One year

For a grown up, one year may be short

Especially when you get older. Each passing year becomes more and more common, making the impression that they pass faster and faster

Or at least, that is what most old people complain about

But for a kid, a year is a long time

A really long time

There is not way around it. When you lived 5 years, and taking into consideration no one remembers when they were 1, 2 or 3 years old, 1 year = half her life

Can you imagine waiting half your life for an answer to the most important thing in your life?

Maybe at the beginning, you can just suck it up, but after a while, you would crack

You would try to find a way to get new information or do something about it

And Sara tried

She asked, again and again, for the information to the old man, without result

She tried searching the internet for any kind of information but only found out most kids after the incident were sent to an orphanage

And even finding out that took a lot of effort

With only their name and partial description, it was impossible to find anything else

Try to find which orphanage? impossible

If she even tried to approach one, they would force her to stay

The only way would be to beg someone to ask the different institutions in he place

But the only person she knew that could do that would be Uncle Muscle....

Basically, she had no way out but to simply wait a year

So that is what she did

She still tried to search online from time to time

With no other result than an increase of frustration about her findings and hatred for the hood guys

Meanwhile, she went to kindergarten and worked for Uncle Muscle

In kindergarten, she did ok basically. She knew most of the stuff being taught there, so there wasn't much problem from that part, and she got along with her classmates

She had 3 uniforms, and brought them to Uncle Muscle every time one got dirty, and she was eating healthier food than before, so she didn't look like she had troubles at home

Besides, thanks to all the kids running like crazy to the exit when school was over, no one realised she went home alone

It was thanks to all this that she never draw attention to herself, and no one realised in what conditions she lived

As for her work with Uncle Muscle, it was mostly as a messenger

She had to wear regular clothes(since her school clothes would draw unwanted attention)and a backpack with an emblem on that could be translated to "don't mess with her or else...."

Each faction in the city had a different emblem with a similar meaning, so people would know who they were f-cking with if they messed with the person with the emblem

Unless you were from a rival gang, an outsider, a crazy person or a hero, no one messed with a person with an emblem

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

And the old man was powerful enough to have an emblem of his own

His jobs were buying and selling information, act as middle man, consultant, and a lot more

He worked mostly on the evening and night, and rested during the day

Since he knew some dangerous individuals, he usually send Sara home after giving her a job or two, and Sara rarely meet a client or other of Muscle Uncle workers

As for the Jobs Uncle Muscle had for her, they were mostly errands

He would send Sara to buy stuff he needed and from time to time, he would send her to deliver or retrieve a letter or a small package after putting the address in her phone

She usually went to 3 different places and rarely someone knew to deliver or bring something from there

The three places she usually went was a bar, a lawyer office and a really secure house

The bar had a deaf lady as the waitress and was a famous meeting place for shady deals

The lawyer was a famous one that usually worked with criminals. She one time asked the lawyer if he could help her find her family in the orphanages, but he said that she couldn't afford his hourly wager, so Sara gave up from that front

And as for the really secure house, it had a camera at the door, an intercom and a bin where you put and took stuff.  She never met the guy or even knew his gender since he used a modulator

She never met someone from one of the gangs or a power user(that she know of at least) so the jobs were the relatively safe

She went to Uncle Muscle place every day, with a tapper from yesterday's dinner and her clothes. There, she would get a job most of the time and after the job or if there wasn't a job, she would return home with that day's dinner and clean clothes

A few times she got an urgent call to her phone with a job from Uncle Muscle. All of them were a deliver or take something from the usual places, but nothing else

It was basically a routine job, that even a kid could do and had few risk

Every day, she would go to school, then go to Uncle Muscle, visit the blind man place(and the other 3 from time to time), go home, watch some kids TV show, movie or use the computer(both had parental protection on), eat the food Uncle Muscle gave to her, brush her teeth and go to sleep

With a bath every 2,3 days(she didn't like baths) and go buy something from time to time with the money Uncle Muscle gave to her

Sometimes she would go buy something

She did that every day, and after what looked like an eternity to her, a year passed and the promised time came

There was no way out for Uncle Muscle

It was finally the time for Uncle Muscle to spill the beans, tell the hard and devastating truth and crush Sara's hope and dreams

That is, of course, if Uncle Muscle was an upstanding citizen that believed that the truth was the best choice in any situation

Uncle Muscle wasn't an upstanding citizen

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Note: thanks again for the help Neiden, I always some mistakes :(