adaswriting

[adaswriting]

In all the photos we have of him with us, my father holds us, hugs us, looks at us as if we are his salvation. Large hands, scarred and callous, strong enough to bend metal and break bone, hold infant daughters like a holy relic, like they are the entire world.

He is a rough man, language as coarse as the soles of his feet and skin tough from farm life. He doesn’t hide the roughness; he told us at our first hardships that life would not be easy, that it would hurt us and change us and give us our own scars, our own soul-deep callouses. But, he told us, crooked finger wiping away tears, he would be there to stitch us up as long as he lived.

We have learned his scars slowly, with every promise that he would die before giving us the twisted lines of flesh his father gave him. With every night he sat awake by out bedsides when we were sick or hurting, no matter how old we got, and swore we could not endure any pain alone so long as he still breathed. With every hour spent apologizing for a raised voice or ungentle words. With every lesson on how not to be the next missing poster, the next obituary.

We learned his scars, and he kept his promises, and when our own rough spots began appearing, he helped to buff them out; blunted our sharp edges just enough that we couldn’t hurt the people we didn’t want to.

My father’s roughness is his gift to us. His thick skin and broken bones were our childhood suit of armor. It didn’t fit quite right, but it let us stay soft, let us grow our own protection slowly and when we were ready. We could afford the tears over soul-scrapes and the time it took for them to scab over as he stood watch.

And for all his armor he has not grown cold.

He still remembers the scrawny boy who left home at twelve. Still sees him in the mirror and knows what a difference simple warmth made. Home cooked meals and clothes fresh from the dryer and wool blankets cozy enough to ignore the scratchiness. A place to rest your head and an embrace after a long day. And he gives all of this freely to anyone who needs it, pieces of armor to be kept a day or forever, whatever it takes.

He is old now, he tells us. He may not be here for much longer. Maybe he will see us married, maybe he will meet his grandchildren. Maybe he will not. And if he isn’t, he says on days when the melancholy of old age settles in for a visit, he hopes that we will tell his grandchildren how much he loved us, how he tried his best to be a good dad and that he hopes he succeeded in spite of all the times he screwed up.

And every time we make that promise, because it is the most important thing he has ever asked for, and it is no burden for us to bear.

[adaswriting]

Teeth

Incisors

Upper and lower

Central and lateral

(The new ones grew in

Before the old ones fell out

And you called me shark)

Canines

All four

(Long and blunted

They used to be sharp

Before I gnawed them down

But you still say they look like fangs)

Premolars

Only six

(The front tops were pulled

To fix the overbite

You mocked me for till fifth grade

With the braces

You mocked me for till eighth grade)

Molars

The full eight

Still standing

(Not yet worn down

From years of grinding

And sometimes I wish

I really had sunk them

Deep into your flesh

Like you told everyone I did)

Wisdoms

None left

(The bottoms sideways

The tops too close to my brain

You liked the post I made about it

While high on narcotics that didn’t help)

Twenty-six

All lined up like soldiers

(And you tell me now

That my smile is beautiful

And you wish you saw it more)

[adaswriting]

I've had all english classes this quarter so get ready for an influx of content

[adaswriting]

“Oh, shit.”

The moment the words left Paula’s mouth, she regretted them. She was going to die horribly and now her last words, recorded for all of posterity, were going to be “oh, shit”. And just when she thought the situation couldn’t get any worse. Goddamn Murphy’s Law.

Jones’ voice came over her com link, tinny and distant. “What? What’s going on?”

But Paula barely registered his questions, fixated entirely upon the slavering beast before her. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. She was supposed to be a hero, damn it!

The team was supposed to infiltrate the ship, guns blazing, and finally have the war be over and done with after nearly 30 years. They were going to be awarded, given accolades for their work in finally driving the enemies away.

And instead, Paula was going to be torn to shreds by the aliens’ guard dog.

The thing looked at her with its too many eyes, maw peeled back into a snarl that showed off the craggy fangs that Paula knew would shortly be tearing through her flesh. It took a step closer, talons scraping the metal of the floor.

Paula could see the door behind the creature now. Her heart skipped a beat. It was a good distance away, but maybe, just maybe, she could make it through there and join the others. She just needed to distract the creature for a few seconds…

She fumbled for her rifle and took aim. She wasn’t the best shot, but it was too big a target to miss. Paula pulled the trigger and cursed again. No charge. No chance. The creature took another step closer.

