside it, but she does not like the way it stares back.
There is one window; it is locked.
Outside the glass is a sparse front yard, mostly dirt and weeds that refuse to die, and beyond that a road that curves at the bend and disappears from sight. Leia stands on the bed frame to reach it. Her small hands press flat against the glass, her chubby legs wobbling as she stretches higher, as if seeing farther might change what is coming.
“It always looks empty right before it isn’t”, she thinks to herself, “and when I see the lights, it means someone is here, and we might be held.” She has memorized that feeling. It was a deep-seated hope, because the alternative was too unbearable to even consider.
Someone will come.
She knows they come.
That is what makes it harder.
The door has opened gently before. Warmth has entered this room before. Arms have lifted her from the floor. Laughter has echoed off these wooden boards instead of shouting. She has been told loving things in sweet voices that did not tighten afterward.
She remembers those days the way other children might remember being carried inside after falling asleep in the car. She remembers them because they are proof that the warmth is real. Proof that if she performs correctly enough, it can be brought back. Proof that her behavior can change her time in this room.
Behind her, two babies whimper. They are cold and hungry. She keeps them on the floor, afraid they might fall from the bed if she’s not careful enough. At their call, Leia climbs down carefully from her perch and gathers them into her lap. Her arms ache from the weight, but she rocks them anyway. Bracing them against her legs and humming softly, she counts the seconds between the creaks in the house. She listens, as she coos, for footsteps or the sound of a knob turning. She scans for the shift in the air that happens before the door opens.
“If I keep the babies quiet” she thinks, “maybe tonight will be warm.”
In the far corner of the room sits a small metal dog cage.
She remembers when it was not there. It was quieter then. Nearly unbearable in its stillness, but manageable. It was just her and the babies and the waiting. She could focus on the road. She could control how quiet the room stayed. She could manage herself well enough to make sure she had done her best to earn the warmth.
But the cage came on a warm day.
The knob had turned softly that morning. Her heart leapt at the sound. She gathered the babies quickly and smiled upward, hoping whoever had come would see her and know she deserved freedom. She deserved warmth and love. She’d be picked up and cuddled, given safety if she could make them smile back.
Light spilled into the room. A voice laughed. Hands lifted her. A kiss pressed into her hair.
“Good morning, Leia!” Her chest filled so quickly she thought she might float.
The warmth stayed late that morning, lingering in her space, playing with her and holding her close. It softened the corners of the room. It made the empty bookshelf look less hollow. It made the wooden floor feel less cold. She’d hoped it would take her out of here, or it would stay and keep her warm forever.
But the door closed.
Later, it opened again.
Another warm day.
Another gentleness she never wanted to go away.
This time, Leia felt brave.
She laughed louder than normal – giggling in high pitched screams of joy. She tugged at a sleeve, and asked a question twice because the first answer had felt so good she wanted to hear it again. She wanted more that day, and believed she could get it.
Her requests were small, overall.
So small she cannot remember exactly what it was.
But she remembers the shift.
The warmth draining first. The air tightening before the voice changed. The way the hand that had been soft became firm. The words followed – “Ungrateful”, “selfish,” “Too Much,” “Disappointing.”
The babies began to cry.
Leia froze, realizing that the warmth had gone. She rushed forward to fix it.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ll be good.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
But the warmth did not come back.
The door closed harder that night, shaking the bookshelf and leaving an echo that haunted Leia’s nightmares for days following.
When it opened again, there was no light.
Only blackness.
It spilled into the room like ink. Screaming voices echoed from the inky depths, but the words were warped and sharp and impossible to understand. Something metallic crashed across the wooden floor, thrown from the blackness and rolling over itself with a banging that sent panic through Leia.
The door slammed shut.
It had taken time for Leia to move again. Coldness had wrapped itself around her body, numbing her. It was the babies’ protesting cries that pulled her back. Once she had calmed them, she crawled toward the cage to see what was inside.
At first she saw only shadow, sticky and black- similar to the darkness outside the door.
Then, out of that shadow, appeared the thin cheek bones and dark eyes of a young face. Older than herself, but not by much. Hair hung in her eyes, and long fingers reached toward Leia and wrapped themselves around the metal bars.
Her name was Anne. Anne in the long shirt that pools around her knees. Anne with bare legs and messy hair. Anne whose dark, familiar eyes do not look at the road with hope, but instead look to Leia with expectation.
“You should stop looking out there.” Anne says now, pulling Leia from her memory. “No one stays.”
“They come,” Leia answers in a rehearsed way.
“They come,” Anne agrees. “But they don’t stay.”
“If I’m good enough,” Leia whispers, “they’ll come, they’ll love us, and they will stay.”
Anne rattles the bars once. The sound is small, but sharp against the wooden floor.
“You lost them because you laughed. You didn’t yell, you didn’t bite. You laughed.”
Leia flinches. Her eyes dart toward the door.
“I know. I laughed too loudly, and we know how they are about noises. I shouldn’t have.”
“You were laughing,” Anne says, rattling the cage with frustration, “And they left.”
“I know. If I had stayed quiet, they may have stayed…”
Anne leans forward, her voice low, “No, Leia. You were laughing, and they left. You didn’t deserve that. Why are you still waiting for them?”
The babies stir. Leia rocks them harder, humming louder, listening for the sound of yelling beyond the door, hoping Anne has not antagonized the darkness too much. Sometimes, when Anne gets too loud, the door opens to the blackness and the yelling. Leia was thrown, once, across the room by the force. Anne had tried to rip her way out of the cage when that happened, but didn’t succeed. Leia was left alone and crying, while Anne cursed the darkness and begged Leia to let her out.
Her bruises never healed.
“If we are quiet,” Leia says carefully, “They’ll come and they’ll stay. We just need to behave. We need to be good. We can be good for them, and they will treat us well.”
“Why?” Anne yells. “Why do you want them to come back!? Why do you want their warmth? We can leave this room and find our own warmth, Leia. Let me out, and I’ll open the door. Let me do this for us!”
Echoes of metal clanging against the wood are swallowed by the boards. A pit forms in Leia’s stomach at the thought of Anne opening the door. The darkness beyond the door felt bigger than the room itself, and she did not know where her feet would go, or who would be there to hold her and the babies if she left.
Leia climbed back onto the bed frame and pressed her hands to the glass, staring at the road and willing lights to appear. No lights came.
“We can’t leave, Anne. It’s too dangerous. We have to wait. Just… try not to make any more noise. Please?”
“But… they might come and hurt us again…” Anne replies, her voice soft with concern.
Leia slid down and sat with her back against the bed frame, knees pulled to her chest.
“Or, if we are good enough, they might love us and let us out,” she whispers.
The room grows very still.
Outside, the road remains empty.
Inside, the girls endure.
One watches the bend, aching for a love that can guide them out of the room.
One grips the bars, remembering exactly how dangerous love can be.
The door will open again.
It always does.
They just never know who will be standing there.
CaliStray 