caliope } d10. cb. fin

Cold days but even colder nights.

The orphanage had no heat, and it was strictly one blanket per person, but I always gave mine to one of the younger kids, they needed it more than I did. I would lay there shivering, waiting for sleep to fall upon my restless mind, wandering if I would ever get out of this god forsaken place.

Wandering if I would even make it out alive.

But then they came and found me and freed me from the hell that I was living in. I couldn't remember my birth parents, but if I got to choose who they were, I wouldn't have asked for anyone kinder and generous than the ones who adopted me.

It wasn't just me they brought home that day, it was Leto as well. But I realized once I got there that we weren't the first. They've been doing this for years. When I was older she told me it was because she wasn't able to have kids herself, but she couldn't dare to live a life without us.

Each year some would move out and one or two more would join us. I always seemed to look after the younger ones when they came, making sure they'd be happy, that they'd feel at home.

And no matter how hard I tried I always seemed to find myself checking on them in the middle of the night, just to make sure they didn't need an extra blanket.