The orphanage was not a home. It was a prison wrapped in the disguise of care.
The caretaker, Mr. Griggs, stalked the halls with a cane in hand. His belly sagged over his belt, his breath stank of liquor, and his eyes gleamed with cruelty whenever they fell on the children.
"Up! Up, you little rats!" he barked at dawn, striking the beds with the cane. The weak stirred, some too slow, earning sharp lashes across their backs. I flinched as his shadow fell over me, my small body curling instinctively.
The day was endless work—scrubbing floors until knuckles bled, hauling buckets of water too heavy for our small frames, scrubbing clothes that weren't ours. Any mistake, any hesitation, was met with the cane.
By night, we returned to our beds bruised and starving. Some children whispered stories of parents who might come back for them, of fairy-tale rescues. But most knew better.
I knew better.
This wasn't a place of saving.
It was a place of breaking.