was born in a hospital like a normal child. Except I wasn't.
I had ears. Not human ones. Furry, violet, twitchy little cat ears. Oh—and a tail too.
The look on my parents' faces must've been priceless. Or horrifying.
They didn't even give me a chance. I guess they took one glance, said "nope," and dumped me off at a baby hatch—the kind built into old church walls. "Window of Life," they call it. For me, it was a window to being abandoned before I even knew how to open my eyes.
I grew up in a place that smelled like bleach, dust, and sour milk. An orphanage.
A stone building with barred windows, creaky floors, and too many forgotten kids.
They named me Margaret. Proper. Cold. Heavy on the "not loved" part.
The other kids hated me.
Maybe because I was different. Maybe because they needed someone to take it out on.
They'd pull my ears, call me a freak, and once? They put cat food in my cereal bowl. Colored it with yellow paint to make it look like cornflakes.
I still remember the taste.
Metallic. Dirty. Humiliating.
I didn't cry. I stared them down with the most bored, dead-eyed look I could pull off at five years old.
Then I walked away. And cried later. In the storage room, behind the broken brooms.