Fuck.

Desperate, she flung the rifle at the thing, to injure it or draw its attention somewhere else she wasn’t quite sure. Her rifle sailed over it and to the right, and the creature turned on a dime, charging for her discarded weapon.

Paula ran, an all-out sprint to the doorway, but she wasn’t fast enough. Before she’d even made it halfway, the creature was back, looming over her, the rifle clenched between its fangs. Paula flinched, squeezing her eyes shut and throwing her arms over her head even though she knew it would do nothing to protect her.

The final blow never came.

Instead there was a loud clang that made her open her eyes once more. Paula’s rifle laid on the ground between her and the monster, covered in its grayish saliva. Paula glanced up. The monster was looking at her almost… expectantly, its head cocked to one side. If it weren’t for its gargantuan size and horrifying appearance, it would almost have looked like a dog.

Oh. Oh god. Holy fuck. Holy fucking shit.

Paula’s brain played those phrases in a frenetic loop as she slowly bent down to pick up the rifle, never once letting her eyes leave the literal alien guard dog. She straightened up, rifle held loosely in one hand.

“Do you want to play,” she asked, voice shaky as her knees.

The creature’s eyes followed the rifle as she waved it back and forth, its body tensing. Taking a deep breath, Paula threw the rifle towards the other end of the room, and the beast ran after it once more. Paula watched in terrified fascination as it picked the rifle up almost delicately between its teeth and trotted back towards her, claws clicking against the floor.

It dropped the rifle at her feet once more, and Paula let out a slightly hysterical laugh.

Holy shit.

Once more, she bent to pick up the now-useless rifle. If it happened a third time there was no denying the pattern. If it happened a third time it meant they were playing.

As she raised the gun to throw it, the creature practically vibrated with anticipation, eyes tracking her movements unerringly. The moment the gun left Paula’s hand, the beast was off, chittering and clicking to itself as it went. When it returned, it was with a spring in its step and a look on its face that Paula could somehow tell meant that it was pleased with itself, proud to drop the mangled rifle once again at her feet.

Paula laughed again, only this time it was more genuine. She was still terrified; of course she was. She had no illusions that this thing couldn’t maul her if she so much as breathed wrong (its masters certainly had no qualms about doing the same thing), but in that moment, despite the animal’s gruesome appearance, she couldn’t help but be reminded of her family’s Saint Bernard that she had grown up with.

She was pulled out of her reverie by the sound of Jones’ voice over the com.

“Matthews, respond! Do you require backup?”

Did she? Paula remained silent, staring at the enormous, terrifying creature now sitting in front of her like a docile pet.

“Matthews!”

She made her decision.

“That’s a negative. I’ve handled it.”

“Copy that. We’ve mostly cleared our sectors, we’ll rendezvous at your location.”

“Roger.”

“Over and out.”

Paula returned her attention to the creature. It whimpered at her, pawing at the rifle. She cringed at the sound of its claws screeching against the metal floor, but steeled herself for the next phase.

“How about something better than that,” she said in the soft voice she remembered her mother using to soothe her.

Slowly, shakily, never looking away from the animal, she reached into her pack. After fumbling around for a few seconds, she found her prize. A nutrition bar. She opened it and broke off a piece, waving it back and forth like she had with the rifle. The creature watched intently.

Once she was sure the creature got the picture, she tossed the piece; not as far as she’d thrown her gun, but still a good distance away. The creature chased after it, sniffed it in consideration, and licked it up off of the floor before returning to its position in front of Paula.

She broke off another piece and threw it, this time to the beast’s feet. It happily chowed down on the bland chunk of protein and vitamins, thick gobs of drool falling from its mouth as it did. It looked back at Paula, eyes pleading.

Christ, she thought, do the aliens just not feed it?

Pulling the wrapper all the way off, Paula dropped the remainder of the nutrition bar just a few inches in front of her. She stood stock-still, jaw clenched tight enough to hurt, eyeing the creature warily.

It inched forward, eyes flickering between her and the bar. Slowly, slowly, it closed the gap between them and crouched to devour its treat. Paula watched in morbid fascination as it chomped and drooled, tongue flicking in and out of its mouth.

Kind of like a dog with peanut butter.

