The Final Volume: Little Worlds in the Dust - Hidden World

Rustle... Rustle...

A rustling sound came from beside her ear—the friction of old cloth.

The window seemed to be wide open. An icy draft blew through the room and stirred the curtains. The pale sunlight that came in cast the room in the leaden gray of deep winter, including the tattered bed she lay on.

Had they left the window open again today?

On the first day, she'd thought they'd simply forgotten.

On the second, she couldn't help wondering if they were doing it on purpose.

On the third, it was still the same. Maybe it had nothing to do with whether it was deliberate. Maybe they simply ignored her.

The food was the same.

On the first day, there had been rice porridge and a few leftover dishes. They tasted so bad that even she could barely swallow them, but at least she'd eaten until she was half full.

On the second day, there had been nothing but rice porridge and a few vegetable leaves. It had no flavor at all. She would have liked some seasoning, but no one cared what she wanted.

On the third day, the person feeding her seemed to suddenly lose patience and shoved her away. The spoonful of rice porridge slipped from the spoon in their mouth and fell to the floor. The food was wasted, and the person left, complaining, "Why waste time on something like this?"

By today, she could be almost certain.

No one would come to draw the curtains for her again, or bring her food.

Ever since her family had stopped visiting, and she'd been moved from her ordinary hospital room to this little room that reeked of mold, she'd become a discarded thing.

She'd been sick since childhood, struggling through life for more than a decade. Every