Knee deep in grass on a beautiful sunny day with the dew just starting to burn off, the young girl walked. She did not see the grass, or the trees, or the hills. She saw the people around her, and not around her. She could not remember a time when there had been people like these; she knew it had existed, but she could not remember it. Well that was not true either, but she refused to believe that the things she saw had been people too, they were too much like monsters. She had read about the people she wanted to meet; they were not like the monsters who hurt her and the others.

Well, she had stopped them from hurting her. Now they just hurt others. She looked down at herself, there were scars slicing across her skin in lines, splashes, and waves. Some were from cuts, some were from burns, and some were teeth marks from where her own teeth had tried to remove the pain. They had not removed the pain; instead they served as reminders that the pain did not go away and neither did the marks.

She could feel the wires in her hand under the skin, the things her teeth had tried to remove. They no longer pulsed with electricity; instead, they sat there keeping her from opening her hand or clinching it. The wires were all over her like a second set of veins. They hurt and they throbbed. They would, at times, cut if she stretched to far. The healing hurt worse than the injury. She no longer raised an arm or a leg higher than necessary, because the wire would hurt. She wasn’t sure why she cared. She could no longer feel pain the same way most people felt it, or the way most people who had not already been truly pained, felt it. She felt pain but it failed to truly hurt her, until it became overwhelming, until every nerve ending in her body was in pain at the highest level.

She kept walking; the images of the perfect people walking around her, talking to her. She did not talk back; these people were not real, just looked like it. She had dreamed of people at night for a time; but she also did at day now. They were what people should be, and they were always with her. Passing her in the meadow or sitting by a stream, they would call to her; but she didn't answer. They were not there; she knew that, and so, she kept walking.

She came to a village; there were more strangers here. People, good people; but not real people. She walked through the town finally sitting on the grass and watching the people. They would try to talk to her, she did not answer for fear they might disappear, as so many others had.

Inside a small shop, a man looked out at her and looked at his friend, “Who is that? She won't talk, she won't move, she just sits watching.” “She is one of the lost children. A child who endured torture, and starvation, and ‘changing’ by the others. She was lost in the wood for years. She saw people in her minds eye so long that she can no longer tell if we are real or not.” “What will happen to her?” “She will go on and leave after a week, or so sitting there, and will walk to another town or into the woods or off a cliff. These children do not feel pain or fear; and they are dying by the hundreds as they starve to death, because they can not feel hunger, or do not care. These children, the others have created, they are often known as the “Traveling Lost.” The man looked at his friend, “Is there nothing that we can do to help?” “You can kill them,” his friend replied. The man nodded and stood walking over to the girl on the ground. She sat looking at him no fear in her eyes, no emotion. There were marks all over her; but they did not seem to bother her. He looked down at the girl and said “I hope this will not hurt.” and with that, he drew his knife across her scarred throat. As he did, he cut the cables restraining all her body. Able to move fully again, she fell to the ground, sprawled, finally able to do so and finally she knew he was real.