Mice? Fine. Flying mice? Not so fine.

But now I give in, let the anger surge. I'm sick of people acting like this world, this other world is the normal one, while I'm the freak. It's not fair; like all the rules have suddenly changed and somebody forgot to tell me.

The sparrows jumped before they knew how to fly, and they learned to fly only because they had jumped.

I screamed until my voice dried up in my throat. We all did. All of us in Ward Six, all of us forgotten, left to rot.

Until, one day, she wasn’t.

No one had ever told her this basic fact: not everyone got to be loved.

That’s a funny thing: you think, when awful things happen, everything else just stops, like you would forget to pee and eat and get thirsty, but it’s not really true. It’s like you and your body are two separate things, like your body is betraying you, chugging on, idiotic and animal, craving water and sandwiches and bathroom breaks while your world falls apart.