Chapter 5: Abandoned

It seemed I’d landed in the body of some European girl this time. Though this world clearly wasn’t my own, the faces around me were undeniably European, and the language they spoke bore a faint resemblance to English. Whether they were the kind of “Europeans” I was familiar with, however, I couldn’t say.

This was no boon, mind you. The stench alone—a vile concoction of human and animal waste, rotting refuse, and stale urine—was enough to tell me how squalid life was for the lower dregs of this society. Even if I was now European, this was a far cry from the modern world I’d left behind.

Jared was still arguing with MacDuff, pleading with him not to cast me out. But MacDuff was a man of foul temper, not only cruel and violent but also one who couldn’t abide anyone daring to defy him.

Not even Jared, the boy who earned him the most coin, was an exception. As the argument heated, MacDuff suddenly lashed out, a sharp slap across Jared’s face that sent him sprawling to the ground.

“Enough!” MacDuff roared. “Keep her? Will you feed her? You expect me to buy her medicine? And when she croaks, will I have to bother with dumping the corpse? You lot, get her out of my sight, and far away! I don’t keep useless baggage!”

Many of the children stared at him with faces full of grief and anger, while others looked at me with unconcealed pity. No one moved to carry me away. It seemed the original owner of this body had been quite well-liked among the orphans.

Or perhaps, they saw their own grim futures reflected in my plight. The chilling thought that if they, too, were to fall ill, they’d be cast out by MacDuff without a second thought, left to die in the mud just as I was. A truly bleak prospect.

Seeing his orders ignored, MacDuff’s fury intensified. He clearly felt these urchins were deliberately challenging his wretched authority. He unbuckled his leather belt, ready to lay into them.

Just then, Jared, who had been knocked to the ground, struggled to his feet. “Guv’nor,” he said, his voice strained. “I’ll do it.”

All the children stared at him in disbelief. I, too, was taken aback. In Parula’s memories, Jared had doted on her more than anyone. Could he truly bring himself to cast me out?

“You?” Even MacDuff was surprised. “Hah! What scheme are you hatching now, boy? Seen sense, have you? Just don’t go sneaking her back in, you hear!”

“Don’t beat them,” Jared mumbled, his voice thick with unshed tears and a desperate anger. “I’ll do it. Since you won’t let her stay… it’s better me than… than them handling her roughly…” He was rambling, his emotions clearly in turmoil.

“Hmph!” MacDuff snorted and turned away. It seemed he’d given his grudging assent. As long as someone carried out his command, it mattered little who. In his eyes, Jared was still his most valuable asset; a small concession like this was nothing.

Jared approached me, carefully lifting me from the cold mud and filth. His movements were surprisingly gentle, not at all like someone who intended to abandon me.

My feelings towards Jared were a strange mix. On one hand, he was a stranger I’d only just “met.” Yet, the memories in this body felt an overwhelming closeness to him, an almost instinctual bond. As he held me, the pain and discomfort wracking my small frame seemed to lessen considerably.

“Cough… cough… Thank… you,” I managed, my voice raspy. “Don’t… worry about me. Just… find a place… and leave me.” It was the first time I’d spoken in this new world, using this unfamiliar yet understandable tongue.

My voice was hoarse, likely due to the illness. I could faintly discern that this body’s original voice must have been as clear and melodious as a songbird’s.

Perhaps it was a consequence of the transmigration, but the original owner’s memories were fragmented in my mind, almost impossible to recall fully. They only surfaced in response to specific triggers, like seeing him and suddenly remembering he was Jared.

Though I could understand their language earlier, I hadn’t known how to speak it. Only by listening to their conversation just now had I slowly begun to recall how to form words, and even then, it was halting and broken. Many words eluded me, and I had to struggle to piece together a coherent sentence from the tattered remnants of memory.

“I’m sorry,” Jared whispered, his voice laden with guilt. “I couldn’t convince him to let you stay.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the girl he truly cared for, Parula, was likely already gone.

“It’s alright,” I tried to smile at him. “It’s not your fault.” After all, as a transmigrator, I held no attachment to this so-called "home." Death, too, seemed a matter of indifference now; it wasn’t as if I hadn’t experienced it before.

Though merely a lad of sixteen or seventeen summers, he carried me in his arms with an ease that suggested I was as light as a thistledown, or perhaps he was simply that robust.

He didn’t take me far, just around the corner into a dead-end alley. Flanked by soot-stained, towering tenements on two sides, it offered some meager shelter from the wind and rain, though the place was still appallingly squalid, a true den of misery.

Huddled in the narrow passage were numerous ragged figures, their hair matted like old rope, faces grimy with the city’s filth. They lay or sat scattered about, some possessing a threadbare blanket, others with scarcely enough rags to cover themselves. These were the vagrants. I had already surmised that I’d been thrust into a slum, and these individuals were the lowest of the low, even within that wretched hierarchy.

Jared glanced at the listless, hollow-eyed figures, more shades than men, then, still seemingly uneasy, carried me a little deeper into the alley. He gently placed me in a darker corner, where I would be less conspicuous. Then, he gathered some discarded news-sheets and tattered scraps of cloth from the surroundings and carefully draped them over me, an attempt to provide some warmth. I was too weak to refuse his kindness.

“I’ll come back for you,” he promised before leaving, his voice firm with conviction. “Wait for me.” I felt no particular surge of emotion. What could he do even if he returned? Could he cure my illness?

After Jared left, I lay alone and helpless in the corner. Dusk bled into a starless night, the gas lamps far off casting only feeble glows. Some of the vagrants gathered refuse into braziers fashioned from old buckets, lighting fires to huddle around for warmth, their conversations a bleak murmur of their tragic fates and the crude, desperate jests that passed for laughter in such places.

I felt the chill of night bit deep; the air grew teeth as darkness fell. And with the high fever still burning through me, the cold felt even more intense. My body shivered uncontrollably. It was only then that I could truly appreciate Jared’s subtle, thoughtful care. If not for the papers and rags he’d covered me with, offering a fragile barrier against the biting night wind, I would have been far worse off. Yet, this thin layer was far from enough; I was still trembling violently.

At the same time, a stark realization finally penetrated my fever-addled, heavy mind: I was now in the body of a young girl. Among these vagrants, there were virtually no young women. Young women, if they had no other recourse, could often find a grim way to earn their keep, a last, desperate trade to fend off starvation. Those who remained here, among these men, were truly the dregs, the forgotten refuse of the city, with nothing left to offer but their misery.

If they discovered a defenseless young girl here… what they might do was utterly unimaginable. Things could happen that I would find absolutely unbearable.