The Other Name

C H 3 : The Last Christmas

Nia’s back pressed hard into the wall, brick biting cold through her sweater. Her breaths came out in shallow, broken pulls, each one scraping her throat raw. She hugged herself, trying to make her body smaller, quieter, anything to disappear into the shadows.

Then she heard it again.

Voices.

Not close enough to see yet, but close enough to feel.

“…I told you she went this way.”

A pause. Shoes scraping against pavement.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. She didn’t just vanish.”

Nia’s fingers dug into the fabric at her sides. Her vision tunneled, the edges of the world dimming as panic surged back full force. She tried to stay still, barely daring to breathe.

Another voice joined them, sharper, impatient. “We don’t have all night. She matters. Find her.”

That word, matters, landed wrong. Heavy. Wrong in a way that made her stomach drop.

Light swept across the alley.

One of them stepped forward, peering into the darkness. His gaze snagged on her, crouched and shaking, tears streaking down her face.

“There,” he said, almost surprised. “She’s right there.”

Nia didn’t think. She ran.

Her legs screamed, muscles trembling as she stumbled forward, shoes slapping unevenly against the ground. The alley opened into another narrow street, but it offered no safety, only more darkness, more silence. No open stores. No windows lit with life. Just closed doors and blind walls.

Behind her, footsteps thundered closer.

“Don’t lose her!” “Grab her—now!”

She felt it before she understood it, a sharp pull, a sudden wrench at her scalp. Pain flared white-hot as her head snapped back. A cry tore from her throat, thin and cracked, more instinct than sound.

She lost her footing and went down hard, the world jolting violently as the ground met her. The breath was knocked from her lungs in a harsh gasp. She curled in on herself immediately, arms shielding her head, knees drawn tight to her chest.

“Please,” she sobbed, the word breaking apart as it left her. “Please... d-don’t please—”

Her body shook uncontrollably. Tears soaked her sleeves as she pressed her face into her arms, as if hiding might still be possible. She couldn’t see them, only hear them, breathing too close, voices low and urgent, circling her like something caught.

She was so small like this. So helpless.

Then the air changed.

Footsteps approached, steady, unhurried. Not like the others.

A woman stopped just in front of her.

“Well,” the woman said softly, almost amused, “you caught her?”

The men went silent.

Nia’s sobs stuttered, then stopped completely.

That voice...

Her heart slammed painfully against her ribs as she lifted her head, dread crawling up her spine. Her vision swam, tears blurring the figure standing above her, but as her eyes focused, recognition struck like a blade.

Her mother.

She stood under the streetlight, face pale, eyes unfocused in a way Nia knew too well. There was a slackness to her expression, a glassy distance, as if she were half-awake, half-somewhere else entirely. Her movements were loose, unsteady, yet deliberate in a way that made Nia’s skin crawl.

She didn’t look worried.

She didn’t look shocked.

She looked… detached.

The men stared at her, something flickering across their faces, confusion, disbelief, something sharp and almost feral. None of them spoke. None of them questioned her presence. They just watched her, waiting, shoulders tense, eyes locked on her like animals watching their handler.

Nia’s mouth opened.

“M—” Her voice failed. Her throat closed painfully around the sound.

Her mother’s gaze finally dropped to her fully. For a moment, a fragile, unbearable moment, Nia thought she saw hesitation.

Then it was gone.

A faint, crooked smile tugged at her mother’s lips. Not warm. Not kind. Empty.

“There you are,” she said, as if Nia were something misplaced. “You always run too far.”

Nia felt something inside her collapse completely.

The men didn’t move. They didn’t speak. They simply waited, eyes flicking between the two of them, obedience etched into their stillness.

Nia stared up at her mother, shaking, the world tilting sickeningly beneath her. The street felt colder than before, the darkness thicker, heavier. This wasn’t fear anymore.

This was understanding.

The night hadn’t turned against her.

It had been like this all along.

Nia’s body jerked violently as hands closed around her arms, rough and unyielding. She screamed this time, finally, a sound tore free, but it vanished into the night, swallowed by empty streets and closed windows.

Her feet scraped uselessly against the pavement as she struggled, nails digging into unfamiliar sleeves, muscles burning with the last of her strength.

“Let go p-please—!” Her voice cracked, hoarse and desperate.

The grip only tightened.

Her mother stepped closer.

“Merry Christmas, my daughter.”

The words were slurred slightly, stretched in the wrong places. Her mother tilted her head, blinking slowly, as if the world took effort to stay in focus. Her eyes were unfixed, glossy, drifting past Nia rather than landing on her.

She swayed just a little on her heels, then steadied herself against a nearby wall.

Snowflakes drifted down, soft and silent.

Her mother looked up, squinting as one landed on her cheek. For a second, she seemed confused, almost childlike.

“…Snow?” she murmured. Then her lips parted in sudden realization. “Ah. That’s right.”

She laughed.

The sound was sharp and unhinged, bouncing off the brick walls of the alley, too loud for the quiet night. It came again, harsher this time, her shoulders shaking as if the laughter was clawing its way out of her chest.

