She spent the night alone with body bruised and skirts asunder. He found his sister in the morning, soaking, in a puddle. "Let's run away," she said. "He beats us both incessantly! I know a place beneath the city where we'll stay forever lost!"

"I've seen the waifs emerge from the underground. They roam the catacombs and everywhere underneath... We could live secretly, away from society!"

Away after sunset they tumbled through the darkened city searching for cold grates and bars agape like twisted teeth and jawbones pulled wide and cracking. Wet and talking wind forbade them! "Just shut your ears," she said. "Orphans are surrounded by these things!"

"Hold my hand, I'll lead you below. We'll find an alcove and no one will know about us! We can live secretly, away from society!"

They wet their tiny kitten paws on rotting rocks and water. They skinned their whiskers digging deep where darkness settles into corners and tooth-marks, sightless eyes and sunken ceilings. Sentient depths awoke and noticed them... they started screaming.

"Let's hurry back," she said, "before we are swallowed! Run now, my darling child, I'll be sure to follow closely! We must hide desperately, away from monstrosities!"

Next week, next year, there is a somebody who hears their feet underneath. They stop, and tilt, and frown... they hear them drowning! No, the wind singing just below the street...

"You're here with me, it's just we two. So if you've died, why, then I have, too!"