Jacqueline Wilson

North

Mia had lived here for as long as she could remember. Existence rested on a delicate precipice and survival through each night was never guaranteed. Snow and ice bits sliced through her fragile skin as she stared out into the dimly illuminated darkness. Torches were lined along walkways, carved by the legs of various workers. This place was horrid, even after over a decade but Mia hardly remembered the times before this life. People came, and they went, usually by death, sometimes by banishment. If you didn’t pull your weight, you weren’t worth cultivated resources that others perished to retrieve.