First day of school.

  Far from the temple and all its chaos, in the city's impoverished district, a young girl wandered between crumbling buildings. The sickening silence of the morning made her thoughts race—but one question in particular gnawed relentlessly at her mind:

  Who owns the right to name an orphan?

  Sadie had been pondering that question her whole life, ever since she was rescued as a crying toddler from a dumpster bag.

  Her unorthodox rescue came at the hands of a nun named Zahya, who, thinking cats were once again rummaging through her trash, rushed to the alley with her broom, intent on chasing them away for good this time.

  She struck the crinkling plastic bag with the wooden edge expecting cats, but the meows turned into a child’s full-throated cry.

  Upon hearing the wails, she froze, then frantically scrambled to open the bag. Inside was an undernourished toddler, blood and tears pooling in its small mouth as it cried its heart out.

  The nun tried to calm it with a soft, nervous voice, then reached for her napkin to wipe its front. The baby slightly opened its eyes to observe what she was doing, then closed them again and cried even louder.

  Zahya became her caretaker from that day on—and she called her Sadie. It was an unusual name. Not unusual enough for Sadie to pester a woman of God about, but long, solitary walks to school were enough to make her wonder about the most mundane things.

  She speculated: was she named Sadie because of the sadistic tendencies she showed toward the other kids at the orphanage? Or was it a nod to her constant, sad demeanor as a child?

  Whatever the reason, it was too late now to ask. The lips once dedicated to prayer had since bestowed their final kiss upon the sacred cross on June 28th, 2022—this past summer.

  And so all that remained was an adolescent—twice orphaned—walking down Sixteenth Street alone for the first time.

  As Sadie passed by Les Confiseries bakery, her gaze involuntarily drifted toward the worn-out wooden bench where Zahya would often rest during their short walks to school—especially in her final days, when she could no longer conceal her illness.

  Sadie stepped off the elevated curb with habitual slowness, mirroring the times she used to lend her arm to Zahya for support. No one reached for her hand this time. She stopped, swallowing tears as memories flooded in.

  Her actual name was Sarah, but the nickname Sadie stuck. She knew what her name meant, and she hated it.

  "Religious people are something else," she thought, cupping a hand around a cigarette, lighting it, and resuming her walk to school.

  Zahya had always believed God had something great in store for her—but much like Sarah herself, Sadie was the definition of doubt.

  "You think I survived that day because of divine intervention... that I was spared to fulfill God’s promise. If that were true, why did He take you from me so early? Where's your purpose, then?"

  "My life’s purpose was to save you."

  A gentle breeze brushed her cheek. Sadie flinched, embarrassed by her own thoughts.

  "Now I’m hearing voices," she mumbled bitterly. "If the value of your life was based on rescuing me, then it was a life gone to waste."

  She dropped the cigarette butt and crushed it under her sneaker.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  She harbored a mild hatred for her former religious tutor. Partly because Zahya had forced her to endure this overrated "gift" called life. But mostly because, in her final will, the nun had left her entire savings—around $140,000, give or take—on one condition:

  That Sadie graduate from Lincoln High School.

  "Damn heartless woman left me penniless. Might as well have donated it to the orphanage. It'll take me an eternity to graduate."

  Sadie wasn’t exaggerating. Lincoln High had a reputation for being the toughest school in the district, welcoming only the most accomplished and prestigious students—and Sadie.

  She was a slow learner with the attention span of a goldfish. She blamed it on the divine head-smack she got as a baby. "Also why I can't remember my parents' faces," she often muttered, rubbing the dented scar on her forehead.

  She remembered her mother had brown hair. She also remembered hating them.

  Can you hate people you've barely met? Sadie thought so. Yes—you can. Sadie was a bigot, she discriminated against all brown-haired women.

  She was also the victim of reverse discrimination—a pious nun with too many expectations had rolled out the red carpet of Sadie’s success all the way to Heaven. Sadie liked to imagine her slipping off that carpet and falling face-first into Hell. At least they'd both be suffering.