Finished with its treat, the animal looked back to her. She looked back. Their eyes met, and for some reason Paula couldn’t stop herself. She lifted her hand, palm out, fingers together, hand curved into a slight cup. Seeming to understand, the creature pressed its forehead (or what she assumed was its forehead) into her offered hand, chittering softly. Its skin was soft and oddly warm, like the stingrays in the touch tank at the aquarium. Paula couldn’t hold back a smile.

“Hi there,” she cooed, rubbing the creature’s head softly, “are you looking for a friend?”

Without warning, the sound of rifle-fire filled the room. The creature let out an anguished shriek as blast after blast tore through it. It collapsed to the floor with one final whimper, its body almost unrecognizable from its wounds, eyes never leaving Paula’s.

Paula stood trembling, covered in thick purple blood and eyes stinging with tears.

No…

She flinched when a hand came down on her shoulder.

“Damn Matthews,” Jones laughed, “Good thing we got here in time, huh?”

“Yeah,” she choked out, not looking at him.

He brushed past her and nudged the creature’s mangled body with his bloody boot.

“Haven’t seen one of these ugly fuckers in a long time. Forgot how fucking nasty they were,” Jones looked up to Paula and the rest of the squad, “Damn good thing there’s no more of ‘em, huh?”

He laughed, and the squad joined in. Paula, for her part, hadn’t moved an inch, had hardly breathed for fear of a sob escaping. Jones turned away from the creature and started heading out of the room.

“Alright, let’s move out! We’ve got a warm welcome with our names on it!”

The squad followed, cheering and laughing.

Paula stayed.

“Matthews!”

She turned, back ramrod straight.

“What’re you waiting for rookie, a kick in the ass? War’s over, let’s get out of this shithole.”

“Yes sir.”

She trailed after Jones, knees quaking.

Paula stopped in the doorway. Looked back at the poor creature.

Its eyes were on her as she walked away.

[adaswriting]

I’m my mother’s reflection in a funhouse mirror; different size, different colors, but the same shapes, the same insides. She hates it. Loves me deeply with all her heart, but hates what she’s made, what she’s passed on.

Hates how we never learned to be kids, how we were grown-ups before we even became women. Hates the slumped shoulders of bone-deep exhaustion that showed up when we were twelve. Hates that what she sees behind my face is what she sees behind hers.

She loves me. Bigger than the sky, forever and always, no matter what. But she can’t look at me without hoping I can be better.

Better than molars long since ground flat from only speaking when spoken to. Better than the gray hairs that started showing up at thirty from late-night worrying. Better than puffy red eyes and runny noses from doing all of the work and getting none of the credit.

She loves me without condition, with a fierceness that bares its teeth and sinks its claws into the flesh of anyone who dares to look at me the wrong way. But she fears so much what she’s done to me that she forgets what she’s given me.

Forgets the wit sharp as razors and tongue quick as a whip. Forgets the dimples and crinkled eyes and full-body laugh. Forgets the voice that doesn’t need to be raised to command attention. Forgets the warm arms that will open for anyone who needs a mother, even if it’s just for a little while. Forgets the set jaw and thrown back shoulders, and feet that will not budge until I have been heard.

She laughs about me being her clone and hopes that I’ll never know her deepest wish for me is that I’ll turn out different. I’ll never tell her I’ve known since my first therapy session, since her shameful admission that I got this from her. But we both say “I love you,” and mean it with everything we’ve got.

[adaswriting]

The lights are on in the house across the street. This is odd because there is no house across the street.

There is something in the marshes. It calls to those who will listen. Some will answer. Some will not come back.

A box has sat on the mantel of the inn’s fireplace for as long as anyone can remember. It has never been moved. It has never been opened. On still nights the guests can hear a scratching coming from inside.

The drawers of the funeral home spend most of their time empty. The dirt is quick to reclaim what once belonged to it.

The old ladies who spend their days in the park whisper amongst themselves. Something lies beneath. Remember to count your shadows. Mirrors don’t work in dreams. It sounds like nonsense. Right up until it doesn’t.

The lights are on in the house across the street.

The ones who come back say they didn’t want to. The words they speak are ours, but they mean something else now. They find comfort in each other, heads bowed close, voices low. They know things that even they do not understand. All of them are women.

Going through the city hall archives will turn up dozens upon dozens of pictures of the innkeeper’s box. Some are photographs. Some are paintings. Some are woodcuts. It has always been on the mantel. It has not always had a lock.