“It’s December,” she said, glaring down at Nia now. “Christmas. Can you believe it?”

Her eyes snapped into focus then, bright with something ugly.

“Always ruining things,” she continued, her voice rising. “Always taking. Always existing.”

Nia shook her head violently, tears streaming down her face. “Mom p-please... I didn’t—”

“Don’t,” her mother snapped, the word slamming into the air. She took another step closer, her shadow falling over Nia’s curled form. “If I never had you… if your father had just taken responsibility—just once—”

Her voice trembled, not with sadness, but fury.

“I wouldn’t have been stuck. I wouldn’t have wasted my life,” she hissed. “I wouldn’t have ended up like this.”

She laughed again, shorter now, broken and bitter. “You don’t know what you took from me.”

Nia sobbed openly, her body shaking as the man holding her dragged her forward. Her feet stumbled, barely keeping up as they moved down the street toward a dark van parked beneath a flickering light.

Instinct screamed.

She twisted suddenly, teeth sinking hard into the man’s hand. He shouted, swore, jerking back in pain as she tore free just enough to stumble forward.

She ran.

It was clumsy, uneven, her legs barely responding, but she ran anyway, driven by something raw and animal, something that refused to die quietly.

“Get her!”

A sharp impact struck the side of her head.

The world lurched violently.

She staggered, momentum carrying her forward a few more steps before her knees gave out beneath her. She collapsed onto the cold ground, the night tilting and blurring as snow continued to fall around her.

Sounds faded—voices muffled, distant, like they were underwater.

Nia tried to push herself up.

Her arms didn’t respond.

She lay there, breath shallow, eyes unfocused, watching the snow settle on her sleeve. The cold seeped in slowly, numbing, almost gentle compared to everything else.

Above her, her mother’s laughter echoed faintly once more, distorted and far away.

The streetlight flickered.

Then steadied.

The night went quiet.

Snow continued to fall.

And the city moved on.

The street was silent, save for the faint whisper of snow drifting down from the gray sky, settling on the asphalt and Nia’s motionless body.

Time seemed to stretch, the world reduced to the small, frozen patch of earth where she lay. Her small frame, curled against the cold, looked impossibly fragile, her hair matted and damp, her uniform darkened by the blood pooling near her head. The snow fell gently over her, soft and indifferent, carrying no warmth.

Her mother and the men stood a few steps away, frozen. For the first time, the masks of control and purpose faltered. The men’s eyes widened in disbelief, their voices caught somewhere between command and panic, their bodies rigid as if the world itself had betrayed them.

The mother, still with that strange, drugged haze over her, wavered, blinking rapidly as though reality were slipping through her fingers.

Nobody spoke. Nothing moved. The street lights flickered weakly above, throwing long, tremulous shadows across the snow and the crimson stain at Nia’s side. The silence was suffocating. The world, for one unbearable moment, had stopped entirely.

The mother’s face twitched, caught somewhere between horror and an almost unrecognizable relief. She bent slightly, hesitant, hands trembling, as though she couldn’t believe what her own eyes saw.

The men followed her lead mechanically, numbed, their minds incapable of processing the weight of what had just happened.

Cold spread beneath her, steady and invasive, as snow drifted down and settled where she couldn’t brush it away. Nia lay motionless, her body unresponsive, her awareness trapped inside the quiet that had claimed her limbs. Sounds reached her in pieces, as though the world were happening behind a wall of glass.

Voices hovered above.

They were tense now, stripped of bravado, words colliding in low, urgent bursts. Someone stepped closer. A shadow blocked what little light there was.

“Should we just leave her here?” one of the men asked. His voice wavered, glancing around the empty street. “What if the police find her like this?”

The question hung in the air.

Nia waited, without hope, but without choice.

Another voice answered, sharp and final.

“We don’t have time. You hear that?” A pause. The distant wail of sirens threaded through the night. “She’s no use to us now.”

No use.

The words landed heavier than the cold.

Her mother stood among them, swaying slightly, the last remnants of numbness peeling away as reality rushed back in. For a brief moment, she looked down at Nia. Their eyes met, just long enough for recognition to flicker, then fade. Whatever might have been there drained away, leaving something empty behind.

The sirens grew louder.

“Move,” someone said.

Doors slammed. The van’s engine roared to life. Nia heard her mother climb in with them, the sound unmistakable, final. No one looked back. The van pulled away, tires hissing against the snow, lights shrinking into the dark.

And then there was nothing.

Snow continued to fall, quiet and relentless, softening the edges of the street. The sirens drew closer now, but they felt distant, unreal, belonging to a world that had already decided she was gone.

Her thoughts slowed, drifting through moments that no longer had anywhere to land. Words she never said. Questions that would never be answered. She remained aware, painfully so, trapped in the stillness as the city breathed around her without noticing.

The night closed in.

Snow covered the ground, the silence, the space they had left behind, doing what it could to erase a choice that had already been made.

—to be continued