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The rain was exceptionally heavy in the middle of the night. Brief flashes of light
could be seen through the small window of the house. Charlie held his only daughter in
his embrace as he rocked her to sleep on that particularly stormy night. Water began to
seep from the ceiling of the building due to the wearing of the roof. Charlie knew that

this shelter would not last long. They had to relocate before the building collapsed or
before they ran out of food. The crops had been ruined by the bad weather in the past
season, and hunting yielded bad results as the nearby rivers were polluted from the
factories in the city. It was the midst of the industrial revolution, and there was nothing

Charlie really could have done about it.

He caressed the head of his young daughter, and spoke softly. “My dear Luna, we

are going to see your mother once more, I wonder if she’s still waiting for us.”

For over seven years, Charlie had been taking care of his child. She couldn’t read

or write as her sight had been taken away from her since birth. Every time he looked into
his daughter’s white eyes, it reminded him of his late wife, Isabelle, who was also blind.
Written by Kong Ka Lok The resemblance between mother and daughter was obvious: silky grey hair, pale skin

and a pair of white eyes. The family of three lived in the countryside, surviving off the
food Charlie would bring back from a hunt or the potato crops they grew in their yard.

One day, Isabelle had fallen ill, and passed away shortly after. Unable to cope
with the death of his wife, Charlie gave up on going to the city to try earning money, and
shifted his focus completely on his only surviving family, Luna.

“Daddy, your snoring is too loud,” a soft voice called our from below. Charlie did
not realise he had drifted off, he opened his eyes to see that dawn had broken. He set his
daughter aside and stood up to stretch. He saw a few rays of light shining in from the

ceiling, knowing the house was not liveable anymore. After addressing the situation to
Luna, Charlie packed the few things they had and set out. To keep Luna near him, he had
a huge red scarf around Luna’s neck which was long enough to be held at a distance.

Illustration by Chew Ni Jie
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