An environment clouded in a vapor of somnolence and perturbed apprehensions, stalking in dampened corners with its repressed objectives laying wistfully at bay for its commands, proceeded to vacate its nebulous haze of inertia for the gentle, languid steps of two small, pepper-red front-lace-up-platform boots, as they arrived in a diffident fashion, surfacing as a deliberate attempt to dissuade any wariness from their calculated engagements, and wandered willfully towards the meals arranged for the morning. The child reached the spacious, maple door-framed opening that introduced her to the assembled breakfast bar hosting its delicacies, resting idly in their intended places, with a savory-aroma that encapsulated them. Her pepper-red-plaid skirt lightly shifted to the left-side as she withdrew their gaze from the uninhabited dining area behind to the prepared course of the hour.

Her eyes reflected its complementary colors from off of the silvery bowls of food, set a few feet above her neatened head, giving her a pocket of time to examine their vivid and unsystematic qualities, before she steered them in another direction. The left eye was a diminishing, smokey slate-gray color that waned into a dreary, ashen-state of definite age, whilst it firmly contrasted the pinprick, amaranth-red pupils burrowing into the dazed illustrations gliding through her obfuscated imagination. The right eye was a withered, berry-blue color withholding a fickle-minded glaze that bore their bottomless pinprick, amaranth-red pupils into the acrid, licorice-black brew, which laid in its inactive, unsavory state.

Rapt with indubitable dispassion impressing into her incandescent stare and bombarded with a subtle profundity and imbued dysregulations, the evocative look adorned her disoriented mien in an inconspicuous haze of palpable vacuity. Although the origin of her mien and dispirited eyes left room for the discombobulating ambiguity roaming amok, her unfiltered caramel-brown, plump-shaped countenance harbored no such intensity, nor did it demand its unwavering severity. The pungent steamy contents wafted ominously into the eerily placid atmosphere as its repulsive fragrance blanketed the quiet, breakfast hall in a sealed, virulent fate.

The diminutive, 6-year-old child with a tangled and dull, slate-gray-tassel-cut bob rested her frail hand above the static beverage, and gradually shut her vacant, heterochromic eyes in a plain manner before hunching forward, her peculiar state highlighted in blatant view, and bringing her dry, cracked lips, parted slightly with ease due to the slits of ailing sores blistering with buried consequences’, onto the edge of the chipped, butter-yellow, ceramic mug. The vibrantly shaded mug radiated the scalding temperature of the concoction into the ends of her frangible, stabile fingers, but the child was hardly troubled and, in fact, maintained a boundless sense of expressed detachment to the perpetual infliction. The low faint murmurs blew against the stagnant brew, triggering a weary ripple of disturbance to infiltrate its immobile walls, before she drew her battered lips away from the mugs rounded, steaming-edge to browse over the collection of unattended breakfast appliances at a resident’s disposal.

Her reddened-pupils fixated upon the maple-wood chairs behind her, where they were positioned neatly around each oval-wooded table, having been wiped down and cleaned a few hours ago. Entranced by the meticulous attributes in the hotel’s tranquil ambience, her eyes inevitably whisked their atypical stare around the capacious lobby which was presently unoccupied by a single soul and strangely over-sanitized. Unfortunately, it was not long before the dispassionate mood alighted onto her ostensibly charmed mien.

The small child instead flicked her gaze on the overly sanitized hexagonal-shaped-tile flooring and pressed her lips into a thinning line. She listened in on the periodic beeps emanating from the whirring coffee machine while her eyes traced the straight lines that precisely-divided each similar shape patterned on the ground. The beeping sounds resonated at such a steady degree that it likely gave a confrontational impression to the fragmented child heeding it below, however, it concurrently placated her with alternating ease, despite leaving her primped appearance in a hollowed reflection of who she’d possibly been.

Her ears twitched at the familiar sound of sizzling bacon and cooked sausages frying in large shiny, silvery bowls set on heating trays, as did her fingers, due to the scathing feeling numbing her sensations of touch away, all whilst she glued herself in her spot and absorbed the scene below her. Undaunted by the silent faineance accompanying her and the sun risen-glow permeating into the sullen, shadowed area she lurked in, the young child dragged her nonchalant gaze across the sanitized flooring, passing the two untouched waffle machines, the humming juice dispenser, the shelved gourmet desserts and its variations of bread, the bowls of tasteless eggs, hot grits, pale unseasoned oats, warmed grilled cheese, etc. resting on heating trays, the iced yogurt, ice cream, fruits, refrigerated beverages, and the condiment packets, before nestling her drained, miscolored gaze onto a neatly-folded paper-brown towel atop the counter, where the clustered tips of flourishing purplish-pink petals ignorantly peeked out.

