Everyone sees us. But no one knows us. This is a fact of our life. We are taught from a young age that no matter who sees us, no one truly knows us. We can be seen, but not heard. That was… The Law, until the day of Anana. For a regular, twenty-first century girl, about my age, Anana was the pride of her community. Everyone depended on her. I wanted to meet her. It was one of my impulsive urges, one of those ones that said you HAD to do it. And, well, she seemed pretty nice.

She was, until… She saw me. She freaked out. Apparently she had never seen one of us before. Everyone turned to me. I waved shyly, and everyone turned back to her. She started asking questions of me, but when I told her the anwser, she frowned slightly at me and said, “I’m afraid I don’t know how to read lips. I asked what your name was. Speak up.” Someone said to her, “She, she cannot speak.” What was he talking about, I spoke to them all the time but they couldn’t hear me! Was I the only shadow they had met so far? How strange…