Abandoned Apartment Building, Southwest Missouri

Valentina woke up where she fell asleep - behind a dressing table with a tell tale smashed oval mirror. Not even sleep would deliver her from her misery, as in her ceaseless nightmares, everything that happened that brought her to this state of things happened all over again, mercilessly, drowning and choking. She woke up feeling clammy and hot and rotten, and faint memories of better mornings only made it worst. She woke from her nightmares, only to return to another, the memories of her unfortunately close unfortunate past disguised as nightmares still fresh on her mind.

Despite smashing the oval mirror, Valentina accidentally caught a look of her blind right eye on a shard, and quickly turned away, the instinct having long became a knee-jerk response. Angry, she swept the shards away, not caring that she had cut herself slightly - she had suffered worst things, such as being branded by a Biker gang leader, and a cut was a small price to pay for not looking at her milky white iris again.

The damage, however, was already done. Getting up, Valentina did not make it very far. Aching from sleeping on a stool and table, she slumped down on the filthy mattress by the pile of things she found yesterday night. It actually felt comfortable, having never slept in a proper bed for weeks. With only misery for company to snuggle with, Valentina could not help but to descend into her memories once again as it had, like a disgustingly beautiful parasite, wormed itself into her head...

"But Daddy, why are we going to the gas station?" Valentina queried, curious as to why they were driving an extra distance to shop for groceries. Though it meant an extra half hour travelling time, Valentina did not actually mind - it meant seeing something different outside the car windows, different people, different buildings, different dogs, cats, cars. Things seemed different however. Everyone was in a rush, and everyone was doing a lot of shopping lately. It seemed odd to Valentina, as it wasn't even the 4th of July, nor Thanksgiving nor Christmas yet, "Why aren't we going down to Sa'at's Mart anymore?"

"Things are changing, Lapushka." Valentina's father replied curtly, his eyes watching the road sternly, as if he was afraid he might actually hit something. Valentina was puzzled by her father's reaction. He would normally smile, and he would normally look... lively and radiant despite the strands of grey hair on his beard and scalp. Valentina loves it Whenever he called her Lapushka or Solnyshko or Dochenka. This time, however, there were lines all over his face, and he was constantly rubbing his temples. It was different this time. Valentina rarely saw her father doing that, and only when he was in his office at home, making phonecalls and scribbling a lot of stuff on his notepads, "Mr Sa'at is no longer around."

"Is he in Turkey to visit his family?" Valentina asked - Salman Sa'at, as she knew the family's favorite shopkeeper, was always flying back to his home country, just like how she and her family would every year. To this question, her father did not reply, but was still busy concentrating on the road, rubbing his forehead. There were even more lines on his face, as if her question had added them there. "Why aren't we buying the groceries as a family?"

"Mama had to buy other groceries from elsewhere with Vertov and Valerie, Doch..." To Valentina's other question, the father replied. The girl, however, noticed an odd look on his face, as if her father had lost concentration of the road for a moment. His eyes were peering elsewhere, somewhere far away, but when Valentina looked where he was looking at, she saw nothing. For a moment, she found her own gesture stupid, however, as the car was going rather fast. Silence reigned again as soon as her question was answered, and Valentina returned her gaze to the left of the car. She loved riding shotgun as it was the best place to look out. Which was when she saw a whole bunch of people, and the way they walk she thought was funny and weird. [i]They looked like they hadn't eaten for days[/i], she thought as her car whipped past, and soon the bunch of people was gone.

When they reached the gas station, it was so difficult to find a place to park that Valentina's father had resorted to parking partly on the sidewalk at the carpark. Even the girl knew it was a little off and wrong, but she didn't want to argue. After they got out of the car, they held hands and began walking. The girl found it hard to keep up with her father, as he was walking briskly, faster than his usual pace. "Valentina, you must listen to me." Her father said quite out of the blue, "I vant you to take everything, everything, you understand? It doesn't matter vhat you take, just take them." Valentina was puzzled by her father's strange instructions. On every other grocery days, she knew her father to be more meticulous with the spending, and would normally provide a list of things to buy. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, Daddy-" Which was when the father stopped all of a sudden, pulling on Valentina to make sure she followed. On the horizon of the street, something huge was coming closer, fast. There seemed to be explosions in the distance, and seconds later, Valentina realised that it was a huge truck, smashing past cars and lorries and even people. The crimson hue of blood paralysed her. All of a sudden, she felt weak and cold, faint. It was coming closer, quickly. The violence. She had never really seen such a thing before. Her father had to carry her and run back to where they came from. Vaulting over a stone fence seperating the carpark from the street outside, her father laid her down and hid. Bangings, louder each time.

"Don't look, my Lapushka!" Her father said as he ducked and covered his ears, anticipating an explosion. He had seen was the truck was carrying. It was an oil tanker truck, and it was smashing its way towards the gas station.

Valentina was dazed, her ears singing. She felt faint. Could not think. She had seen people smashed against the bumper and grill of the truck, falling to pieces, screaming in the distance. She wondered if it was over, and decided to peek over the stone fence they were hiding behind, her father's instructions barely registering, and even then her brain was at a standstill.

A huge explosion. A tiny, miniscule glass shard, once a part of a window made in a far away factory to be mounted on the gas station window, freed itself from its place along with millions of its brothers. Propelled by the explosion that resulted from the violent crash, it flew yards, across the street, sidewalks and over the stone fence, and finally into Valentina's right eye.

Half the return journey was spent in burning, hellish pain, crying both blood and tears, unlike anything she had ever felt before in her short life. Not even the warmth of her father's caring embrace could mitigate, even slightly, the insanity raging through her nerves. His words fell on ears that listened only inwards before becoming faint as nothing outside the crucible that was her eye and the glass shard within it mattered in the moment. She spent the other half of her return journey (and the rest of the day) unconscious and unable to savour the last few rays of light registering in her right eye. It was a message that did not require her surgeon to tell her.