People have a way of knowing when it is time for them to go. They used to wander off into the night when they felt death’s hand on their shoulder. Now their families lock them up, tie them down, beg and plead until their throats are raw for them to stay, please stay. A few will manage to slip free. Their names are chiseled into the library steps in place of a headstone.

None of the buildings have basements. The street lights come on well before it ever becomes dusk and stay on well after the sun has risen. Every household owns a silver mirror. The ladies in the knitting circle have all gone missing before.

People say none of this matters.

They scoff at the superstitious old biddies, shake their heads and pretend they don’t see their reflection moving slower. Tell themselves they’re counting steps and not making sure the only shadow following them is theirs. Don’t ask themselves why the children dig down, down, down, past the roots of the oldest trees with a single-minded determination, why the old women watch the digging from afar, quiet sentinels standing watch over the proceedings.

They don’t go looking for the ones that leave their beds in the night, just sweep away the muddy footprints when they return and never speak of it again. There are no questions of where the box came from, where its key went, why it sometimes seems to breathe.

It is easier that way.

Easier to look the other way when your reflection stares back unblinkingly. Easier to tell yourself that the scratching from the box is the inn settling and turn over in bed. Easier to say that your loved one is “missing” and not “subsumed by the very earth they walked on in their last breaths” while you work your hands raw scratching their name into stone steps.

Easier to whisper that the thing making the heart-wrenching cry coming from the marshes is the wind, to ignore how lonely it sounds, even as the wails slink through the door you thought was closed and wind themselves around your bedposts and scuttle around the ceiling beams, even though sometimes it sounds almost human. Easier to get blackout curtains and shut your eyes tight against the bright rays shining through your windows because there is no house across the street.

And yet… and yet…

The lights are on.

[adaswriting]

When I was seven, my first-grade class went downtown to the DocuHall to watch a documentary about Before. More specifically, it was about the lives of the Lows before they were Lows, before they had been helped. Before the Tests and the Improvers. There were even some interviews.

They made me sad.

I didn’t like seeing the lady with the fused-together fingers, or the man who needed everything to be clean. They had bad lives. They couldn’t do things the way they should have been able to. I was happy to see that they had been Freed after the interviews were over. That meant their lives weren’t bad anymore.

I didn’t understand then.

I had always scored well on my Tests. The brain ones, the feeling ones. The people ones and the exercise ones and even the creative ones. Papa used to joke that it was all because of Mama, but I knew from school that he wasn’t being serious. Mama was an Up, just like Papa. If she had been a High, my Papa would have been someone else. But Papa always scored well on being funny, so we always laughed with him.

I still didn’t understand.

The Tests got harder every year, and in my seventh year of school that became clear. On Results day, our teacher walked in with a solemn look on her face and said that several of our school’s students had not passed. They would have to be taken to the Improvers to see if anything could be done to help them.

I remember being irrationally scared. The fact that I’d always had some of the best scores in my grade seemed to disappear, and I somehow forgot how to breathe. I clenched my jaw to stop my teeth from chattering and dragged my fingernails across the backs of my hands as the teacher read out our scores.

I almost cried with relief when the teacher said I was in the ninety-second percentile. But then, oh then, the teacher called David’s name and her face crumpled.

David had been a quiet boy. I didn’t know that much about him, but he had always been nice. He held the doors open for people and it was rare to see him without a dreamy expression or pleasant smile on his face. That smile wasn’t there as the teacher said that David’s body fat percentage was too high, and that his intelligence and creativity scores were not properly balanced.

David’s hands shook as he packed his bags to meet the Improvers in the main office. He looked at me with teary eyes as he walked out the door, and the sight of his face blotching up made me dig my nails so deep into the back of my hands that I drew blood.

When David came back to class almost a month later, he was much leaner and we almost never caught him daydreaming.

After that I started to understand.

At eighteen, it was time for the gene tests.

If humans as a species were to continue evolving, we had to be careful with who was allowed to reproduce. That was what the gene tests were for. My mother and father had DNA that was likely to produce Up or even High children, so they’d been matched together. And then they’d had me, my two brothers, and my sister.

And then it was my turn. My career in electrical engineering had already been decided by the Career Test several months before, and now it was time to find my ideal partner.

