Rescued from death only to be tortured by my feelings? And here I thought I had spent the last decade cultivating a hard, hermetically sealed shell in which to place my heart!

This place conjures up so many uncomfortable feelings. The ones I’d thought I’d buried long ago.
I remember the ridicule, the derision, the sense that I didn’t belong. The scorn on my father’s face. The sad look on my sister’s face. The cruel smirks from strangers.
And yet here I stand, in amongst a throng of my people, bruised and pale, ready to offer my life so readily once more, barely recovered from almost having it taken from me not even three weeks earlier.

I want so badly to cut out whatever part of me remembers how to feel, and put it away so that it will no longer trouble me.