Rehab for SuperVillains (18+)
Chapter 267: Lital - 1

Chapter 267: Lital - 1

[Warning!!! : The past is Dark. You can skip ahead the Chapters Tilted Lital to skip it and continue. Or you can skim them.]

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They called her Lital.

The name clung to her like a scar, stitched in faded red thread on the inside of her tattered coat—rough, unraveling letters against the grimy gray fabric.

She couldn’t remember why it was hers.

Maybe it had been whispered by a mother she never knew, or slapped on by some indifferent hand at the orphanage gates.

It didn’t matter.

At Ashbrook Orphan House, names weren’t gifts; they were labels, like the numbers etched on prison cells.

Assigned. Forgotten. Erased.

Lital spoke in whispers, if at all.

The other children learned that quickly, circling her like wolves sensing weakness.

Her voice was a fragile thing, soft as crumbling leaves, her eyes forever glued to the floor.

She blinked too much, as if trying to wash away the world. Her sleeves were frayed from constant chewing, a nervous habit that left her tasting wool and despair.

When addressed, she nodded, mumbled fragments of words.

She never complained.

Never laughed.

Laughter was for those who hadn’t yet learned how cruel the world could be.

She wasn’t beautiful, or sharp-witted, or swift.

She was invisible, a shadow in the dust-choked corners, overlooked until her mere existence grated like sand in an open wound.

Ashbrook squatted on the edge of the city like a forgotten grave, its bones once those of a wartime infirmary.

Endless corridors stretched like veins, lined with cracked yellow tiles that echoed every footstep like accusations.

Windows perched too high to catch more than slivers of sky, trapping the inmates in perpetual gloom.

The air reeked eternally of boiled potatoes and bleach—a stench that seeped into skin, into souls, reminding them they were nothing but scrubbed-down refuse.

Thirty-seven children haunted its halls, their faces etched with hollow-eyed resignation. Smiles never reached their eyes; they were masks, brittle and false.

Some coped by lashing out, fists and words as weapons.

Others wept into threadbare pillows until numbness took hold.

A few simply stared into the void, waiting for it to stare back.

Lital? She hid.

Behind splintered desks.

Under dangling coats.

In the jagged cracks of peeling walls.

Anywhere to shrink smaller, to vanish.

But hiding was impossible during pudding season.

Once a month, Matron Gresha loomed in the foyer like a storm cloud, her voice a whip cracking through the chill.

"We are not beggars! We are not parasites! We will earn our keep!"

Then the carts rattled in, burdened with plastic trays and oozing tubs of factory sludge—banana-flavored mostly, a sickly yellow paste that turned stomachs even as it promised survival.

Chocolate was rarer, a mocking treat that tasted of ash.

Each child was handed a tray: twenty cups of the vile stuff.

Sell them on the streets, or face the gnawing void of hunger.

The others burst out like feral rats, grins plastered on, lies dripping from honeyed tongues.

"Fresh and sweet, sir! Made with love!"

Lital lagged behind, her steps heavy as lead weights dragging through mud.

Her arms trembled under the tray’s burden, her gaze fixed on the cracked pavement as if it might swallow her whole.

The city spat her out.

Pedestrians streamed past, eyes averted from the waif with her downcast face and quivering hands.

Some glared, seeing not a child but a blemish on their perfect day.

One man, reeking of cheap cologne and contempt, shoved her tray skyward with a snarl.

"Get a real job, you little freak." Cups shattered on the cobblestones, pudding splattering like blood from a fresh wound.

By dusk, her shoes squelched with rainwater and shame, her coat sleeves crusted with sticky failure.

She huddled in a shadowed alley corner, tray clutched to her chest like a dying hope, body wracked with silent sobs.

Not from the cold that clawed at her bones, but from the deeper chill—the knowledge that she was worthless, unlovable, a mistake the world regretted.

That day, she’d sold nothing. Again.

She slunk back to Ashbrook as night clawed the sky, the foyer lights buzzing like angry hornets when she crossed the threshold.

Matron Gresha waited by the wall chart, arms folded like iron bars, her face a mask of controlled fury.

The older children lounged nearby, spoons scraping bowls of steaming stew that twisted Lital’s empty gut into knots.

The aroma mocked her, a cruel whisper of what she couldn’t have.

Gresha’s gaze slithered over the untouched tray.

"Zero," she hissed, not with rage, but with a disappointment that cut deeper than any shout.

It was the tone of someone discarding trash.

From the shadows, the taunts slithered in.

"Bet she scarfs ’em down when no one’s looking. Greedy little pig."

"Or chats ’em up. ’Oh, Mr. Pudding, you’re my only friend!’"

"She’s always muttering to ghosts anyway... weirdo."

Snickers rippled like poison through the air.

A pea flicked from a hidden hand, striking her coat with a soft thud.

Lital didn’t flinch.

Didn’t meet their eyes.

She stared at her feet, where a tiny spider skittered across the tile, its legs a blur of menace.

Her breath caught in her throat, a strangled gasp.

Her legs froze, rooted in terror.

She didn’t scream—screams were for those with voices left to break—but her fists clenched around the tray until her knuckles bleached white, the plastic groaning in protest.

Gresha’s lips curled into something almost like a smile.

"Oh," she purred, voice dripping with false sympathy. "Still terrified of the little crawlies, are we, girl?"

Lital said nothing. What was there to say? Fear had stolen her words long ago.

"Good," Gresha murmured, stepping closer, her shadow swallowing Lital whole. "Then you’ll loathe the box."

Lital’s head jerked up at last, her eyes—raw, rimmed with unshed tears—wide with confusion.

The box?

What fresh horror was this?

The Matron’s smile widened, revealing teeth like yellowed tombstones.

"The punishment box. Tucked away behind the kitchen. It’s... intimate. Dark. And oh, so very alive with friends just like that one." She nodded toward the spider, now vanishing into a crack.

Lital’s heart hammered, a frantic bird trapped in her ribcage.

She wanted to beg, to flee, but her body betrayed her, locked in silent dread.

Gresha turned to the cook, her voice slicing the air like a blade.

"Get it Ready."