Breaking Point

Staring down at her trembling hands, Avery could barely process the soggy, ruined mess resting against her small palms. The intricate lines of carbon ink, the very ones her mother had drawn with such immense care, were now nothing but a dark, bleeding smudge across torn paper. The damp chill of the festering trash water seeped deep into her skin, but it was the freezing ache in her chest that made