In an unspecified war-torn European country, two young girls, aged about 8 and 4, struggle to survive, the older girl having to find food and shelter. When a truckload of soldiers, having gang-raped a discarded naked woman, spots them in a house, the girls are forced up into the attic, but there appears to be no escape. Then the older girl tears their clothing, smears red muck over them, and orders the 4-year-old to lie still. This has the desired effect of convincing the men the girls had been raped and murdered, and they leave.