"A through M? N through Z?"

Blink.

"N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U , V, W, X, Y-"

Blink.

"Okay. That's a Y. Next letter. A through M? N through Z? Space? Period?"

Blink.

"Okay, that's a period. The word is AMY. Next letter."

Victoria was losing patience and it was only twenty minutes into her diary entry. The words were clear in her head but her progress was frustratingly slow. Her leftmost pair of eyes gazed at the whiteboard where her nurse, Miss Worthington, was writing her words.

DEAR AMY. THEY SAY YOURE GONE. BUT I CANT STOP THINKING ABOUT YOU. I HAVE TIME TO THINK NOW. BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU DID TO ME. CANT MOVE CANT SLEEP CANT EAT REAL FOOD CANT BATHE SELF ALL I CAN DO IS THINK AND ALL I HAVE TO THINK ABOUT IS YOU. AMY. AMY.

She knew her letter wouldn't reach Amy. The useless doctors wouldn't even send it, wouldn't even try. The letter was an exercise. She was supposed to write what she wished she could tell her sister if she could.

Amy. She was getting stuck on Amy's name again. But it was so tempting. She wished she could speak, wished she could savor the taste of her sister's name on her lips.

Blinking would have to do.

AMY. A. M. Y. YOURE ALL I HAVE LEFT. MOM DAD SARAH CRYS THEY SHUT ME AWAY AND FORGOT ME BUT I KNOW YOU REMEMBER. I KNOW YOU THINK OF ME EVERY DAY MINUTE SECOND. BECAUSE YOU BETRAYED ME. BECAUSE YOU LOVE ME. YOU ALWAYS LOVED ME AND I NEVER KNEW HOW MUCH.

WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME AMY. YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU SO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY. I NEED YOU TO HOLD ME TOUCH ME FIX ME BEG FOR MY FORGIVENESS BUT YOU LOCKED YOURSELF AWAY WHERE I CANT REACH YOU. WHY ARE YOU SO CRUEL. DO YOU HATE ME AMY. ALL I WANT IS TO SEE YOU AGAIN BUT THEY WONT LET ME GO. I BEG AND BEG BUT THEY NEVER LISTEN

Victoria wriggled, a ripple of violent motion, her muscles flailing as her useless nerves misfired. Raw and ragged emotion in desperate need of release. Couldn't move, couldn't scream, couldn't even cry with the useless tear ducts her sister had given her-

Miss W shivered. "Victoria, please."

Victoria blinked and struggled to make her body go still. It took long seconds before she had enough of a grip on herself to dial down her aura.

It was getting harder to keep her awe-inducing aura under control, now that it was one of her only means of expression. All she had were the three. Blinking. Wriggling. And her aura.

She closed her eyes - all of her eyes that she was capable of closing. The signal for a break.

Miss W ran a hand through her gray hair and took a long swig from a plastic water bottle. The woman had been speaking out loud for an hour now. Then she tapped a faucet next to her. Victoria wriggled, an agreed-upon signal. Yes. The nurse turned the faucet and a tube squirted a pulse of cool water into Victoria's lower left mouth, the one that was connected to her stomachs.

Victoria tried to calm herself. Writing in her diary was painful but it was necessary. She needed it to stay sane.

That was what the doctors told her, anyway. She knew better. She wasn't sane. No one could stay sane like this. She was meant to be a high school girl, a superhero, the toast of high society. Now she was a jumble of body parts, mashed onto a fleshy carpet the rough size and shape of a queen-sized mattress cover.

Trapped in a body that wasn't her own, that she couldn't move. Trapped in a mind that wasn't her own, that didn't move in all the ways it should.

But she wrote her diary anyway, to hold on to the single, thin thread of sanity she had left.

Everyone had anchors in their mind. Touchstones that made them strong, that gave you something to live for. Their health, lover, family, career, hobbies. If they lost one of those precious things they could turn to the others to hang on to their sense of identity and worth. An old woman who distracted herself from her failing health by bringing smiles to her grandchildren. A man who lost his only child and lost himself in his hobbies.

All of her anchors were gone, now. The world had stolen them away. Health? Love? Family? Career? Hobbies? They were all gone and she didn't have a chance in hell of getting them back in the cramped little asylum room where her traitor family had locked her away and forgotten her. Dad was the only one who visited her and he hadn't come in weeks.

The doctors thought she'd find something to live for in the asylum. They were delusional. They gave her a crappy TV set in her room, endless therapy sessions rehashing the same themes, and 'social time' with broken people like herself. Useless. No stimulation, no change, no hope, nothing, nothing, nothing.