  She walked down the school halls. Some boys cracked jokes at her expense. She couldn’t care less.

  She passed by the red lockers near the principal’s office. One boy got bold and tried to joke in her face, alternating between giggles and dumb remarks.

  “Hey Sadie, if you’re here, who’s guarding the national cornfields?”

  She didn’t have time for this. She hooked two fingers into his nostrils and slammed his face into a locker with surprising force.

  The bell rang. Finally.

  She made her way to class and walked past the empty desks toward the very back. Emily, the school’s glittering drama queen, intercepted her mid-sit.

  “Uhm—excuse me? Yes, hi—whatever your name is—we were here first.” Emily flashed an obnoxious smile.

  Sadie stared at her for a few seconds before lazily sitting down.

  “The race is only won when the finish line is crossed,” she said flatly.

  “Look, I’m trying to be nice here. I know you’ve failed this class three years in a row. I get that you isolate yourself in the back ‘cause everyone hates your guts. But this is important—our friend just got dumped, and we want to cheer her up somewhere more private. Her puddle of tears is literally on the desk.”

  Sadie wasn’t paying attention, which only pissed Emily off more.

  “Just beat it already!” she snapped. “It’s not like your name’s written on it!”

  “No? My name is literally carved into it,” Sadie replied, extending a middle finger from her sleeve and pointing to a deep carving on the desk, seemingly made with a large knife.

  “And if you don’t leave me alone, I’ll test my carving skills on a softer surface.”

  Emily didn’t feel like getting stabbed by a sociopath, so she called off her peppy posse.

  “Let’s go, girls. Not worth it. Let the freak rot in her chair.”

  And rot she did.

  Sadie leaned back, always with the sense that her spirit was leaving her body. The teacher droned on for what felt like hours. But when she looked at the wall clock—five minutes had passed.

  Time must be broken.

  She laid her arm across the desk and buried her face in her sleeve. What started as a quick breather ended with her looking like a corpse in a state of slow decomposition.

  A corpse no one noticed.

  The students listened attentively. Sir Waltson, their teacher, was a stern and eccentric man with a tenor voice and hypnotic gestures. Today’s topic: 18th-century literature and the birth of the modern novel.

  Their assignment? A 10,000-word analysis of Robinson Crusoe.

  As he made his way down the rows collecting homework, Sir Waltson stopped. On one student’s page was a shipwreck—not a metaphor. Ralph had literally drawn Crusoe’s ship, with only a handful of actual words.

  When Waltson saw it, Ralph stood up automatically, bracing for impact.

  When Ralph saw the expression on the teacher's face, he stood up automatically, fearing for the worst. Sir Walton started lambasting him in a pentametric tone.

  " Indolence and apathy, your generation's obvious inane attitude is the blight of our society and spells a grimdark future for our nascent civilisation. You disappoint me to no end with your blatant disregard to school duties.

  More so, you did not consider peculiarities of the ship, since you are well aware, Mister Ralph, that it was written during the 17th and 18th centuries at height of the transatlantic slave trade, and since it is mentioned in the novel that the merchantile ship was bound for the coast of Guinea in West Africa, all of these indications suggest that it was likely a trading vessel involved in the transatlantic slave trade while you, mister Ralph, have drawn a pirate ship!"

  Ralph stared down in shame, hands clasped awkwardly in front of him.

  The noise stirred Sadie. She blinked awake, took in the scene, and remembered: she hadn’t done the assignment either.

  She stood up drowsily.

  “Mister Waltson, I didn’t do the assignment either,” she muttered before slumping back down, face in her arms.

  Sir Waltson turned, speechless. He stared with unfiltered disdain at sleeping Sadie as the class erupted in laughter.

  In that moment, he too felt like Robinson Crusoe—stranded on an island, surrounded by loud, dumb animals.