Mina presses against a tree beside the road. She tries to control her breathing. Her hands shake as she checks the clip of a small pistol.

She peers through the trees, the shine of headlights makes her close her eyes. She steps out into the road, a strange, lone tree and wide mist-filled field in the distance behind her. She raises her gun at the headlights - still squinting, still shaking.

Erik drives and Joanna sits beside him in the passenger seat. Joanna hums a quiet, beautiful song. There are pair of 2-year-old kids - Chaerin and a foster son Seungri are in the back seat. Chaerin open her favourite book - GRIMM’S FAIRY TALES on her lap. She hums too.

Something pierces the windshield. Blood sprays over GRIMM’S FAIRY TALES.

Mina, her eyes still closed, FIRES. She fires again.

The accelerator of the car screams. Mina opens her eyes-- and dives as the car speeds past, out of control, spraying mud and ice into the air.

On her face as she hears the car crash. The horn blares. Just barely, orange light, flickers to life somewhere behind her. She smears the black mud across her skin with the back of her hand, unsure of her emotion, just listening, not sure she wants to look-- until she hears the sound of a baby screaming.

In the distance, Erik, Chaerin cradled in one arm, one arm carried Seungri’s limp body and place it to the ground. Then he goes and get his wife, carrying her limp body and place it near the child, desperate to save her, but knowing it’s too late. If he wants to save his child, he has to let Johanna go.

So he does.

Eric immediately carry two year old Seungri and two-year-old Chaerin, clings to Erik’s neck, her Grimm’s Fairy Tales draped, open, across his back and held there by one of her tiny hands, doesn’t scream, but her eyes linger on her mother lying in the field.

Pages of the book tear against his shirt. Some tear free and twist away across the field.

The whole time Mina sprints. She passes the burning wreck, its bumper angled up the trunk of the strange, lone tree.

She aims her gun, she can’t fire. Erik is across the field, too far, just out of reach. Mina slows and stops beside Johanna’s crooked body. Mina rolls her over. Johanna’s neck and face and clothes are covered in mud. It hides her gruesome injuries. Erik dragged an admirable distance from the wreck.

She’s barely alive. It’s horribly quiet. A few pages of Grimm’s Fairy Tales float past Johanna’s face. *

“She’ll never be yours... “

It was merely several minutes past before Eric heard the sound of a gunshot echo.

[End Flashback]

*****

Mina was already sitting in first class, not trying to hide the fact that she’s on her cell phone mid-flight. There’s turbulence.

“They found her.” It was Isaac on the other line.

“Focus all operations on Erik Heinrich.”

A sweet-faced male air steward hovers over Mina. “Excuse me Madame, airline regulations state that –“

“I’m in conference.”

“All the same –“

“Back off.” Mina’s response is quietly scary.

The attendant is not sure what might happen if he asks her again. He stands there, dumbfounded.

“Are you saying the child is not of interest to us?”

“She’s of interest, of course, Isaac, but not an immediate threat. Erik Heinrich is the immediate threat. Focus on Eric.” She hangs up.

*****

Chaerin amongst slightly elevated desert rocks. She approaches the edge--down below, a tuft of green trees surrounding a small body of water - an oasis.

Chaerin sneaks through the trees toward a small body of water. A group of berber woman that she not knowing their race, knee deep, beat clothes against the rock.

The women are laughing. She watches them from the trees, fascinated. Women. Just like her. But not like her at all.

Chaerin sneaks around the edge of the water, careful where she steps, making sure she’s not seen. There’s a clothes line not far from her, strung up between two trees. Chaerin grabs a few items without the ladies noticing.

In the Oasis Village Chaerin sees a  sea of camels. Hundreds of them. Men steer them, try to keep them tight and together. The camels moan and croak. Some nip at each other. Most are passive and chew their cud.

Chaerin stands amongst them in her stolen pantaloons and top. She’s staring in one’s face. It’s staring back into hers. It´s nose is pierced with a rope. She touches the rope with her finger. The camel doesn´t mind.

Music floats over the camel´s moans. She follows the sound and walks between the camels legs and under their long necks until she finds a sea of human beings.

A bazaar. It´s so overwhelming. And so loud. And the music, from some unseen buskers, so beautiful. Over this, Chaerin hears a woman voice calling his son. It was Rachel calling Miles.

And then Chaerin sees him, the little, shy boy from before - Miles - running through the crowd carrying a bag of cherries.