I can remember how cold it was in the doctor’s office with only my gauzy paper medical gown. The hum of the scanner had not been comforting in the slightest, nor were the needles. When the nurse turned off the scanner, she instructed me to get up and sit on the examination table.

So I got up. And I sat. And I waited. And I waited. I waited for nearly an hour before the doctor came in. When she finally arrived, she sat down with a sigh and looked at me intently.

“Well, Laura, your scores are very high,” she said. Her mouth twisted a bit, and I knew there was something else.

“But?”

“But,” she said hesitantly, “Your brain scans and neurochemical samples show you have a certain… propensity towards anxiety.”

My blood ran cold.

“Tell me, Laura, have you ever experienced a panic attack?”

I wanted to say no. But the few and far-between explanations I’d heard as to what panic attacks were matched too perfectly with those instances where I had no control, where I could feel nothing but fear and cold sweat dripped down my spine and I choked down screams and clawed at my own skin. I gulped and nodded shakily.

The doctor looked at me with soft, sympathetic eyes. All of a sudden, I was struck by how odd it was that I’d never gone to the same doctor twice. That I didn’t even know this woman’s name and yet she literally held everything there was to know about me in the palm of her hand.

“Well,” the doctor drawled, stretching the word out like a cat in sunshine, “As I’m sure you know, these things are genetic. But your case is fairly minor, and all of your other scores, well… we can’t let you just slip through our fingers!” She laughed, but I will never forget how hollow and scripted it sounded. How much it made me want to squirm away.

“You see, we’ve found a young man who is the perfect genetic match for you. He doesn’t have any mental or emotional defects. Now, if you were to reproduce with him as-is, there would still be a very slight chance of your offspring having anxiety, and we can’t have that.”

I could sense another “but” coming.

“But,” she said, and her face had a painted-on smile that just looked wrong, “We have an Improver coming to see you. Your little problem is quite easy to take away, you see. We can keep this all very quiet. The only people who would know would be us and your parents. It’ll be fast, and there won’t be any scars! You’ll walk out of here anxiety-free and ready to contribute to the gene pool!”

And I just couldn’t say no. Mainly because there was a knock at the door and an Improver walked into the room. The doctor stood and scurried away without giving me a second glance.

“Hello, Miss Dale,” the Improver said in a deep voice, though it was a little muffled by the mask covering his mouth, “We are ready for you now.”

Before I could reply, the Improver grabbed my arm tightly and very nearly dragged me off the table, out of the room, and down the hall to the Improving Room. He loosened his bruising grip only when I was laid on the operating table.

With the flick of a switch the automated nurses whirred to life and brought the Improver trays and trays of instruments. I clenched my fists, and a scream began to bubble up in my throat. It had all happened so fast. Too fast. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want an Improver fiddling around in my brain to fix something that had always been a part of me, even if it had caused problems.

And then, I understood.

The panic turned to fury. I launched myself off the table and onto the Improver. I clawed at his face, shrieking like a madwoman. I was a madwoman. I grabbed one of the trays of surgical devices and slammed it down onto the Improver’s face. And then I did it again. And again and again and again. Until he stopped struggling, stopped breathing, stopped looking like a human being. Blood spattered my paper gown and slicked my hands.

The fog lifted.

I ran.

I ran and ran and ran. Out of the hospital, down the streets with no shoes and clad only in my underwear and bloodied medical gown. Parents screamed and pulled their children close. A frenzied laugh fought its way up my throat as I cried.

I was a murderer.

But I was free.

And now here I am. 48 years old. Three decades later. I am different. Hardened. I understand. I understand what happened to David, to the people who’d been Improved. To the Lows that had been “Freed”. I understand the Utopia that our government has been striving for. And I understand why it could never work.

The Improver in the hospital that day had been the first person I’d ever killed. There have been many others after him. My hands have been stained with blood. They have been calloused by the years of menial work I’ve had to do to stay alive. But they are still small. Still delicate and steady and precise.

Precise enough to build bombs. To soft-hack government computers and bots. To pluck the people who rightfully doubt the way our world is run out of the system. To keep them safe and hidden and just the way they are.

Scars mark the faces and bodies that the government bred to be perfect. But we are not perfect. We never can be. The Utopia of Highs can never be. There will always be a virus, a mutation, an imperfection.

