The city of Lumiose was always alive. The lights never flickered off, the streets never emptied, and the people—always in a hurry—walked past without a second glance at the shadows lurking in the alleyways. Those shadows, though, had a name.

Sylvie.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been here, living in this cold, unforgiving world. The only thing she could remember clearly was the ache in her stomach, the constant gnawing hunger that never seemed to disappear. Every day was a fight to survive, and every night was just another test of how long she could endure before her body gave out.

The alley she called home was small, tucked away between two towering buildings, where the noise of the city was muffled by the concrete and metal. The dumpster at the end of the alley was overflowing with refuse, its contents often picked through by others like her—orphans, street kids, and the occasional lost traveler. To most, it was a symbol of decay. To her, it was a lifeline.

Sylvie’s hands, small and calloused from years of hard living, dug into the trash. She had learned early that the best way to survive was to take whatever you could. And she was good at it. Good at being unnoticed. Good at squeezing through cracks and finding what others overlooked. Sometimes it was a half-eaten sandwich, sometimes just scraps of vegetables or bruised fruit. Anything.

The hunger inside her was the same hunger she had lived with since she was small. She could barely remember the days before she had been abandoned, but the hunger was always there, pushing her to take what she could. People often told her that she didn’t belong. That she was worthless. She had heard it all her life, after all. No parents. No home. Just a girl with nothing but a name—Sylvie—and even that had been stolen from her once.

She didn’t care anymore. Names, people, they were all the same. Weakness was a sin. And if you showed weakness, the world would crush you underfoot. She had learned that lesson far too well.

Sylvie had once been sent to an orphanage—a place where children like her were meant to find shelter, warmth, and care. But what she found there wasn’t warmth. It was cold. And worse, it was filled with people who were cruel, who treated them as less than animals.

The memories of the orphanage still burned, even now.

She was just six when she was taken in. The building loomed over her, a cold, gray structure, full of children who never spoke and caregivers who never smiled. She had been hopeful at first. She had thought, perhaps, this was the place where she could finally belong. Where someone would love her. But she was wrong.

The adults in charge were nothing like the kindly figures she had imagined in stories. They were strict, cruel, and often violent. The matron, a woman with sharp eyes and a harder heart, was the worst of them. She often picked favorites, and Sylvie was never one of them. If she did something wrong, even if it was just the smallest mistake, she was punished. Sometimes it was just a slap to the face. Sometimes it was worse—locking her in the dark closet for hours, the only sound being her own breathing, the silence pressing in on her until it suffocated.

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There were others, too. Older children who took advantage of their position. They learned quickly that survival in the orphanage was a matter of power. The weak were picked on, bullied, and forced to do things—things Sylvie had never thought possible for children. She had been one of them once, until she realized the only way to survive was to become stronger than everyone else. To fight back. To never show weakness.

But the punishment for showing strength was severe. The adults watched with cruel eyes, and they had the power to make her life miserable if she didn’t comply.

Sylvie could still remember the last straw. It had been an afternoon like any other—gray, dreary, with the rain slapping against the windows. She had been trying to clean the floor when one of the older girls, a bully named Mirabelle, had shoved her aside.

“You think you’re better than me, little girl?” Mirabelle had sneered. “You think you’re special?”

Sylvie, angry and desperate, had pushed back. She had been so tired of being pushed around, so tired of being nobody. But instead of standing up for herself, Mirabelle had screamed for the matron, and within minutes, Sylvie had been locked in the dark closet again.

That night, as she lay curled up in the damp, cold space, something inside her snapped. She had finally realized something—living here, in this place of supposed safety, was worse than dying on the streets. The orphanage was no place for a child who had any sense of pride. It was a cage. And she would rather starve than live like this.

By the time she was eight, Sylvie had made the decision to run away. It wasn’t easy. The streets were a jungle, a place where only the strong survived. But at least, on the streets, she had the freedom to choose her own path.

And so, with nothing but the clothes on her back and a will to survive, Sylvie had walked out of the orphanage and into the chaos of Lumiose City.

The first few days had been the hardest. She had no money, no food, and no place to sleep. She spent those nights hiding in alleyways, praying no one would find her. But soon, the streets became her home. She learned how to survive.

Rummaging through trash was an art, and Sylvie was a master at it. The best places were behind restaurants, where the garbage was fresh. She quickly learned to avoid the more dangerous parts of the city, those areas where people didn’t care if a child disappeared. It wasn’t just the food that kept her alive—it was the knowledge of where to hide, when to stay still, and how to avoid notice.

She learned how to steal. At first, it was just small things—an apple from a vendor, a loaf of bread from a bakery. But the more she stole, the better she got at it. She knew how to blend in with the crowd, how to pick the right moment to snatch something without anyone noticing. It wasn’t glamorous, and it wasn’t easy, but it was survival. And Sylvie would do anything to survive.

There were nights when she had to sleep in the cold, curled up against the bricks of the city’s walls. There were times when she had no food for days, her stomach gnawing at her from the inside. But she never complained. Weakness was a sin. And to complain would mean admitting that she wasn’t strong enough to keep going.

Sylvie had learned to trust no one. People didn’t care about the weak. She had seen enough to know that when you showed any sign of weakness, people would use it against you. She had seen it with the other children in the orphanage, and she had seen it in the streets as well. People would step over you if you were in their way, and if you weren’t careful, they’d take everything you had.

So she kept her distance. She never made friends. She never let anyone close enough to hurt her. The only thing she cared about was surviving—and that meant staying strong, staying independent.

And yet, as Sylvie rifled through the garbage in the alley today, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she had changed. That something in her had shifted.

The Eevee that had appeared from the trash—weak, small, and hungry—reminded her too much of herself. Sylvie had always thought that if she could just get stronger, then she would be able to make the world notice her. She would leave a mark. But how could she leave a mark if she didn’t even have anyone to care about? How could she make a difference if she was alone?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a soft whimper, and Sylvie looked down to find the Eevee, now sitting beside her, its fur matted with dirt but its eyes wide with trust.

Weakness isn’t a sin, she thought, as her hand brushed through the Eevee’s fur, gently for the first time in years. Maybe… maybe it wasn’t.

But she couldn’t afford to let herself believe that. Not yet.

Still, she held the Eevee close as she whispered, “You’re not weak. You’re just… lost, like me.”

For the first time in years, she didn’t feel quite as alone.