She was never supposed to be seen. They said her face was wrong, her body wrong, her very existence an offense to the glossy fantasy they worshipped. She swallowed their laughter until it turned molten, rising in her throat like something feral and holy. By the time the world realized what they’d created, it was too late. The night she vanished, she walked into the dark with a pocket full of pills, a half-finished song, and a heart that had finally decided it was done begging for permission to exi… Continues…