Insensible of its capabilities…

Blooming with sunken fatalities…

Incalculable futilities inexorably remiss.

The young child made her way towards the folded paper-brown towel, her steps having an abrupt clumsy air at the sight of it, as she pulled her burnt fingers away from the circumference of the mug and towards the plain-featured gift above. She extended her arm and strained for reach with her heels lifted and toes pinched down before she snatched the neat fold in a swift impressive motion and dug her stinging fingertips into the packaged wrapping. She carefully brought her lengthened frame back down at its original height and glimpsed down at the deep hue depicted below.

She took notice of the evident burns on her fingertips, but dismissed it and further examined the broad, greenish-white leaves and stem of the draped flower. Its wide, oval-shaped leaves were about 25 cm long with a noticeable central vein and smaller veins running toward its edges, which were smooth on top and velvety in texture underneath. There were umbels of small purplish-pink flowers formed in rounded clusters up to 10 cm which were currently releasing a milky-white sap from a broken stem, snapped by the tight weight of her fingers.

As pleasant smelling as it were, the savory, milky-sap seeped through the weak towel and onto her already red-blotched hand, but the child casually ambled out of the breakfast bar and towards one of the maple-wood chairs on the left. Once she’d arrived, she climbed up on its cushioned seat and set the mug on the table that reeked from cleaning supplies. Her nose crumpled a little as a result of the smell before her face relaxed and her differentiated gaze inspected the portentous contents slosh around animatedly, relieving itself from its prior state.

Resuming her movements with a scrupulous approach, she unfolded the paper-brown towel leisurely, observing the manner at which the flower unraveled, and drew the snapped-end of one stem to her bleak countenance with a steady, burned hand. Her head tilted mechanically to the side as she stared at the long flora with notable impassivity complimenting her taciturn features. Her gaze raked down the attractive flower before she hauled her other hand, with obvious effort, from beside her frame and simply plucked an oval-shaped leaf from its body.

She stared lifelessly at the point-tipped leaf, up until she set it atop the brew and watched it float gracefully above the mixture instead. The young child did not impede the steam’s efforts to engulf the green leaf into its licorice-black depths, but instead watched as it sunk into the substance and bubbled advertently in response. In an alarming point of view, the child was dangerously close to the boiling contents within the mug, but in such a way that she was transfixed and unsympathetic towards her imminent ramification…

Utterly negligent of her bent depiction. Slipping from their tucked hold and swaying against the side of her plump countenance was a streak of cedar-brown hair which curved outward and lightly tickled above her unseen jawline. Just before the strand could be singed by the fierce heat below, the child took her first and middle-finger and hooked it behind her ear, tucking it back into place and gradually leaning away from the mug in a spellbound trance.

She pursed her lips pensively, her gaze floating up to the ceiling, and drummed her fingers onto her lap in a rhythmic manner. Her pepper-red-plaid jacket kept her cozy from the cold blasts of air blowing from the air-conditioning above the large flat-screen, as did her pearly-white socks and her midnight-black short-sleeve. A quaint hum caught her throat as wearisome melodies, accompanied by a languorous immensity, flitted into the serene atmosphere like a tender-drifting zephyr amid leaves that have not yet been rustled.

Her head gently bobbed to the right-side as her lids dropped with heaviness and her expression deteriorated into a natural display of nothingness… The child rested in their place in silence, until she brusquely threw her eyes open and dropped their timorous, amaranth-red pupils onto the menacing brew, that was still eccentrically fierce and beginning to distinctively hold some truth to its colorful appearance. She immediately grabbed hold of the mug searing sides and slid off the chair’s cushioned bottom before she ambled towards the maple-wood backdoor, in a shaken manner, and pushed it past its ajar state, a splash of the licorice-black contents falling onto the furry, velvet-red carpet below.

The dark stain soaked into the soft flooring and left a noticeable splotch on its surface as the door came to a creaky close with a disconcerting, sly smile slithering behind it…