In a pink-colored room, there was a bed whose blankets bulged, showing the figure of a person tucked underneath.

After a while, there was a fierce struggle before they were tossed aside, revealing the head of a little girl with dark skin and disheveled black hair. From the grumpy expression on her face, it was obvious that she had not slept well.

The little girl, Maya, rubbed the sleep from her eyes with her closed hands and sat down on the edge of the bed with a yawn.

After glancing at her alarm clock for a few seconds, which showed that it was already past 10:00 AM, she stood up and took a step... only to trip over the blanket she had just thrown over and fall with a scream.

Luckily for her, she fell on top of the blanket, which softened the blow, but the shock of it woke her up completely.

She picked up the blanket and angrily threw it on the bed, then muttered her way to the bathroom.

After doing her business and washing her face, Maya went back to her room to get dressed, but just as she was getting out of her pajamas, something occurred to her.

And why?

Frozen, she thought about what she usually did at this time of the day when she didn't have to go to school, and there were only two things that came to her mind.

Either go visit Emily... Or make something to show Emily when she visits her later...

Maya sobbed, her eyes already starting to water as they unconsciously moved to a picture of her and Emily together.

Sitting back down on the bed, Maya hugged her legs, her despair returning to her after the brief interruption of her sleep... Or, considering the nightmares she had been having, maybe not even that.

She was disappointed in herself, the thought of what she had done haunting her mind.

Suki... the one who had not only been her tormentor for over a year, but who had almost eaten Jane alive! But Suki only had to say that she was sorry for what she had done... or at least she said that she was sorry, even though she could have lied... and she instantly dumped Emily and Jane to help her.

She hugged her legs as she tried to figure out what had been going through her mind when she'd asked Emily to do that.

"Hey Emily, remember that Suki girl? The one who always taunts us and wants to eat Jane alive just for kicks? Yeah, well, she has had a change of heart lately. We're buddies now! Uh, anyway, do you mind if I borrow Jane for a while? I think Suki would kinda like to have her. I'm sure she won't try to eat her again! She promised me she would be good! And if you don't, then you are the bad one!" Maya mimicked her conversation with Emily before gagging in disgust.

"Of course she's mad at me! I'm dumb! Dumb! Dumb dumb dumb dumb!" She muttered to herself with sobs in her voice.

After she had calmed down a bit, she let out a sad sigh before she got up and went to the kitchen to get some breakfast.

With Maya not knowing how to cook, her mother not wanting her anywhere near the stove, and Emily always cooking for her, she needed an easy-to-prepare alternative.

Cereal and milk, in short.

When she opened the cupboard to see what was in there, she was disappointed to find that the only thing there was the sugar-free oatmeal, something that her mother had bought because it was healthy... But she wanted something good and sweet to boost morale!

A top-to-bottom search of the kitchen, by which she meant digging around in the back of the cupboard, hoping her hands would find something her eyes couldn't see, came up empty.

In spite of her best efforts, she was still forced to eat the cereal, "They can't be that bad, can they?"

Five minutes later, a bowl full of milk and cereal with a spoon in it sat on the table while Maya stood at the sink in the kitchen and rinsed her mouth with sugar water, "Yuck! Who eats this kind of garbage?! It makes me feel sick!”

With the bad taste finally out of her mouth, Maya looked at the bowl in disgust before tossing the whole thing in the sink and deciding to skip breakfast altogether.

‘Only little kids eat cereal for breakfast, anyway! And I'm not a little kid anymore!’ she thought, trying to reassure herself.

Once the sink was nicely clogged with cereal, she returned to her room and sat on her bed, contemplating what to do now that her normal schedule had been disrupted.

After five minutes of quietly gazing at the wall, during which she nearly dozed off twice, she abandoned this approach and began looking around her room for ideas of how to pass the time.

What about her dolls? Those were for babies! Pass!

Her dollhouse? Well, it wasn't much fun if there wasn't someone else to play with, like... Pass!

Her laptop? That was just for school work. She didn't have any games on it or access to the internet, so that was another pass...

There was nothing else that caught her attention until her eyes fell on her cell phone.

"Oh! I can call my friends and spend some time with 'em!" She said excitedly before picking up her phone and scrolling through her contacts to find someone to hang out with... all three of them.

Mama, Emily and... Shana.

"Why do I only have three numbers? Where are all my friends from school?" She wondered, ignoring the fact that she had never hung out with any of them outside of school, and that was why she had never even asked for their phone numbers.

"And why do I have Shana's number in my phone? I should just delete it..." She thought to herself, but couldn't bring herself to actually do it.

Throwing the phone on the bed with a huff, she walked into the living room and sat down on the couch. She switched on her TV, flipping through channels to find something interesting: "When in doubt, the TV is always the answer!"

