The green girl sprung awake, feeling the cold sweat on her body and in her sheets. The fiend bed was displeased with the liquid on its surface and growled. After kicking the bed to assert herself, Vendetta inhaled deeply, trying to catch her breath.

"What a nightmare," she panted. Outside, the rain poured from the skies and formed droplets of condensation on the gloomy mansion's Gothic-style windows. A roll of thunder crashed, bringing the fiend maker back to reality.

"I feel… needy."

Her stomach screamed like the Vegetable Fiends in distress. Slowly she stood and staggered into the kitchen for a can of clams.

Vendetta stared up at pantry cabinet on the wall. A look of anger crossed her round face. She had encountered this problem innumerable times before. Stacking boxes atop one another and climbing them to gain access to the food supply was completely undignified. Vendetta was a genius, an evil overlord. She had power and control. Her fifty-foot effigy was placed in the center of the town and watched over the citizens every minute of every day. It was a common belief among the more religious folks of Clamburg that Vendetta was a demon born in Hell. The fact that she couldn't reach the kitchen cupboard forced the demonic dictator embrace a truth that secretly angered her to no end. She was just a little girl.

"Hamster!" she called into the room where Grudge slept. "Come here!"

The large bearlike figure appeared in the doorway a moment later. He grunted obediently, awaiting the orders of his master.

"You are to reach the can of clams in the cupboard," Vendetta commanded, pointing upward at the cabinet. "You will need to stand on a chair. And do not fall! I do not wish to clean giant hamster blood off the floor!"

The fiend rodent grunted again and dragged a chair from the kitchen table to the area below the pantry.

Vendetta turned her attention from Grudge upon hearing a familiar noise from the other room. The sound had come from her parents moving around in their hamster crate and speaking to each other, two actions of which their daughter strictly forbade. Scowling, the green girl walked into the parlor and irately pulled away the white sheet that covered her mother and father's cage.

"What is this racket?" she demanded.

Vendetta's tiny parents cowered at the sight of their malevolent, powerful daughter. Their looks of fear did little to stifle the small girl's anger.

"You know you are to be quiet when I am at home!"

Violeta, a yellow-green woman with hair similar to her daughter's, swallowed hard and faced her darker green progeny.

"Vendetta, dear," she began, her voice trembling and her Bulgarian accent even thicker than the one of the girl she was speaking to. "You did not give your father and I our crouton this afternoon…"

The all-powerful child scoffed. She treated her parents well. They lived in a modest-sized hamster cage with nice furnishings, were given old magazines to amuse themselves, and were fed a nutritious meal of dried beans and a crouton on a daily basis (usually.) But most importantly, Vendetta had shown them mercy. They had been shrunken, but they were alive. And they had all of their appendages. It would be ungrateful of them to ask for much more.

"Did I not give you your crouton today?"

Viktor, Vendetta's dark green and heavyset father shook. "N-no, my darling… y-you did not…"

The fiend maker squatted so she may be eye-level with her miniature parents. "Do I give you your stupid food nearly every day?"

The tiny adults nodded.

"Does your cage protect you from the fiends in this house that could easily swallow you whole?"

Another synchronized nod.

Vendetta's eyes lit up evilly. "And can you two still feel your pulses?"

Viktor froze with fear. His wife answered for both of them. "Y-yes, Vendetta. We are forever in your debt."

The green child smirked. "Good. Now… What is it you want from me again, stupid parents?"

The heavyset man scratched his chin confusedly. "Our… crouton…?"

Vendetta clenched her teeth. Wrong answer. She rattled her tiny parents' cage violently, causing them to dive for cover under the mousetrap balanced on an eraser that passed for a dining room table.

The evil child sneered at their spinelessness and threw the white sheet back overtop of the hamster crate. She then returned to the kitchen without so much as a backward glance at the cowardly little adults.

You pay attention to me now. Perhaps you should have given me this attention when I wanted it.

The memories of her past swallowed her like the Giant Kitty once literally did.

At six years old, Vendetta was mastering algebra and reading Shakespeare with ease. Her first grade teacher, Mr. Yogurtson, was amazed at her progress. Unfortunately, the schoolboard of Clamburg had a strict policy against advancing schoolchildren a grade or two. This left Vendetta bored stiff in her studies of simple addition and vowel sounds.

The little green girl was truly gifted. But cursed at the same time. She became an outcast for her brilliance and was ostracized for seeing things in a different way than her classmates did. Watching Marvin shove a pencil up his nose wasn't funny. It was bizarre and sickening. Popular TV cartoons weren't amusing. They were dull and cliché-ridden. Vendetta couldn't seem to communicate with her peers, no matter how hard she tried or what façade she attempted to don. Even Malachi pulled communication off with more aplomb than she did. She could sum up her feelings toward school in three words:

I am alone.

Vendetta was sad. She would often try to go to her mother and father for consolation when she felt most depressed. But they were not affectionate parents. Their daughter's problems and emotions were of little interest to them. In fact, they were a burden. Needless to say Violeta and Viktor were neglectful toward Vendetta. Just like everyone else in her life.

One summer, Viktor finally noticed his child's moping around the house and complaining about having no one to interact with. So he did a good deed. He took Vendetta to Clamburg's Normal Pet Supplies Store and bought her a little orange hamster whom she named George. George had been the runt of the litter. He was an outcast, just like his owner. The two would forever share a bond.

Despite the girl and the hamster's closeness, Vendetta still felt something missing inside of her. She could talk to George all she wanted. But he would never be able to answer her. (But thanks to George's mere company, lack of communication between the green girl and her peers had become less of an emotional problem.) Something else bothered her. Something deeper. Vendetta knew what it was, but chose not to admit it. She would never gain the immaterial thing she strongly desired: the love of her parents. Even in the rare times when she felt happy, one recurring thought killed her joy in one blow.

George and I… we are alone.