The Peninsula

Nanere first picked up the knives when she was a little girl. She rammed one into the knee of her mother’s love. When he howled and swung, she slashed his arm.

When he was finally gone, still cursing her, she gently washed her mother’s face and applied salve to her bruises, then fixed her mother’s makeup for her.

“He was our next meal,” her mother slurred.

Nanere thought of the shipyards and dangerous work available for tiny bodies that could fit into the small spaces between mechanical parts. She hardened her face and stiffened her shoulders. “I’m our next meal.”