I frown at the little girl who's more mature than me,
"How is your hair color classified?" Snowbird just stares at me, what a strange little girl.
"Okay, then what can I ask?"
"How are you not dead?" She cuts in quickly. Now it's my turn to clam up. Which part did she mean? The fact that I was a mistake? A failure of the Government? Or did she mean how do my attacks not kill me? How has my body stayed in one piece instead of splitting apart like multiplying cells?
"I don't know," I reply drily, "I'm just too stubborn to die." Snowbird cocks her head like a dog.
"A lot of people seem to believe that, but I always prove them wrong. Except with you." I peer at her quizzically.
"Well everyone's wrong sometimes."
I shrug. Snowbird looks at me, mesmerized, has she ever seen another person before? How? Finally, she comes up and pokes my side, then lifts my grey shirt to peer at my bindings. Quickly she pulls my shirt down again and continues poking and prodding at me in a circle. Suddenly, Snowbird smiles happily and hugs me tight, her arms around my torso.
"Do you want to play with me Ray-Ray?" My heart seizes at the sound of her nickname for me and I panic. Am I going to have another attack? Nothing happens. The reason dawns on me, no one's ever given me a nickname before. I've never had a Mother to scold when calling me an embarrassing name in front of the kids at school, never had a father ruffling my hair and calling me 'sport'. I've never even had a brother teasing me with some stupid name he made up for me. My eyes tear a little and I blink them away. What is wrong with me? They're ashamed of me, they gave me away. My brother's a spoiled brat who doesn't give a hair on his dark purple head about his older sister. My family doesn't care. No. They're not family, I don't have a family. They're just strangers who happened to get stuck with me for the first three years of my life. I don't have a family. My heart pangs again with loneliness and sadness. I'll never have a family because I'm stuck at Illwood Asylum.
"What are we gonna play?" I ask Snowbird. Should I give her a nickname too? Like Snow, or Snowy, or maybe Bird? Gah! I'm thinking way too deep into this, it's just a nickname Ray! Cut it out! I can give myself my own nicknames if I wanted!