Abnormal

    A normal girl would feel fear. A normal girl would panic to awaken in a cold prison. I'm not a normal girl. So many have told me I'm not normal, and they have never let me forget it. 

    Fear, I once knew fear. I felt fear from my Father's gaze. I felt fear late in the night when he would come to greet me, I felt fear when he doused the old house in gasoline and lit the match. My fear died with him there-with that house. 

    I was found in the attic just before the flames reached the window. I didn't feel fear as I was carried two stories down a ladder. I didn't feel fear as I was taken in by the state. I didn't feel fear. It was like I was reborn in that ash.

    I didn't feel fear, no. My fear, the fear I felt for so long, was replaced with something else. I felt alive. For now, I slept. Not only did I rest but I planned. When I awoke I removed my flimsy toothbrush from the bag. A skinny affair that you would get for free at a roach motel. I tested its width in the grooves in the ceiling. Almost a perfect fit.

    I begin to bite down on the plastic. When the task was done I found purchase on the edges of the grooves and smoothed out my tool running it back and forth quickly like a saw. I ran it inside the grooves until I found a lock.