Unfortunately for her, TV wasn't the answer, and all channels that weren't news or educational were locked behind parental controls.

With the TV off and her morale sapped, Maya lay face down on the sofa. She remained there, motionless, until her cell phone rang to let her know that a message had been received.

Although she did not feel like looking at the message, she forced herself to do so. Her mother always got annoyed if Maya didn't read her messages right away.

She pressed her finger down on the screen to bring it to life. She glanced at the big numbers on the screen, showing that it was after 12:30, meaning that she had lay on the sofa for over an hour.

With a groan, she checked her messages and nearly had a heart attack when she saw that it was not her mother... but Emily.

Maya looked at the message icon with concern, afraid of what it might say.

"Why is she texting me? What will her message be? Is she still as angry with me as before?” She thought worriedly, not wanting to open it to see what was really inside.

She got up and started pacing around the living room, looking down at the phone again and again in anxiety.

After ten minutes of this, she sat back down on the couch and picked up the phone, looking at the message icon on the screen.

After another ten minutes of staring at the screen in silence, she came to a decision,

"If I delete it, it's like I never got it, right?"

Uncertain of the truth, but afraid to open the message, Maya held down the icon until a menu appeared, then selected ‘Delete’.

The sound of the deletion process was both comforting and disturbing to her ears... But it was done now.

With a sigh, she put the phone down and stared at the wall, trying to calm her nerves until her stomach rumbled with hunger and reminded her that it was still empty.

With another groan, Maya realized that it was lunchtime, but the fact remained that she had nothing to eat.

Her supply of lasagna, provided by Emily, had run out the night before. Her usual weekly replenishment, when Emily gave her food to take home, had not happened because of the fight. Now she was left with absolutely nothing to eat.

Rubbing her stomach to ease her hunger, she looked at her contacts again, searching for a solution, but they were the same as before.

Her mother worked from early in the morning until late at night, and it was a miracle to see her at all, let alone prepare something to eat.

Emily... she could not ask anything of her after what she had done.

And as for Shana... Just no.

With a huff, she put the phone in her pajama pocket and decided to just eat at a fast-food place like everyone else.

When she went to her room to get some money, Maya opened the drawer where she kept the pocket money her mother had given her.

It was empty.

It was at that moment that a terrible realization came into her mind, and she slowly turned around.  

A doll of Pippa Rabbit, her favorite cartoon character, which she had impulsively bought after the fight with Emily so that she would have someone to cuddle and comfort her, was quietly judging her for her spending habits.

‘I had no idea I'd ever have a need for this money... I'm sorry.’ Maya thought to herself with a sad sigh as she closed the drawer.

She had never really needed it, her basic needs were more or less covered since she practically lived with Emily, so she just used it for whatever she wanted... But that would have to change now.

In any case, the question of what she was going to do now remained unanswered!

She had no food, no money, and most of all... no Emily!

She could see no solution... unless...

She pulled out her phone again and looked at a number once more.

Shana's.

After staring at it intensely for a few seconds, she looked away, laughing at herself, "Yeah, right! I learned my lesson with Suki, I'm not that stupid!"

"What the hell are you talkin' about, squirt? Have you gone crazy without Barbie?" A voice came from the phone and Maya realized to her horror that she had initiated the call.

As the time on the call passed, she remained silent, hoping that Shana would get bored and decide to end the call, knowing that if she were the one to end the call, Shana would call her back right away. Or, even worse, show up at her house in person.

"Hey! Answer the goddamn phone! Is something wrong? Hey! Talk, you idiot! Hey! Hey! Hey!"

When she saw that she had no intention of doing so, but only seemed to be more determined by her silence, Maya decided to say something harsh to her. Something that would force her to hang up.

"I hate you. Leave me alone." She said, causing a moment of silence on both sides of the conversation.

But instead of the click that would have signaled that Shana had hung up, a defeated sigh came from the other end,

"Yeah, I'm aware. Did you call just to tell me that? Or was it for something else?"

Maya was stunned by Shana's oddly restrained reaction and was left speechless.

Fortunately or unfortunately, her stomach decided to answer and loudly signaled its emptiness to Shana, "Are you, uh, are you hungry? Did that bitch leave you all alone at home with nothing to eat again?"

"Hey, don't call her names. She has no idea that me and Emily are..." Maya weakly protested as Shana snorted.

"Just because Barbie loves to take care of you doesn't mean she has to dump you off on someone else all the time! She's supposed to be a mother! She's gotta act like one!" She said in a heated tone, and Maya thought she had a point, so she remained silent.

With another sigh, Shana said, "Okay, well, I was going to go and get something to eat anyway, so I might as well come by and pick you up. But I'm not going to stop and wait for you to be ready! I'll come in about ten minutes, and if I don't find you there, I'll leave your ass at home. You got that?"

