The Woman They Tried To Erase

mera wanted

onsciousness inte

hey would cut Sarah

re

choice. My cho

ay

what everyone

preferr

Caleb, the man I on

le damn

na' s smile,

. Not

ot her hands dirty, who

ho kept t

ed to see the b

d the supplies

me to disappear, so A

one called "Subject 7" in some old, frag

esilience was

"advancement of h

ab

amiliar weig

g one, the capable one, the o

ragged myself ba

o run into

re-Walkers

medicine

he credit, fluttering her

te," she' d said, h

sked her life

ing

e I sometimes surfaced when the stress

look at me.

ght. "The Chimera people are he

to the body, and he preferr

s. She' s better at.

ouldn' t m

sink back down, to l

nvisibl

ls, they were just to

ger struck, an emba

was a burd

refusal to break, it

of the fire, of

e, their chance to preten

he grim

s, the nights I spent patching

e just...

too grim, too much Sarah

rah," they'd say. "Yo

red anyone. Sh

o, standing a litt

, now held a different lig

is weight, u

ut carrying the same message. "Let Anna talk to them. She kn

' s charm, not

strength. Now, it see

at felt

how it al

for Anna, a con

day of the fire. The day my parents

day they celebrated

h" day a

lve settled

on was too d

to be seen, to be valued

st Caleb, at the struggli

me, but they

em hav

Chimera do

g was the only pe

, my voice flat,

Let Anna

ave what t