Her palms dug into the sand as she crouched there, stunned. For a moment, she just breathed, trying to steady herself. Then she looked down.
Her feet were throbbing. Badly.
The skin was stretched tight over the swelling—puffy and discolored, almost like they didn't belong to her anymore. They looked like elephant feet. She winced, shifting her weight slightly, and felt the pain rush up her legs like a delayed warning siren.
She knew why.
Her eyes softened—not with tears, but with that quiet, familiar frustration. It always came back to that day. That clinic.
She had been just a child. A cold winter, a bad fever, and her parents—trying to do the right thing—had taken her to a run-down local clinic. The doctor there hadn't known what he was doing.
Not really.