The natural end was to let herself drift. Unanchored, untethered, to devolve into a feral animal or an unmoving vegetable for the nurses to feed and water every day. Too many of the inmates here did.

But she still had one anchor remaining. Only one. Untouched, untouchable by anything the world could do to her.

Love.

The undying spark of love her wonderful, terrible sister had planted in her mind.

Victoria had denied it at first, had used her other anchors to distract herself and suppress it for a time, but now they were all gone and she was left alone in her unmoving body and unmoving mind with only that pure spark of love for company.

After the first month she had come to see her sister's violation as a gift. She hated her sister with a burning passion, but feeling nothing but hatred for months would have been so...lonely. The love gave her something to balance it out. The only positive desire that moved her anymore, the only motive spark that kept her sane and made her think.

On her good days it gave her focus. She fantasized about their reunion. She would make a cunning plan, invoke an obscure law for patient's rights and force the doctors to send her to the Birdcage. The doors would open wide and Amy would be there waiting for her. Amy would rush to her side and grovel and beg for forgiveness and promise to never betray her again. Then Amy would touch her with her hands, her beautiful deadly hands, and this time her touch would heal her and make her human again. She would wrap her new arms around Amy and they would cry their hearts out and hug each other tight and never let go and everything would be right again-

Those were the good days.

On other days, her bad days, she let herself give in to the spark completely and spent hours writing confession letters. Telling Amy that she forgave her for everything, that none of it was Amy's fault, that it had all been her own fault for being a heartless bitch of a sister and letting Amy down when she needed her the most. Begging Amy for forgiveness and promising that she didn't mind how she had punished her, she deserved it and humbly accepted it and was grateful to Amy for making her like this-

Miss W was staring at Victoria with wide eyes, drops of sweat beading on her face. She put down her plastic cup with a shaking hand and cleared her throat.

Victoria turned down her aura. She immediately hated herself for doing it. Responding to her handler's cue like a trained dog.

She couldn't go on like this. She had to get out of here, somehow. Go to the Birdcage with Amy, or get cured and become a hero again, or...it didn't matter. Anything. Just out.

She fantasized her escape every day, running impossible scenes through her mind and trying to imagine them so vividly they would come true.

...

A new cape triggers with medical powers and goes on a tour of America healing the sick, and she comes to her asylum room, and she's an innocent young girl with a face like an angel and she lays hands on her and in an instant she's whole again-

The heroes catch one of the bio-manipulating villains, Monstrum or Blasto or Chrystalis, and he makes a deal for a reduced sentence, he comes into her room scowling and the guards uncuff him to do his work-

She's outdoors during 'recreational' time watching the mobile patients exercise in the courtyard when a golden glow shines in the sky and Scion descends from the heavens, radiating his healing light-

She hears an alarm sound as villains attack the asylum, and they overlook her and she overhears their secrets, and she tells the PRT and they reward her with a secret experimental treatment-

She hears an alarm sound as villains attack the asylum, but they're good-hearted rogues and one of them takes a fancy for her and takes her with him, and he has a fleshwarping power he's always wanted to use for good-

...

She heard an alarm sound, klaxons echoing through the halls. A panicked voice came over the PA system. "All personnel, we have an emergency! You need to-"

The voice cut off, and the klaxons died out.

A false alarm?

Miss W looked at Victoria quizzically. As if she was somehow responsible. Victoria resented her for that. She was the inmate least likely to cause a ruckus, but the asylum personnel had an ingrained habit of looking to the nearest parahuman for the source of trouble.

Sounds came from the hallway, people running and shouting. Then screams, a chorus of desperate screams cut short.

The nurse whispered. "Victoria. I don't know who got loose, but we have to sit tight and wait for the PRT. Try to suppress your aura if you can. We don't want to attract attention."

Victoria turned down her aura to its lowest setting and tried to hold herself still. She hated this. It was humiliating, unworthy of her. She had been Glory Girl. A hero. Her response to trouble was to go out and solve it, kick ass and throw the culprits in jail. Now it hurt, an almost physical pain, to be in a crisis and unable to act.

But her hearts were racing for another reason. She had dreamed of this a thousand times. Was this her reward for keeping hope alive in her heart? Had her fantasies come true at last?

More sounds from the hallway. Wet snapping and ripping, like the sound of crab meat being cracked out of its shell.

Footsteps approached, and the door slowly creaked open-