Take the left path

The path to the left leads you down a small path and ends in a backyard. Buildings with cracked walls surround an area with dead, withered grass, two small mountains of garbage bags and broken furniture, and a near-collapsing swing hanging only from a single, rusty chain. It is a sad picture. There are two doors that lead inside the buildings, but with no key and no knowledge about who lives here, this is a dead end. You have to take another way.

Suddenly you hear something rustle close to one of the garbage mountains. At first you think about rats, but then you see a small shoe quickly disappearing behind the garbage. You walk around the mountain curious and to your surprise, you see a girl. She is ten or maybe twelve years old. She is dirty, her hair is messy and her clothes are too big for her body and she looks awfully thin. In one hand she holds a very rusty and notched kitchen knife and in the other she has a leaf of bread that looks as hard as stone. She glares at you warning and moves backwards away from you.

You immediately feel sorry for her. The poor girl is totally neglected. Her parents are either gone or don’t care about her. Eric told you that people in the slums have a hard life and are ****, but seeing an innocent child clinging to a rock-hard piece of bread like this is a completely different level. You have to do anything.

“Hey you,” you say friendly and try to get closer, “what are you doing …”

“Go!” the girl screams and waves the knife threatening in your direction, “go away! This is mine. I don’t share with you!”

The girl is obviously referring to the bread in her left arm. She presses it against her body and defends it as if her life depends on it. considering how thin she is, that is probably disturbingly close to the truth.

“Listen, little one, I don’t want to take it away from you,” you say calm and offer her your hand, “I just want to talk to you.”

“Do you think I’m stupid?” the girl replies and grids her teeth, “go! Are you with a gang? Are you an amazon? I don’t care it you are. This is mine. You don’t get it.”

“But I …” you begin but don’t get past the second word of your sentence.

“No buts,” the girl interrupts you angry, “go away or I stab you. You think I will not do it?”

Talking to her is obviously not working. You don’t even want to imagine what she may have been trough. She is a child and looks not too strong. But if she is serious, she can probably seriously hurt you with her knife. and it is so rusty, you have no doubt it would cause serious illnesses. If you want to talk to her, you have to try another way. Or you can just leave her and go another way.