Dragging a shovel across the pavement with one hand, a bag of fertilizer with the other and carrying a sleepy Abra atop her head, Sabrina emerged from her ever-filthier shed of a home. Instead of heading for the street, however, she scooted through a hole in the tall fence, into what one might charitably call a garden.


    With a deep, tired sigh, she carelessly put down everything she was holding -including the Abra- with a deaf thump.


    The place was a mess. The dry, sickly yellow grass reached up to her waist in the few patches where it grew, and the rest was covered in little shrubs, flowers and trees, all of them dried up, having died very shortly after she’d planted them. The mess of skeletal, blackened branches was sad to behold.


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    The only sign of healthy plant life was the tall, robust oak growing in the very middle of the ‘garden’. Its leafy, vibrant crown contrasted sharply with everything around it.


    The young woman stared ahead silently, her expression unreadable.


    Then, with a quieter sigh, she rolled up her sleeves to the elbow and picked the shovel off the ground, ready to get to work.