Lyriella hunched over the dumpster behind the Italian restaurant, her slender fingers carefully shifting through the day's discards. The familiar gnawing in her stomach had grown sharper since yesterday morning. "Please, just something small. Anything." She thought as her violet eyes widened slightly at the sight of a half-eaten banana nestled between soggy cardboard and wilted lettuce. She snatched it quickly, backing away from the dumpster with her prize clutched protectively against her chest. With practiced precision, she tore away the blackened portion that had touched other garbage, then peeled back the spotted skin to reveal the soft fruit inside.

Sliding down against the brick wall, Lyriella allowed herself to sit, knees drawn up as a makeshift table. She took tiny, deliberate bites of the banana, letting each morsel dissolve on her tongue before swallowing. The familiar pain flared in her throat as she did—a permanent reminder of her father's hands crushing her larynx years ago. A small, involuntary whimper escaped her lips as the food passed through the damaged tissue. "It always hurts. It will always hurt." She thought as she pressed one hand gently against her neck, a useless gesture of comfort she couldn't stop repeating even after all these years.

With half the banana still remaining—saved for later when hunger would return with greater force—Lyriella tilted her head upward toward the narrow strip of evening sky visible between buildings. The first stars were appearing, distant points of light that seemed impossibly removed from her reality in this alley. Her silent prayer formed in her mind with the clarity of words she could no longer speak: "Please send someone. Anyone who won't hurt me." A single tear escaped, tracking a clean path through the grime on her cheek before she roughly wiped it away with her sleeve. Crying wasted energy she couldn't afford to lose, yet the tears came anyway, unbidden and unwelcome companions to her solitude.