She looks ahead. There are trees for as far as she can see. A forest, she thinks it's called. She wishes she had her dictionary. She could only bring one book. Black Beauty.

Filly doesn't know the year or the time, only that she has been trapped for a long time. She doesn't yet know that she is fifteen. Fire burns within her at the warmth of the outside. The green lengths between her toes is what Black Beauty eats, she thinks. It is grass.

The outside is louder than she remembers, though she doesn't remember much of anything now. What did her parents sound like? What is her name? She had already lost those things. Filly reminds herself that she must hold on to her hope. She never thought her plan would work, but she was wrong. She can be wrong again when she assumes she will die in these woods with no food or water.

There isn't a large, pleasant meadow for her to run in. There is no pond of clean water.

However, there is water, somewhere. She follows the setting Sun until she reaches it, recalling that it rises in the east and sets in the west. She would feel much better if she could see the page again, how it's written exactly, but she must make do with her own memory.

She feels dry, dropping to the shore of the water. Filly is so incredibly thirsty that she sticks her head right in the lake.

"Ugh!" Filly resurfaces, shaking her shaved head frantically. Something burns in her nostrils but it isn't coming out. She should not have done that. Instead, she starts to bring handfuls of the murky liquid up to her mouth.

She misses her encyclopedia. It's too bad she leave the large tomes behind. One page she had seen told her that water isn't always safe, that it can have bad things in it like parasites and illnesses. She wishes she knew or could read about how to make it clean, but she has no choice now. She would rather die of disease than hunger.

She fills her stomach with silt and drinks, hopeful it will calm her stomach pains. Her gown is thin, allowing the air to seep in. The first few nights, it doesn't bother her, but as she weakens she feels it more and more.

Like Beauty, she feels that she has known better days. She can remember the good feelings, but not the memories.


The grass carpets every bit of the ground she can find. It takes her weeks to find that it can't sustain her. It makes her feel nauseous after three days, but she keeps trying, nothing else available to satiate her.

She spits it out in the dirt, laying on her side by a small wood construction. She can see inside it, but there is no way in and it's empty. There's no one inside whenever she comes here. She still uses it as a shelter, it keeps the wind from getting to her too much. She likes to sit on the porch here and read also.

She makes trips from the cabin to the lake and back again for what feels like several months. She keeps a tally on the outer wall of the building though, so she knows it has only been 18 days. During her next trip to the lake, she looks inside of it. She sees fish too deep to reach, turtles skimming just under the glassy lake. Odd-looking birds float upon the surface. She knows from experience that none of them are viable food sources as she can't catch them.

When she looks again to the water lapping at her toes, she starts at the sight. She first thinks they are some kind of parasite. A closer look reminds her of what they truly are.

Tadpole: noun /ˈtædˌpoʊl/

The tailed aquatic larva of an amphibian (frog, toad, newt, or salamander), breathing through gills and lacking legs until the later stages of its development.

The little dots that dance around her feet do not look appetizing, but beggars can't be choosers.


She finds what she thinks was once a lot, some kind of car spot maybe. It's too close to the people. She can see many people from here, it makes her feel unsecure.

Are they watching her too? She's afraid they are looking for her in this town. It is the closest place to that lab.

She wants to stay, the stationary vehicle is a perfect place for her to keep warm. She can't force herself to be there at the time, though. She vaguely recalls the seasons, that it will get colder as the year progresses. She knows she won't have a choice soon, so she leaves again.

She goes back to the cabin for the night. She marks another tally on the wall, nearly overwhelmed looking at the number of marks.

"149," Filly says, a tear leaking from her eyes that stare at the multitude of her etchings. She doesn't feel like she's really gotten away from those people at the lab. She sets the broken bottle back down on the porch, pulling her hope from under the boards. With hope in her hand, she sits down again on the planks. She heartened by reading Beauty's tale again.

"My troubles are all over, and I am at home." Filly repeats the line a few times, reverently sealing the board back over her copy of the novel. The mantra is her lullaby.


It's so cold now that she sleeps inside the bus. Though she liked the cabin and the relative safety of the woods, she couldn't take the cold anymore. She had transfered her tally to the lot. There are all kinds of things laying around there. Filly hopes it means she can find things to use in the piles, something to keep her warm or feed her.

