Cold.

  Hungry.

  Dark.

  It’s always been like this.

  I don’t know why I’m here. I just know I’ve always been here.

  But I know—I’m alive.

  Being alive means keeping your eyes open.

  Then closing them.

  Then opening them again.

  Then closing them again.

  Sometimes my stomach hurts. It’s so empty,

  so I look for something to eat.

  Sometimes my hands are cold, they hurt,

  so I curl up tight.

  That’s how I’ve made it this far.

  I learned to walk.

  Not all at once.

  I fell a lot.

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  Scraped my hands.

  My knees hurt.

  Then, I could walk.

  But what if I can?

  This alley is too bright at both ends.

  I’m scared to go there.

  The dark is safe.

  The dark doesn’t hurt me.

  The bright places hurt.

  They make me hungry.

  The alley smells like everything—

  rotten, sour, bitter, foul.

  I’ve gotten used to it.

  When I’m hungry, I eat rats.

  If I catch them, I eat them.

  If I don’t, I eat the ones that don’t move anymore.

  There’s a lot I shouldn’t eat.

  I don’t know why.

  But if I eat them, I throw up.

  And then I get even hungrier.

  Water’s the same.

  If it falls from the sky, I can drink it.

  If it’s on the ground—

  Sometimes I can drink it, sometimes not.

  When I can’t, my stomach hurts worse.

  My head spins and spins until I don’t wake up.

  But I still wake up.

  Always.

  Until that day.

  —

  I heard a sound.

  Not the usual kind.

  Not rats scurrying.

  Not water dripping.

  Not something crawling through garbage.

  Something else. Loud.

  Like the sharp, jarring sounds that sometimes come from outside the alley.

  Then—I saw them.

  I wanted to run.

  But I was too hungry.

  I couldn’t move.

  They were “big” and “bright.”

  Not the kind that hurt your eyes,

  but I was afraid.

  I don’t know what “big” means,

  but they were bigger than rats.

  Bigger than anything I’d ever seen.

  I didn’t know what “beautiful” was,

  but they were like those glowing things from outside the alley—

  bright, distant, unreal.

  They spoke.

  Said things I couldn’t understand.

  “……?”

  “……”

  I didn’t know what they were doing,

  but I knew—they were looking at me.

  No one’s looked at me in a long time.

  Sometimes other big things walk through the alley,

  but they never stop.

  They move.

  They walk.

  They see.

  But they don’t see me.

  But this time—they did.

  One of them reached out—

  with something like the hands I use to catch rats,

  but bigger.

  I didn’t know what he was trying to do,

  but I knew—it wasn’t okay.

  I bit his hand.

  With everything I had.

  I know how to bite.

  When I bite rats hard enough, they stop moving.

  But this time—was different.

  He didn’t move.

  He didn’t flail like a rat.

  He didn’t make sounds like they do.

  He just stood there.

  His hand was still there—

  but blood came out.

  It ran into my mouth,

  tasting like metal.

  I didn’t know if he would pull away—

  but he didn’t.

  Instead—he lifted me up.

  The alley started spinning.

  My feet left the ground.

  I couldn’t grab anything.

  Biting didn’t work.

  It was cold.

  It was high.

  It was terrifying.

  I wanted to run.

  But my body was small.

  His hands were big.

  I didn’t want to die.

  I really didn’t want to die.

  But—they took me away.