Part 2: Homeless

 Part 1 is here

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  Luckily, Aiden was quite light. Out of the three of us, he spent most of the time in orphanages. Ben and I were passed along in "safe homes" homes more often than orphanages, meaning it was easier for us to steal food. Therefore, he grew up with shit soup. We managed to keep up a good pace by balancing out his weight between us. We purposely went through dead tree branches, that left massive lacerations on our bodies, and smaller spaces, where the adults wouldn’t go. 

  It’s amazing how far you can get with adrenaline on your side. We were running for a good half hour before we had to stop. The workers were quite far behind us so we thought it would be safe. We put Aiden down on the snow to find he was unconscious. I slapped him as hard I could, like I’d seen on TV, and it actually worked. He woke up with tears in his eyes and could barely breathe. Broken ribs. 

  We told him that he needed to run, we couldn’t stay there. He just had to suck it up…and he did. I don’t know anyone else who could do it, run in the freezing cold in the middle of the night with broken ribs. But he did. 

  It felt like we were running for the whole night…I guess we did because the sun rose. I’m assuming they hadn’t been following us for hours, but we were so scared, we couldn’t have our freedom taken away again, so we just kept going. 

  Eventually we came to a road. A sign pointed towards Moscow, so we decided to follow it, making sure to stay hidden by the trees on the side of the road so nobody would try and help us. We were bleeding from running through the forest, our clothes tattered. Exhausted, fear kept us going. 

  We finally arrived in a town; I have no idea where exactly…I’m assuming near Moscow. Our worst fear was being caught and brought back, so we decided we needed new clothing so nobody would assume anything. I was always the best at stealing, and I was the smallest, so I was sent in. Within 4 hours we all had clothing and a backpack…not the nicest, or any good for winter, we definitely still looked poor, but nobody would think anything of it…it was Russia of course. 

  We knew we had to get as far away as we possibly could. We just had to get out of Russia, but for the time being….we were tired. We settled for sleeping in an alley, in all honesty the ground may have been more comfortable than our beds in the orphanage, so it wasn’t a problem. Luckily, our first night was uneventful, probably because we were in a small town, we kept dry and luckily had pavement to sleep on rather than snow. 

  When we woke up, we set off to our task of leaving Russia. We knew that it would be impossible to board a train, we didn’t have any money and we were too afraid of being caught. Hitchhiking for the time being was out of the question because we were afraid of literally everyone, growing up in our situations left us unable to trust anyone but each other. So we used the next best option…a truck. Well, I guess it wasn’t a really option we were thinking of, but when we saw the back of a trailer carrying cattle open, we didn’t even have to discuss it…we just bolted inside. 

  Once inside the trailer carrying the cattle we scampered into the back and hid under as much hay as we could. Luckily we hadn’t been spotted, because the doors quickly closed behind us. We only realized how bad our decision was when the truck started moving, and the cows started stepping on us. The only thing we could think to do was curl up together and wait it out. On the bright side, it wasn’t as cold due to the hay and the heat from the cows.

  We must have been driving for about 10 hours. I remember seeing the sun set and rise again through the bars of the trailer. None of us dared move, we were terrified to be caught, and we didn’t even talk. The back of the trailer was only opened once and the cows were checked, they didn’t come near the back but we held our breath just in case. 

  The truck finally stopped for good, signalling that it had reached its destination . We stayed still for about 20 minutes until we realized the driver was gone…we knew we had to get out. We tried opening the doors at the back of the trailer, but it was impossible from the inside. We couldn’t fit out the windows so we just waited. As soon as the driver opened the doors to the trailer, we jumped out and just ran. I never looked back, I just kept running, I don’t even think he even cared that we were hiding to be honest because he didn’t say anything.

  We had no idea what country we were in; I’m thinking probably Belarus or Latvia due to the travel time. At this point we were beyond starving and exhausted, but our fear was irrational. Looking back now, the workers probably stopped caring once they lost us in the forest…we should have died. Our fear made us carry on, and once again we found ourselves in the back of a truck. 

  We finally reached Gdansk, Poland. If I knew what I know now, I would have boarded the next truck and left Gdansk as fast as I could. It may be a beautiful city…but it is so unsafe. People like to pretend it isn’t poverty stricken and that the tourist areas represent what the rest of the city is like. Poland is the country we decided to stay in though. 

  When we arrived in Gdansk it was freezing. We hadn’t had anything to eat in days and hadn’t had proper rest, so the cold left us immobile. I stole two apples from a vendor, being too tired to run, it was the best I could do. By this time we were filthy, covered in animal filth, hay, and our clothing was once again tattered so we were asked to leave every building we attempted to enter.

 We ended up sleeping in an alley that night. We all huddled up to keep warm, but it didn’t stop the snow from getting in our hair and going down the long sleeve shirts I stole. I remember waking up what feels like every 30 minutes to unbury myself from the snow and to move my freezing fingers and feet. 