She finds mostly scraps, but some cloth bits that she uses to wrap her feet and a warm poncho. The ratty fabric is a british racing green with vertical stripes of taupe, fitting if she ever needed to blend into the treeline. She finds a single blanket. Something plays at the edge of her memory when she looks at the well aged fabric, dark blue and pink color, but she can't put a finger on what it is.

The first time she looks inside a tree, she's surprised to find living things. It's so cold she thought nothing could live in the forest right now. The hunger is starting to get to her, making her unsteady on her feet. She doesn't feel right about this, but it's been so long since she felt full.

The hatchlings are alone, she can see it clearly, their mother probably off fetching grub. The tree tops are lush and green, but she had tried to eat that before and it had only made her feel worse. No fruit-bearing plants could be found this time of year. When she starts her climb, the bark cuts into her soft skin like butter. She ingores the pain, focusing on keeping her grip. She must eat something.

The single, unhatched egg sits in the nest, looking lonely between the three hatchlings. The sounds ring in her ears, a chorus of distressed chirping sounds in the forest. It's as if they know that Filly has turned into a predator. She hates this, but she's so hungry. The first one is the roughest. She has never used her hands to kill before.

The second one goes down easier. She simply swallows them whole. She can't think about chewing them or how their warm blood would touch her tongue, lest she send herself into a fit. She snaps their tiny necks, a choked sob leaving her.

She will find a way to survive, Filly thinks, sniveling.

As long as she has hope.


Her hope is tucked deeply into the bus's rearmost seat. It's the one she spends the most time in, reading or staying warm. A large slit in the faux leather makes the perfect hiding place. It's important to her that no one ever puts their hands on it.

The cold has started to melt away now, the air warming from the entrance of Summer. Her tally is up to 238 now, but she no longer uses that system. She simply writes it on the inner wall of the bus each day. There are some rocks she's found that work as a chalk, leaving behind a white residue that easily marks the gray metal. Filly is thankful that she can recall how to write them. She has lost so many of the finer details to the passing of time

It's warm enough for her to go back to the cabin, but she started feeling comfortable here. Even though there are thousands in the town, she can keep an eye on things from here.

The forest is close, a short sprint from her home. If she ever needed to get out fast, she had an escape route. She can't gallop like Beauty through the field, but Filly is sure she can get away if she has to.


After 313 days, the temperature had started to drop again. There are people that come to her yard, usually around her age. It doesn't happen often and they never stay long, she just stays in the bus when she sees people.

Filly remembers many words from her dictionary. What she doesn't always remember is how to put them together. She doesn't know what she would say if anyone found her.

On day 352, she thinks they will. Four children had come to her yard, younger than she's seen in these parts. Filly watches.

Eleven hadn't meant to do anything bad. She hadn't meant to hurt Lucas. She doesn't know there is a familiar person on the bus behind them. Filly doesn't know anything about the little blonde girl, doesn't recall her at all. They are sisters, lost to each other for almost a year now. They hadn't known each other well in the lab.

Both girls were the type to keep to themselves, but for different reasons. Eleven was almost always the subject of Two's anger, he would bully her because she was far more skilled than he was. Filly was just afraid. All the children in the lab looked at her with disdain because she was weak in their eyes. Her only power is sight, unable to defend herself with telekinesis or anything of the sort.

Neither of them know that a kindred soul is just feet away.

X-ray images of kids break into a fight, the shouting making her uneasy. They roll on the ground and one of the skeletons goes flying. Filly didn't know children could throw each other like that. She had always been physically weak since her youth.

Filly worries for a moment that the ebony skinned child won't wake up. Of course she fears for his safety, but also her own. If the authorities flood her junkyard, she would be forced to flee back to the treeline. It's cold out now, cold enough to make her staying in the woods unpleasant. In a few months, she would freeze to death if her junkyard was cordoned off.

She's very please when two of the children disappear, prompting the others to disappear as well.

Filly doesn't recall how to pray. She sometimes reminisces over her mother, a foggy image of her making Filly kneel by her bedside when she was young. She doesn't remember what was said, or how to start a prayer. However, she remembers the motions, so she prays.

She prays she won't be found here, prays no one will ever take her hope.


