The air is fresh and sunny, and smells like golden autumn days. It's cold, but the cold doesn't hurt, at least not yet. The trees are loosing their clothes, the leaves are silently gliding through the air, forming big piles on the pavement that the children love to play with.
Kyla doesn't like the red colour of the leaves. She doesn't like red at all. It's a nasty colour.
Kyla smells the disinfection solution and the linoleum floor. She sees people in white dresses, holding her tight, too tight, not as her mum does when she hugs her, it's a tightness that hurts.
They won't let go when Kyla asks them to do so, not when she shouts at them, not when she begs them to stop. They would still hold her.
Kyla tries not to move, closes her eyes, makes herself stiff, just waiting for them to finish. They have something sharp that Kyla doesn’t see, but she can feel it, it hurts, it’s cutting into her skin, she opens her eyes to see what it is.
It looks like a pen, silver and pointy, she screams, she doesn’t want the pen in her arm and then she sees blood. Dropping from her arm and she falls silent and closes her eyes again, thinking she’s going to die.
She refuses to go there another time, but her mother tells her it’s not going to hurt this time and Kyla trusts her and it happens again.
At some point Kyla stops fighting and just lets it happen. She is silent, all the time she’s silent and everybody asks her why, but she can’t tell, because it hurts too much.
A particular pretty leave. Ruby-coloured.
Danny is beaming, as he runs towards her.
"Look, Kyla, look, what I've found."
Kyla closes her eyes and waits for the pain.