  For the two weeks we continued this way, stealing small amounts of food from markets and sleeping outside. Luckily, because of the way we grew up, we were used to starving and we weren't too bothered by it. I don't even remember a time when I wasn't hungry as a kid. We did our best to stay out of the way of people, any adult would try and help a homeless child, but if caught, we would be taken right back. We tried to keep clean so we would be allowed to enter buildings and warm up, we honestly did, but the water would never dry, it would just freeze leaving our clothing stiff and us even colder. The smell was almost unbearable, but either our sense of smell stopped working or we got used to it. 

  Finding a place to sleep each night was the worst part. You’d think that if you’re homeless the first place you’d want to go would be a homeless shelter…wrong. Not only were we separated in the shelter, but it was one of the most filthy places I ever stepped foot in. We tried one night and it was the worst thing we could have done. We literally got beat to a pulp and ended up once again sleeping on the floor. I was too scared to sleep, afraid of being beat once again. We were robbed of our socks in the homes shelter….socks. Why. 

  My personal favourite place to sleep was portable washrooms. Yes, it stunk, but you have no idea how wonderful a locked door can be. We would all huddle up in the small space and would be cramped in the morning, but it was our only real sleep because we weren’t constantly waking up in fear. Public bathrooms proved good as well, but we had to be out before trash collectors came. If we accidentally ran into another homeless person they would fight us for the space, and due to our ages…we were usually the ones left bleeding. Drug addicts and homeless people are very territorial, it’s best to stay out of their claimed spaces.

Due to us smelling…well, homeless, I couldn’t steal us any more clothes. I was too weak and clumsy to enter a store quickly and unnoticed. This left us in nothing but long shirts, a pair of pants, and dress shoes. The cold air would come in through the holes of our clothing and burn our skin. I could tell our cuts were getting infected, we all had frostbite and Aiden’s rib definitely wasn’t healing. We ignored the pain though. This was heaven compared to the orphanages. 

  Two weeks in the weather became even worse. It was almost constantly storming; causing the vendors to close up…meaning we couldn’t steal any food. All we could really do was huddle up in our alley corner, using cardboard to keep us as dry as possible. Aiden wasn’t doing so well, he had developed a fever so Ben gave him his shirt and I put my socks on his ears. Cute, I know. 

  One night I decided to wander off in the middle of the night. I don’t really know what I was looking for; I guess I was delirious from hunger and cold. As I was walking along a dark street, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I whipped around, fearing the worst, but found myself face to face with a girl about my age. She had black unruly hair, green eyes that just gave me a sense of safety, and clothing similar to mine…tattered and filthy. Her name was Viktoria….I guess you know where I got my daughter's name from now.

  She simply told me to follow her. I trusted her. Something about her eyes made every fear I had melt away. I woke the boys up and we followed her deeper into Gdansk. Graffiti slowly filled the walls and the smell became worse and worse. We finally reached a rundown building, it looked like nobody had lived in it for years, the windows were shattered and pieces of the wall were missing. When we entered we were led up the stairs 4 floors. The inside of the building was just as bad as the outside. The stairs had holes in them and we were careful where we stepped, as the floors were weak. It was completely abandoned and filled with trash. No lights were working so it was pitch black, but I could smell the rotting wood. 

  We entered a room with a torn down door. It was quiet for a moment, and then Viktoria said it was safe. Suddenly a fire was lit and light filled the room. I found myself facing 7 children, ranging from 5-16. I will never forget their faces, hopelessness just radiated off them. They were all covered in dirt and in tattered clothing. We were immediately accepted into the group and plunged our way to the fire, finally warm for the first time since leaving the orphanage.  Everyone who “lived” there had the most bizarre stories about why they were homeless. Viktoria had taken the wrong train 6 months earlier and wasn’t able to locate her parents. The oldest girl, Ebba from Denmark, was kidnapped and ran away. The youngest, Sofija from Latvia was born on the streets. Something was wrong with her leg, so she couldn’t walk…she never let anyone look at it so I never found out exactly what had happened.

  They kept food in the small…”flat”….they lived in. It was mostly fished out of the garbage, but some was stolen and fresh. Four of the girls slept in stolen rubbish bins so animals wouldn’t bother them, everyone else slept on cardboard boxes.We all slept against the wall with window so the cold wind wouldn’t hit us. It wasn’t much warmer than outside, but it was decent thanks to the fire. Unfortunately, they couldn’t keep the fire going for more than 4 hours a day since it was so visible through the window. That night we slept in the “flat”. I woke up constantly hearing the others crying in their sleep, but it was better than the streets. 

  We only left the building from sunset to sunrise. Being out in daylight meant a risk of being caught, and it was warmer to sleep in the day. I’m not really sure why the others didn’t want to be found, But Aiden, Ben and I were quite thankful for this arrangement.

One of the boys ended up stealing us proper jackets with what felt like hundreds of pockets. The pockets were good because we obviously had nowhere to store our… lack of possessions. I kept a stolen knife in mine after hearing horror stories from the other children. They didn’t really keep us warm, but it helped. Anything helped. 