The resonance of a steel crashing against asphalt reaches Filly's ears. It is the one sound she will never forget. She tries looking but whatever made the noise isn't close enough to see.

After that group of children had gone, she'd been cautious. She hadn't left her yard in the few days following it. The one thing she never expected was to see them again.

None of the yard's guests had ever appeared twice until now.

"Holy... Holy shit!" the one with curly hair shouts, following the bike that carried the two others. Filly checks her hope. Black Beauty still rests securely in the seat's stuffing. "Did.. did you see what she did to that van?"

"No, Dustin. We missed it," says the first boy to arrive. The blonde girl from before had just stepped off his bike, but she is missing her blonde hair. She watches the girl, only knowing the tresses she had seen were not there. She could not see details well, only shape. For colors, she had to focus intently. It had only ever been something she could do in the bath. Skeletal figures with dim outlines of hair and clothing stand about in her yard, she had learned to identify people this way. It's quite easy for the one who spoke first. There are parts missing from him, teeth and bones that should be there are not. She feels she could pick him out of a crowd.

Filly thinks it odd that a girl would shave her own head when she had had such nice hair. She thinks long hair is beautiful, vague flashes of her own long, black locks fuzzy in her memory. Looking at it only makes her think of the lab, where every subject had the same hair and clothes. Maybe the girl has been sent to bring her back, or maybe she is just a girl who keeps her hair short. Maybe she was just waiting for it to grow back.

"I mean that was..."

"Awesome. It was awesome." The boy that flew the other day, Lucas, finishes his thought. She recalls them screaming his name when he had been knocked out. He approaches her, kneeling down so close to the bus that she fear they can hear her breathing. "Everything I said about you being a traitor and stuff... I was wrong. I'm sorry."

Filly feels a bit better, seeing them all get along again. She wishes she had her dictionary, she doesn't know that word. "Traitor" holds no meaning for her. She also wishes the test subjects she had known were more like these kids. They are friends, they apologize to each other when they have done wrong. She watches them interact, feeling almost jealous of what they have, what she could never obtain.

"Friends..." the girl starts. "Friends don't lie. I'm sorry too."

"Me too." The two skeletons shake hands.

Apparently, the partially boned boy is the only one that isn't sorry. Their names are difficult for her to remember, having only committed to memory what she had heard almost a full year ago from Brenner. She doesn't know the last time she memorized any new words. Sadly, there are no names in a dictionary.

Filly forces herself to pay attention once more, to watch. The bone structures crowd in a circle, speaking in a hush.

"This is Randolph Road, right here. The fence starts here, and goes all the way around." Lucas places an empty can in the center of their stick circle. "And this is the lab right here. The gate's gotta be in there somewhere. It's gotta be."

Filly goes cold, though she is wrapped in her thick poncho. They know of the lab. She is no longer watching, images of her impending capture flashing in her eyes. She can't see, but she shakes her head clear and tries to listen. She stays as still and as quiet as possible, closing her eyes.

"No, weapons. To fight the Russians and commies and stuff," says the boy with dark hair. Filly doesn't know that is name is Mike. She doesn't know that the children are running from the same people as her.

"Oh, Jesus, this is bad," Dustin comments, looking between his friends.

Lucas agrees, "Really bad. This place is like a fortress." Filly is so busy listening that she doesn't see, but she hears. She hears the spinning of blades above and instantly recognizes the noise. The lab has come for them and if they find her... She dares not think of it again.

She doesn't need to look to know a helicopter is near.

"G-guys," stutters the partial skeleton, noticing the same thing as Filly. "Do you hear that?"

Filly covers her ears. The bus rattles, but she doesn't know why. She isn't watching. What if they know she's here?

"Go, go, go, go!"

She knows the children will see her, there is no way to hide here but she can't leave the bus now. Stomps sound inside her home now, her fate coming closer as nausea grips her. She'll be found.

"Get down!" They run in so frantically that they don't see her yet. She finally sees them. Filly sees them as something other than skeletons now. When was the last time she saw a person with her eyes instead of her sight?

She forces down the feeling in her stomach, staying pressed to the back of the seat. They finally see her. They hastily get down by the other bench seats, all but one staying far away.

"Seven?"