Word Count:\u00a0 179<\/p>\n

It was hard, oh so hard, to watch her children go to bed hungry. Every night, waiting, hoping that she could provide them with a meal that could fill their bellies for once. That they could sleep with satisfied smiles on their faces. That she could kiss them goodnight without worry about another stretched-to-the-edges new day.<\/p>\n

The little one was whimpering. She picked him up, held him close, crooned him back to sleep with a lullaby she\u2019d learned from her own mother. Paper thin walls, hollow-core doors, the people on the other side listening, uncaring.<\/p>\n

She was getting desperate. And weak. What little was available she gave to the children, leaving only a few crumbs for herself.<\/p>\n

Then one night, finally, she was blessed with opportunity. It sounded like voices just outside her door. A child\u2019s tiny whine, a father\u2019s reassurance.<\/p>\n

And at last, she was ready when the closet door opened and a sleepy-eyed, tender and tasty little girl wiped her tears and a man pointed inside, about to say, \u201cNo monsters. See?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Word Count:\u00a0 179 It was hard, oh so hard, to watch her children go to bed hungry. Every night, waiting, hoping that she could provide them with a meal that could fill their bellies for once. That they could sleep … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,15],"tags":[25,24],"class_list":["post-1528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-100-days-2012","category-horror","tag-100-days-2012","tag-horror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1528"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1529,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1528\/revisions\/1529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}