Chaerin follows him toward a mud built hotel. He runs up the steps toward his mother. The mother takes his hand, gently, and walks him toward the hotel. Rachel and Miles enter the hotel and so does Chaerin.

Chaerin stands at the reception desk. A kindly looking hotel owner is eating a jammy biscuit. He’s a little confused by her looks.

“Where’s your family?” he asked.

“Are you Arab?”

“I’m Moroccan.” He replied.

Chaerin looks at an array of tourist postcards displayed on the reception counter. “Morocco. Capital city Rabat. Places of interest. Marrakesh. Essouaira. Religion Islam. Language Arabic”

The hotel Owner nearly spits out his biscuit in shock. Meanwhile Chaerin pockets a postcard of a camel.

“You speak Arabic?”

“ No. I can’t,” she replies.

“Where’s your family?”

“I need a room for one night. Can you help? But I don’t have any money.”  She asked the courtesy from the hotel owner.

The hotel owner leads Chaerin down some stairs and into a utilitarian whitewashed room with twin beds. There is a vacuum cleaner and mop and bucket stood by the door, a used coffee cup and a newspaper open on the table.

“It’s the best we’ve got.”

“Thank you.”

Chaerin stares at the light switch in awe. “Do you have one of these in every room?”

“Of course. All mod cons.”

“It’s electricity?”

The hotel owner looks at Chaerin askance. “Yes.”

“I know a little bit about electricity. They say Edison discovered it, or was it Franklin?”

The hotel owner shocked with Chaerin question. This girl is acting like a freak. “Some American, I’m sure.” He picks up an electric kettle.

“Electric kettle for the English - they like to make their own tea.” He switches it on, Chaerin stares as it heats up noisily.

He goes to a small wall mounted TV, switches it on for her, a fuzzy, terrible picture of an Arabic TV show. Chaerin is fascinated, doesn’t take her eyes off the TV as she sits on the edge of the bed.

“What is it?” Chaerin asked in fascinating voice.

“It’s the best we can do.”

She stares at the picture, bemused.

“Where do you come from?”

Distracted, Chaerin is caught off guard. “The forest.”

The hotel owner smiles, himself a little puzzled by this strange encounter, and leaves. She just sits there staring at the TV as it’s volume seems to increase.

Meanwhile the electric kettle begins to boil. Steam pours from its spout and the whole contraption starts to rattle violently. Chaerin gets up and approaches the kettle very warily.

She tries the light switch in an attempt to stop the kettle, but it keeps boiling and making its strange rattle. Chaerin tries another switch, the ceiling fan begins to turn, confusing her even more.

On the TV the news shows footage of war in the Middle East, the sound of gunfire. The ceiling fan is at its top speed, it’s blades cut the air like a helicopter. A telephone beside the bed starts to ring. Combined the noises rise to a terrifying crescendo.

Chaerin backs away towards the bathroom. She stumbles and falls through the bathroom door straight into the shower, inadvertently turning the taps on. Water pours down on her.

Chaerin springs up and turns to face the stream of water as if it were an attacker. She runs back into the bedroom. In the bedroom the kettle is still having a violent tantrum, the TV is still screaming, the fan still cutting, the phone still shouting.

Chaerin pulls at the exit door, but doesn’t know to turn the handle. She panics. Smashes at the door. Eventually she falls through the door and into the corridor.

Silence as Chaerin sits on the corridor floor catching her breath. A little way down the corridor Miles and Sophie emerge from their bedroom.

“Look. It’s her again.” Miles nudges Sophie while calling Chaerin. “Hey German! Hey girl!” “Hey, German girl!”

Chaerin eyes them suspiciously.

“Is ‘Kraut’ an ethnic slur?” Sophie suddenly asked her.

“What?” Beat. Chaerin puzzle.

“Like “queer” or “lesbo”?” She glances at Chaerin to see her reaction. She continued. “I’d like to be a lesbian. But not one of the fat ones. One whose a supermodel” with a thinking expression in her look. “But I’d only hold hands. And I’d probably marry a man.”

“She looks different.” Miles pointed out. They all regard her clothing.

“Do you want to hang with us?” Sophie asked.

“Are you hungry?” Miles interrupted.

Chaerin just shakes her head.

“Are you on a diet?” Sophie looks at her.

*****

Outside one strip Club, the main street of Hamburg’s red light district. Tough and unglamorous. Mina Weigler gets out of a taxi, checks the sign of the strip club, crosses the road and enter the club.