The sun-girl woke in antiseptic internment, cuffed to a metal table.
Men in mint-colored masks gathered around her, poking and prodding and puncturing her flesh. They harvested samples of her blood through a hollow hypodermic needle, pressed their fingers to her wrists, listened to her chest. Almost as if to say: Does she even have blood? Does she even have breath?
They scrubbed the brown from her skin until every inch of her was inoculated, vaccinated. And then they sat her down in a metal chair, under a shroud of white fluorescence.
“What is your name?”
“Ilana.”
“Surname?”
“I … I don’t know.”
“How old are you?”
“Eleven, I think.”
“Where are your mother and father?”
“Dead.”
“Why are you in West?”
“There was an … attack. I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Did you know that it i