I have made a family. I have made an uprising. We are the virus. We are the fly in the ointment. I have not taken down the system, but I have made the thing that will.

[adaswriting]

Insecurities

My insecurities have An open letter addressed to me It is added to at random intervals And so far it reads:

Dear Adair, Do not cry For skinned knees and bloody lips Boys will see your tears And pretend like they don’t know How much hurt comes from skin-deep wounds Will say it’s because you’re a girl And girls are inherently weak

When the sky is going purple And you can taste the watermelon You had for dessert Through the mint of your toothpaste And you’re crying bed because you miss your dog Keep quiet Because your parents are down the hall And they miss him more than you

On nights after a big dinner When you catch your reflection at a bad angle Act like you didn’t just think Of shoving your fingers Down your throat till you puke Because you’re smarter than that

When someone makes a joke at your expense Don’t say anything it’ll make it worse Just smile with your teeth So they can laugh but still see What would have clamped around their throats If you weren’t such a damn coward

There are no beautiful tragedies in this world But even if there were You would never be one of them So suck it up and keep going Because a lot of people have it worse And you know some of them

So don’t you dare Let those screams pass your lips Just hide them under your tongue Like you did with chewing gum Back in elementary school Because maybe one day they’ll turn into pearls And when you spit them out You can pretend you don’t know what made them

[adaswriting]

Varney Aesthetic

[adaswriting]

Maccus Aesthetic

[adaswriting]

Edna Aesthetic

[adaswriting]

Devin Aesthetic

[adaswriting]

Brigid Aesthetic

[adaswriting]

“I’ve been doing better.”

I unzip my wallet. I zip it back up. I do it again. Unzip. Zip. Unzip. Zip.

“I mean, I have bad days. But so does everybody else.”

Unzip. Zip. Unzip. Zip.

“The meds are helping. I’m not having as many attacks. And it’s easier to focus now, so...”

She stops her writing. Eyebrows crinkle together as she leans forward.

“And what about the rest?”

Her voice is soft. Concerned.

Unzip. Zip. Unzip. Zip.

“Depends on what you mean by the rest.”

A sigh. She poises her pen to write.

“When was the last time you were happy?”

Here’s how it happens.

It sneaks up on me.

I am preoccupied with other things. The crushing fear of everything falling apart, going wrong. My body going when it needs to stop. My brain moving too fast for my mouth to keep up. The inability to focus. Every sound, smell, feel being too much.

The idea that there could be something else wrong with me doesn’t occur.

Here’s how it happens.

It’s not like they tell you.

There’s no crying fully clothed in the shower. The weather does not turn gray and rainy so I can look mournfully out the window. My eye makeup is not artfully smeared by delicate tears.

I am not a beautiful tragedy, so I brush all those thoughts off.

Here’s how it happens

It’s an odd sense of dullness.

It’s waking up tired and staying that way. I never feel hungry, but I eat anyway. Things simply exist, never meaning more than what they are. The worries are gone, but so is everything else.

The realization is flat, matter-of-fact, emotionless.

Here’s how it happens.

“When was the last time you were happy?”

Here’s how it happens.

Unzip. Zip. Unzip. Zip.

Here’s how it happens.

“I don’t know.”

[adaswriting]

I bite my tongue until my mouth tastes like pennies and I can't breathe around the screams caught in my throat

When I don't want people to worry about me

[adaswriting]

I have resigned myself to mediocrity

For I have never been the best

The brightest

The favorite

Or the most important

Everything about me

Has always been average

Or slightly above

Admirable

But not worth special recognition

Not more than a pat on the back

Or constructive criticism

On how to be better

More than what I am

And I try

But I can't

So I wait

Until everyone else gets up to speed

And realizes like I have

That I have reached my potential

And that potential

Is nothing special

[adaswriting]

The Ninth of the Ninth

The opening for a new book I'm working on :)

The biggest threat to a Witch is another Witch.

We are selfish, jealous creatures who know nothing of mercy. These traits have been cultivated in us for generations. They are so integral to who we are that it is in our Code.

Protect your Coven when you can. Protect yourself always.

And we follow that code with a fevered abandon. For we are of Oak and Stone. Our edges are sharp and our minds sharper. We are animals, with gleaming teeth and ragged claws. We are beautiful and we are wild and we are ruthless.

We fight to survive, and we do not care whose blood must stain our hands for us to do so.

I know this better than most.