  The children living in the flat taught us how to dig for food in rubbish bins. We would hang around the back of restaurants late at night and wait for the trash to be taken out. We would dig through, if it was wet we wouldn’t take it, everything dry was deemed safe. Rotting food was fine unless it was entirely black. We learned that eating the snow for water wasn’t the best idea…so Ben and I were assigned the water runs. 

  Viktoria gave us two buckets and we were to go out to the ocean and fill them. On our way we would pass the crowds of other homeless people, usually under bridges. They all seemed to hang around together, I guess for a sense of security…even though it wasn’t really secure. I didn’t dare go near them, and when I had to pass by I held my breath hoping they wouldn’t notice me. 

  One night Ben decided he had to stay with Aiden because of his worsening sickness from the cold, so I was sent on water duty by myself. I made my way past the hoards of homeless people and felt safe so I slowed my pace. Mistake. A few minutes later I felt a hand on my shoulder and slowly turned to find myself face to face with an elderly men covered in dirt. I was promptly hit in the face and knocked unconscious. 

  I woke up alone beside a rubbish bin in an alley, beat to the point where I couldn’t walk, covered in dry blood and missing huge chunks of my clothes. I just laid there in complete shock. I think I just stayed in the same spot, unmoving, not sleeping for a day and a half...when another homeless person approached me. This man was in his 40s, but he seemed kind. He didn’t say anything, he just held me, I didn’t care at this point, and I just gave up. 

  He took me to a cheap hotel and bought me food. Nothing happened, he did nothing but take care of me. He just let me sleep and eat in peace. When I woke up he started telling me about his family, and reality hit me again. I just broke down. 

  After I left I made my way back to the “flat” basically crawling. Aiden and Ben absolutely freaked out when they saw me, thinking I had died. The others weren’t so happy, and thought they would be found out because I had stayed in a hotel. They asked me to leave, Ben, Aiden, Viktoria, and another girl, Olena, came with me.

  We decided that the next best place to go would be the place I most wanted to avoid, under the bridge with the other homeless people. A group of women let us into their circle surrounding a fire. It smelled vile, and I felt unsafe…but once again, better than the orphanage. Out in the open it was a million times colder, but since Aiden was the worst out of all of us we all shared our clothes with him. We would take turns sleeping on top of him to keep him warm.

  Food was more difficult to come by now that we weren’t in the greatest area. We were too weak to wander far off and we were afraid of leaving anyone alone. We were lucky to get one piece of food a day and shared it among the five of us. Some days, the other homeless ladies would feed us if we looked pathetic enough. 

  Begging for money was never an option. Most homeless people don’t, it’s too risky. If other homeless people know you have money, you’re more likely to get beat. People tend to kick beggars rather than donate. Even if we did have money, we smelled too much to be let into a public store. The other homeless people didn’t use money anyways, they used drugs to trade.

  A hole had formed in my shoe, and one of my toes was completely black, my hands were permanently a shade of blue, my cuts were infected…digging through rubbish definitely wasn’t helping, and my hair was completely matted. Aiden rib was bruised black and he could barely breathe because of it, some days he was too sick to even open his eyes and would just stay frozen in fetal position. Ben had developed infections everywhere from his cuts, he had severe frost bite on his face and he couldn’t keep food down. 

  We just assumed we were going to die out there. I don’t think any of us were really bothered by it to be honest. Death…was almost welcomed. Most of the homeless people I know did end up committing suicide, running away from abuse spouses had led them here…and they were stuck with no escape. Once homeless, always homeless.

  One night while we were all huddled up I felt something dragging underneath me. I didn’t think anything of it, I just squeezed my eyes shut and hoped for the best. When I woke up in the morning though, Viktoria was gone. We all sucked up the pain and exhaustion and spent the whole day looking for her. None of the homeless people would tell us anything unless we paid, so we quickly lost hope. Finally, Aiden found her. She had been stabbed and wasn’t conscious when we found her. Our only choice was to take her to the hospital. 

  We literally dragged her there, not strong enough at this point to lift her up. As soon as we arrived at the hospital we were all separated and treated in different rooms. I ended up losing my toe from frostbite, and we spent a total of two weeks in the hospital. Viktoria didn’t make it. She was 11 years old when she died 

on the 12^th of January. It turns out she was never separated from her parents, her stepdad lived on the other side of the city and she had just run away from his abuse. The girl we could trust and took us in, ended up dying. Aiden, Ben and I on the other hand, were put back into different orphanages, all separated…our worst fear. 

  I was homeless from November 28^th- January 12^th. I never ended up telling anyone about the orphanage in Russia, I can’t even talk about it. There are some things that are best just to emotionally distance yourself from, and this experience is one of them. 

  Sorry about the lack of detail, I try and keep my posts PG13 and there are some things that just shouldn’t be talked about.