My mother kept reminding me not to make trouble.
“Be a good girl, okay?”
“And when we get there, you have to call him Dad.”
She had found me a new father.
I knew perfectly well that he was a stranger.
My real father was already gone, buried quietly in the cemetery.
Whenever my mother talked about it, she couldn’t look me in the eyes.
She kept turning her face away.
Her eyes were full of tears, and her voice sounded tired and hoarse.
“I can’t let you starve to death.”
That was when I understood.
My mother wasn’t remarrying because she had stopped loving my father.
She was doing it because she didn’t want me to go hungry.
I was only a little girl.
I couldn’t understand all the things that could force an adult into making such a painful choice.
I was frightened.
But somewhere inside me, there was also a tiny bit of hope.
If this meant we would finally have enough food, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
We packed up our few belongings and prepared to leave the little house I had known for so long.
That was when I saw the crescent moon again.
That night, it looked sharper than ever.
And somehow, it frightened me more than all the others.
I was about to leave the only home I had ever known.
My mother climbed into a red bridal sedan.
A small group of musicians walked ahead of her, playing their instruments as they went.
The music was loud, messy, and strangely unpleasant.
It didn’t sound like a celebration at all.
The sedan moved slowly down the street.
A strange man held my hand and walked behind it with me.
I followed quietly, one small step after another.
Above us, the cold crescent moon gave off a faint light.
A cool breeze moved through the empty streets, making the moon seem to tremble in the distance.
There was hardly anyone outside.
The streets were almost completely deserted.
Only a few stray dogs ran around the musicians, barking and chasing after them.
The bridal sedan suddenly began moving faster.
The people carrying it hurried along.
My heart started racing.
Where were we going?
Why were they moving so fast?
A frightening thought suddenly entered my mind.
Were they taking my mother to the cemetery outside the city?
The strange man holding my hand tightened his grip.
“Come on. Keep up.”
He pulled me along.
I could barely breathe.
I was scared and miserable, but I didn’t dare cry.
His palm was covered in cold sweat.
It was wet and slippery against my hand, almost like the skin of a fish.
Several times, I wanted to call out to my mother.
“Mom!”
But every time the word reached my lips, I swallowed it back.
I didn’t dare make a sound.
I just kept walking.
Above us, the crescent moon seemed to grow thinner and thinner.
It looked like a tiny crack in the sky, slowly closing.
Then the red bridal sedan turned into a narrow, dark alley.
I followed behind it, still holding the stranger’s cold, sweaty hand.
I had no idea where my new life was taking me.