"Yes! I'm going to get ready right now!" Maya replied before tossing the phone on the bed and getting dressed. Shana tried to call her a few times before she realized what was happening and hung up mumbling.

Five minutes later, Maya was ready and ran out of the house to wait for Shana, who was... already there, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed.

Seeing her come out, Shana pulled herself up and started to walk away, "Let's go."

Maya, who had instinctively gone to follow her, said out of curiosity, "Why were you already out there waiting? You said it would take ten minutes."

"You were just closer than I thought. And I wasn't waitin' for you. If you hadn't been out when you were, I would have been on my way without the ten minute wait."

Maya looked away sadly, but decided to thank her anyway, since she was doing her a favor, "Anyway, thanks for helping me–"

"I'm only doing this so that the bitch won't bother me! Don't think that I'm doin' it for your sake!" Shana replied angrily, quickening her pace.

‘Silly me, being grateful…’ Maya thought, annoyed, as she hurried to follow her.

After a while, they arrived at the fast food place, and Shana walked over to one of the touch screen panels to place her order, "What are you eating? A Happy Meal? Burgers or nuggets?”

"Hamburgers are good. Oh, and can I have chocolate milk as my drink?" Maya replied, getting excited thinking about something chocolatey.

"Chocolate and burgers? What a terrible taste..." Shana said in a tone of disgust, but she went ahead and did it anyway, "Why can't we remove the apple slices...? Or at least replace it with something good? I mean, it's just stupid to waste them since you're not going to eat them anyway..."

Maya looked in surprise at Shana, who was too busy muttering to herself, trying to decide what to order, to even notice.

It was true that Maya didn't like apples, but how had she known? For years the only one she had eaten with who could have known her taste was Emily, so how...?"

"Hey! Stop dawdling and find us a seat! I don't want to be anywhere near any fat losers, all right?" Shana shouted at her and set her to work.

She looked around and saw a small two-seater table near the entrance. It wasn't close to any of the other tables, so Maya sat down and waited for Shana to join her.

Minutes later, Shana arrived with two trays. She placed them on the table before sitting down to eat.

Maya brought her tray over and excitedly eyed the surprise package, noticing for the first time that it was a new collaboration with the Pippa Rabbit cartoon. But just as she was about to open it, Shana slapped her hand,

"Food first! I only brought you here because you looked like you were hungry, but if it's because of this stupid cartoon, then I'll throw it away and take you home!"

Maya had a dejected look on her face and rubbed her hand, but she had nothing to say because she was right.

She began to eat, mixing burgers and fries with the chocolatey goodness of milk, which gave her a happy, carefree feeling.

Finally, when her belly was full, she opened the package and smiled at the contents. Inside was a smiling Pippa Rabbit doll holding a kitchen knife and dressed in ketchup-stained clothes.

Soon, though, her eyes lifted from the doll and locked with Shana's, who was picking at her fries as she looked at her, "...y-yes? What is it?"

Shana pursed her lips as if she had just swallowed a lemon before letting out a deep sigh, "You need to apologize to Emily..."

Maya gasped, shocked that Shana had called Emily... Emily! She usually called everyone but Suki by nickname. What was going on here?

"Um... you're Shana, my stepsister... aren't you?" Maya asked tentatively, causing Shana to look at her oddly.

"What kind of shitty question is that? It seems like a few days without Barbie has really turned your brain to mush..."

‘Ok... this is the real Shana.’ Maya thought with relief before she replied, "Well, you usually don't care about me, but now you're taking the time to take me to lunch and tell me to make up with Emily... It's a little strange of you... that's all."

"It's just because you've already proven that you're incapable of surviving on your own without someone taking care of you," Shana replied with an angry look. “You probably would have starved to death if I had not been there! And this was less than four days after you were separated from your keeper! That's why you two need to make up ASAP!”

Maya could only shrink back from all the truth being thrown at her, "It's not that easy... after what I did..."

"You were an idiot, what else is new?" Shana said matter-of-factly, "You're just a little girl who did something stupid. At your age, it's only natural."

“I doubt she'll hold a grudge against you for such a stupid thing." she continued, eating another fry, “Actually, I'm surprised that she hasn't gotten in touch with you to apologize herself."

"Well... she did send me a text message a while ago..." Maya said sheepishly.

"Ha, I knew she would!" Shana said with a smug smile on her face, "What did she say?"

When Maya didn't answer and blatantly looked away, Shana frowned at her, probably sensing that something had gone wrong.

"Maya," she snapped, "What did you do…?"

Swallowing hard, Maya looked down at her trembling hands, "I... I might have... deleted the message..."

There was a long silence before Shana slowly rose from the table and made her way to the door, "We're going to Emily now. If you open your mouth on the way, I swear I will strangle you and throw you in a ditch!"