The little girl never saw the sun.
Not since the day her mother brought her to work and they never went home.
People said the sun was bad now. She could hear people talking when they didn't know she was listening.
"Solar readings...no way we could have predicted any more accurately...CDC had no reason to anticipate this type of cataclysmic event...escaping samples...accelerated mutation…"
And always that same word, "flare".
She didn't understand much of what the people in white coats said to each other.
But the little girl understood that she was somewhere without any windows and she never saw the sun.
She never saw any other kids either. At least at first.
Then one day she caught sight of a whole group of them being lead in.
Most of them were crying and the little girl wanted to tell them that it was ok, she had cried too at first.
But before she could even get close a hand had closed over her shoulder and one of the people in white coats was depositing her in her mother's office.
Her mother barely glanced up from the glowing screen in front of her as she told the little girl one of the most important things she would ever hear.
Something that would become the central statement in the little girl's life, though she didn't know it yet.
"You're not one of them, Ada." Her mother's eyes flicked up briefly to meet the little girl's before they returned to examining the screen. "They have important work to do. Don't interfere."
The little girl never saw the sun.
And after that day it felt a little darker.