The girl was short for her age, and was only grateful that it was not winter. She hated winter. Sometimes she went for months without changing if it was cold.
However, it was the end of summer and the beginning of autumn so it was cold out. In an age where most people now owned washing and drying machines it was rare that she could find clothes so easily. Shoes were harder, but she didn't need shoes. Her feet were tougher than any boot's sole. Still, humans required shoes. It was stupid, but humans did strange things and she needed to look as human as possible.
The dress she'd stolen was bright blue with a few green and yellow stripes on the hem. Her hair was blonde, and a bit of a mess in a rats nest so she tied it on top of her head in a haphazard knot. Her fingernails had dirt under them.
She didn't mind. She liked the dirt. She'd kept herself safe hiding in the dirt more than once before. She knew this place. She could smell it in the air. A scent of home. What mioght have been home. She had seen the lab, or what it used to be. It was closed down now.
Good.
Still, she wasn't there for Uncle. She was there for her cousin. She was here. She couldn't see or smell her, but she could feel her. She needed her help, desperately.
It took some focus, but she found the minds of her friends. The only friends who were always there. Friends that didn't leave or hurt her. She slipped into their thoughts and became one with them, her eyes becoming theirs. Birds couldn't see the world the same way that humans did. She missed the colors, but that was the only complaint she ever had. That and the aches and nosebleeds that often followed.
It was a starling that found her cousin. The girl wasn't too fond of starlings. They were cowardly alone, but bullies in groups. Still, they made excellent spies. Through the eyes of the starling she watched as her cousin entering a large building. A school, she was sure. It certainly looked different from a bird's eyes.
Her cousin looked…happy. She was holding a boy's hand as she walked toward the enterance of the building. She was surrounded by others. A pack of humans. She was smiling and joking with the other young males of the pack. She was glad that her cousin had a pack. People needed packs the same way dogs and wolves did. The same way birds needed a flock.
It made her sad to think she might be taking one of her own away from her pack. She wished she had her pack again, but this was bigger and more important than pack.
She peeled her mind away from the starling's and gasped when she opened her eyes, back in a human world of color in her stolen blue dress. She regained her bearings and began walking towards the school, wiping her bloody nose off on her wrist, leaving a long, red mark over the black tattoo on her wrist that read 009.
