Chapter 4: The Medic’s Kindness

My English isn’t very good. Mom didn’t teach me much, just enough for basic conversation.

I picked up words here and there, mostly from the ranchers. I’d listen to the radio static at night, copying the rhythms of newscasters I could barely understand. But words failed me when it mattered most.

So I didn’t know what he meant by trap.

"It’s just a livestock pen."

I kept my eyes on my hands, trying to will them still. If I looked up, I knew I’d see only coldness.

The captain stared at me, his gaze strangely deep.

"Hmph, you people are good at playing dumb, but when it comes to violence, you’re fiercer than wolves. You think I’ll fall for it? Behind me are thousands of people. Even if she really is my twin sister, if she’s brought to the front lines, I’ll be the first to pull the trigger, to boost morale."

The words tumbled over me like cold water. I realized he wasn’t talking to me—he was talking to someone else, someone I’d never be.

I didn’t know how to answer him. He said a lot, and I didn’t understand some words.

But I understood enough.

He wouldn’t save my mother.

He would even kill her.

I thought of how Mom always asked me which way was south, then used her blind eyes to quietly gaze in that direction.

I didn’t know which way was south either, but to keep her from being sad, I always pointed in the same direction.

That direction had no houses or cattle or sheep, only the endless prairie.

In spring, it would be covered in all kinds of little wildflowers...

Mom would "look" at that sea of flowers and tell me stories from before.

She said she had a twin brother, one of the people in this world who loved her most.

I thought, maybe Mom was like me, always too fond of dreaming.

Dreaming that her family all loved her.

But...

If they really loved her, when they heard she was locked in a livestock pen, living worse than a stray dog, how could her twin brother not react at all?

Mom surely didn’t know, the one who loved her most in this world was me.

Even if I was the one she hated most.

Even if, on several nights, she wanted to secretly strangle me.

I closed my eyes, and in my mind appeared the image of Mom, in a good mood, singing little songs to me.

I really wanted to go back to the pen.

Even if I were to die, I wanted to die by her side.