I liked it because it was dark. Because dark is easy. It is the absence of light. It shuts away that shining, glaring bright beam that hurts at my eyes and makes the world too bright sometimes. In the dark the world is dull, easier to see and black. Black hides the things you do not want to see or hear, black makes them easier because you can pretend they do not exist. If the world is black- nothing exists but dark- and in the dark nothing matters. It has no shape, no form, no meaning until you shine light upon it and fracture that splendid darkness and give it meaning and shape and form and they say it is one thing, they say it is a dog or a tree or a purse and maybe it is...but I don't know. I don't remember, I don't see it. I don't see what they see. They tell me what to see and I learn to say it. They say it is a fork or a flower or a book and I learn because I have to, because I have to be like them to survive. I just want to...be like them. I say the things they say and sometimes the words break and crumble on my lips because my mind detests them and hates them and they hurt my ears and my tongue will not form the words no matter how hard I try until I have to scream it and shout it and yell it because I am tired and frustrated and angry- and then they stare. They stare and whisper and point because they believe I can't see, they think I don't know- but I do. They did it here in this...place. I hate the sky water, I hate when it grabs me and touches my skin and stings it with cold and rolls like fingers on me. It feels like hands, hands that touch and touch and won't let go until my mind thinks only of it and it won't leave and it holds and holds and makes me angry. It was warm so I came in. Warm and dry.

I just wanted to sit. Just wanted to be left alone, sit and be quiet. Sit and shut up. She told me that. All the time. The one who smelled like death with fingers that cut and a voice that pulled like ropes and chains and hurt the inside of my mind. Hate her. Hate her. Kill her. Fucking Risky. Stop. Sitting- just sitting but they talk with voices that scratch and wail. Birdie. I know Birdie. They got to close...all of them, to close. So I made it dark. Don't have to see them then. Wait for Birdie or Tetra. Tetra always comes. Always. My favourite- but it is not his scent, no, this is a smell I know, the smell of Birdie. Curly hair that is soft and eyes that are like sky and smell that is like Ark with hands that I like. She talks about the rain. Rain. The sky water. She likes the rain but she is wrong, I know she is wrong because she does not understand. She tries the most though, harder than the others she tries to understand. She looks at me when I talk. She looks at my eyes and I know she sees that I am trying so hard to make her understand, to make them all understand that the words do not always work. I just want them to listen, I just want them to see and she does. I think. She sees but not always, not every time and I don't want to be....hot but this is the.....feeling.....that comes. She does not understand why I hate it. Hate it. Hate it. It clings to me and I cannot get it off, it is cold and wet and clings like a skin I don't want to wear. Tetra is the same. Sprays the water at me. Clean he says, clean. I do not know about the clean and I do not care, but Tetra cares, so maybe I should care or pretend, copy, mimic- be like them. So I try. Try to explain. I don't like the rain because it is like water, it clings to me, I hate that feeling, I hate the way it touches my skin and chills my body and falls into my eyes- but they are not the words that come as I sit up and move to look at her- to look at her eyes with features that frown and show displeasure all the same.

"Rain is....sticky and.....bad."

They are not the words I want. They are not even close but they are the words my lips and tongue and mind will say and nothing else, fist pounding against the ground. Not because of her. Not at her- at me, because I am...useless. The sound that comes is sharp and piercing and breaks all the blackness of my cave and I can feel them, smell them, hear them and that thing that I am is hungry and mad and wild all at once and I cannot stop the claws that rip each fingernail from my form. Do they know how much that hurts? Do any of them understand how much it hurts to have my fingernails ripped off my body over and over because I cannot stop the claws? I need them though. Have to protect her. She is my thing. Belongs to me. Just for me. Only I can touch- not them. But they are fast those sneaky sneaks with their hands that grab and the people that shout and the screaming that follows and they touch her- have hands on her. I know this makes her...sad and she cannot be sad. Not when I am here but there are others that come and circle around me. I want to tell them to stop because they are scaring her, because I can smell it on her- but they are scared too. They pretend not to be but I can taste it, like....steak or meat or blood, it drips and runs and leaks from them and the world shatters all over again. It becomes simple. It becomes easy. It hurts to be rid of skin and hair and clothing, it hurts every bone and joint and muscle but it takes away the other things that hurt too and all I see is the ones in my way.

It is like the world is black again, black and white. I do like that. Black and white...and red. Red that ruins this portrait. The policeman are the red in my vision and I do not want them there. So I will remove them. Flesh parts beneath claws. Blood runs and bodies fly, sounds come from my throat that make them scream and run or lay down and hide and pretend to die- but I see the chest that rises and falls. Air in. Air out. They think I don't know but I do. Don't care. Birdie. Paw and paw and paw and paw. I do like patterns. Paw and Paw and Paw and Paw go to Birdie, stepping over prey that is bloodied. She is strong my Birdie. Stronger then they know. I like this- but I am stronger. I go first, pushing past Birdie to go to the door, to go first. Cat is first and rain has stopped. Good. Walking. Birdie will follow, always follows, walking and walking and walking away from that place but....something smells good. Change direction. Get the food, get the food. Up into the window, down onto the floor. Many....boxes.

Birdie......what is.....this?

I do not know about the table that shines and the clippers that clip and brushes that brush but the air here is strong with scents that are what Tetra calls 'clean'. I do not like clean. Only want the food but it is hiding from me. Food likes to hide from me. I think sometimes Tetra helps it- but doors open and voices come again and vampires stare. How the hell did you two get out of your cages? Riley, come and help me get these two done, the owner will be back soon and they haven't even been started! Get the bath going.

I do not know many words- but bath is one and I think that I do not like bath or vampires that grab the scruff of my neck......

madness, as you know, is like gravity: all it takes is a little push