Drowning Soul

The overcast sky hung low, like a giant, gray, mournful face. In the slums of Paris, a dilapidated apartment building, like a rotten tooth, stood in the filthy streets. The stairwell was filled with the stench of decay and urine, and the walls were covered with distorted patterns scribbled by children with charcoal, like the cries of desperate souls.

On the top floor of this building, in a small, dark room, lived a young mother, Marie, and her three-year-old son, little Louis. Marie made a living selling cheap flowers on the street corner, her prematurely aged face etched with the hardships of life. Little Louis was her only hope, her only light in this dark world.

However, the cruelty of fate often exceeds people's imagination.

That afternoon, Marie, as usual, put little Louis in the bathtub to play with water. The bathtub was small, and the water only came up to the child's ankles, about twenty centimeters deep. Marie hummed a song while washing clothes nearby, looking up at her son from time to time, showing a tired but gentle smile.

Suddenly, a hurried knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. It was the old woman next door, saying she had something urgent to discuss. Marie hesitated for a moment, told little Louis to stay put, and hurried out of the room.

The old woman's matter was trivial and lengthy, nothing more than some neighborhood complaints. Marie responded absentmindedly, but her heart was increasingly uneasy. She always felt that something bad was going to happen, an inexplicable fear wrapped around her heart like a poisonous snake.

After an unknown amount of time, Marie finally got rid of the old woman's entanglement and ran back to her room. However, the scene before her made her collapse instantly.

Little Louis was floating face down in the bathtub, motionless. The originally clear water was now stained with a faint red color.

Marie let out a heart-wrenching scream and tremblingly picked up her son. Little Louis's body was cold and stiff, and he was no longer breathing.

The police came, the doctors came, and the neighbors also gathered around. They whispered, their faces showing expressions of sympathy, numbness, or curiosity.

"Poor child..."

"So unfortunate..."

"How could she leave the child alone in the bathtub?"

"Alas, who knows, that's life..."

Marie held little Louis's body, sitting on the cold floor, her eyes empty and desperate. She could not hear the sounds around her, nor could she feel the passage of time. Her world had completely collapsed with the death of her son.

Twenty centimeters of water was enough to drown a young life, and also enough to drown a mother's hope.

This is not only a family tragedy, but also a tragedy of the entire society. Poverty, indifference, negligence... These seemingly insignificant factors intertwined and caused an irreversible tragedy.

Little Louis's death, like a pebble thrown into a calm lake, stirred up ripples. But soon, everything returned to calm. People continued their lives, rushing for their livelihoods and worrying about trivial matters. Only Marie was forever trapped in the dark, cold, hopeless abyss.

And in those hidden corners of the shadows, forgotten, similar tragedies may still be happening...