Page 6 of Orc's Little Human
The thought hits me like a physical blow, rage and revulsion twisting in my gut until I taste bile. Bad enough that orcs exist, that they hunt and kill and feast on suffering. But to corrupt innocence, to teach cruelty to something so young...
"Hello!" The girl's voice rings with genuine warmth, like she's greeting a friend instead of a captive. "I brought you food. Are you hungry?"
She holds out the bowl with both hands, the gesture so earnest it makes my throat close up. Inside, I catch glimpses of what might be stew—chunks of meat in dark broth, steam rising like small prayers. My stomach clenches hard enough to double me over, betraying just how long it's been since I've eaten anything more substantial than berries and stream water.
Don't take it. Don't trust it. This is how they break you—small kindnesses before the real pain starts.
But she just stands there waiting, head tilted to one side like a curious bird. No impatience, no threat lurking behind the offer. Just a child holding food and watching me with those impossible amber eyes.
"You don't have to be scared," she says, stepping closer despite every instinct that should be screaming at her to run. "Korrath won't hurt you. He promised."
Korrath. The chieftain.
The name sits heavy on her tongue, spoken with the kind of absolute faith that only children can manage. She believes it completely—believes that this monster capable of leading a clan of killers somehow transformed into a protector because he gave his word.
The naivety should be laughable. Instead, it makes something crack open in my chest, some carefully maintained wall that's kept me functional through months of running and hiding. She looks at me like I'm a person instead of prey, like my survival matters for reasons beyond entertainment value.
It's not real. It can't be real.
I want to shake her, to explain that trust is a luxury that gets you killed, that believing in promises from predators is the fastest way to end up as bones scattered across camp grounds. But she's already settling cross-legged on the floor, placing the bowl between us like an offering to some benevolent god.
"I'm Thalira," she announces, like we're meeting at a market instead of in a prison cell. "But everyone calls me Thali. What's your name?"
The question hangs in the air between us, innocent and terrible in its simplicity. Names have power—every survivor knows that. Give someone your real name and they can use it to hunt you, to call in favors from people who knew you before the world ended.
But this is a child. A child whose smile hasn't yet learned to hide knives, whose hands haven't yet learned the weight of weapons. Everything about her radiates the kind of genuine warmth I thought died in the camps, the kind of uncomplicatedkindness that belongs to a world where people still believe in good endings.
She's going to get herself killed.
The thought comes with surprising clarity, cutting through the fog of exhaustion and fear that's clouded my thinking for days. This sweetness, this trust—it won't survive first contact with the real world. Someone will teach her that mercy is weakness, that compassion only makes the blade cut deeper. They'll take everything bright about her and grind it into the same gray ash that coats everything else in this gods-damned existence.
Unless...
Unless what? Unless you save her? You can't even save yourself.
The bitter voice in my head speaks truth, but I can't stop staring at her expectant face, can't stop thinking about all the children who didn't make it out of the camps. All the bright spirits snuffed out before they had a chance to learn that hope was just another word for delayed disappointment.
"Selene," I hear myself say, the name slipping out before I can stop it. "My name is Selene."
Her smile could power a lighthouse, brilliant and warm and utterly unguarded. She claps her hands together like I've just given her the most wonderful gift instead of a single word that could destroy us both.
"Selene! That's pretty. I've never met a human before." She leans forward conspiratorially, lowering her voice like we're sharing secrets. "Are you really as fragile as everyone says? You look tougher than that."
The casual way she discusses my species like we're some exotic creature makes my skin crawl, but there's no malice in it. Just the innocent curiosity of someone too young to understandthat humans and orcs don't trade compliments—they trade blood.
What kind of place is this? What kind of clan lets children wander free while captives wait in locked rooms?
4
KORRATH
Sleep eludes me like smoke through clenched fists.
I stand at the narrow window carved into the eastern wall of my longhouse, watching the sky bleed from black to deep purple. Dawn crawls toward Gor'thul with the patience of a hunting predator, but my mind refuses the peace that should come with another night survived. Instead, it circles back to the same impossible puzzle—the human woman locked three doors down from where I stand.
Selene.
Her name tastes strange on my tongue, foreign syllables that don't belong in orcish mouths. But I find myself turning it over anyway, the way a warrior examines a new blade for flaws that might prove fatal in battle. There's something about the shape of it, the way it settles against my thoughts like familiar weight.
