Hi, I’m Sophie Carter.

  My mom tells me I’m special.

  When I was four, maybe five, I ran to her crying.

  “Mom,” I said, “Why am I so different from the other kids in class?”

  She smiled like moms do—like that was supposed to fix it—and said,

  “Oh, honey, you’re not different. You’re special.”

  That word stuck in my throat like a thorn.

  Special.

  Special didn’t stop them from writing me off.

  Special didn’t stop Anna from passing over me,

  didn’t make anyone reconsider, didn’t change the rules.

  Special was a lie wrapped in a bow,

  a word people use to console themselves when they don’t know what to do with you.

  It’s their permission to dismiss you.

  Listen, kids:

  No one is special.

  You’re just different.

  Hi, I’m Sophie,

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  And I’m different.

  Funny, right?

  How people love to call ******* special.

  But people don’t fear what they think is special.

  They don’t abuse it.

  They don’t shun it, isolate it, crush it under their feet like a bug that doesn’t belong on their pristine sidewalk.

  They don’t look at special with eyes full of judgment,

  whispering freak.

  They don’t lock up special,

  don’t poke at it, don’t prod it with needles,

  don’t label it with terms they think are polite but drip venom underneath.

  And here’s the thing:

  People don’t try to treat or change what they think is special.

  Special is a word they use for what they cherish.

  For what they envy.

  Special is a word they save for things they want to protect,

  not what they want to destroy.

  So no, I’m not special.

  I’m different.

  And that difference makes them uncomfortable.

  They stare because they don’t understand.

  They lash out because their box—their tiny, brittle box—has no room for someone like me.

  They force you to fit, and when you don’t, they tell you it’s your fault for being too much or too little.

  In their eyes, there’s no magic in our difference.

  No poetry.

  No uniqueness.

  Just otherness.

  Hi, I’m 450. Codename: Spectre.

  And I’m different.

  They told us we were anomalies.

  Not heroes, not marvels, just deviations to be corrected.

  A problem to solve.

  They said it like they were doing us a favor,

  their experiments dripping with mercy they didn’t actually feel.

  But mercy doesn’t look like a cage,

  doesn’t sound like the cold hum of fluorescent lights in a lab.

  Mercy doesn’t come with scalpel blades and numbers carved into your skin.

  People don’t put what they love in cages.

  People don’t try to fix what they think is special.

  They don’t dissect it.

  But they’ll shatter you if you don’t fit their mold.

  They’ll tell you that difference isn’t human.

  And once you’re not human, you’re nothing to them at all.

  The truth?

  I’m not broken.

  I’m not an experiment.

  I’m not a cautionary tale.

  I’m different.

  And there’s no power in the world—no cage, no scalpel, no label—that can take that from me.

  To the little ones listening out there:

  They’ll tell you lies.

  They’ll say you’re special, you’re unique.

  But what they mean is you’re inconvenient.

  What they mean is you scare them because you refuse to blend into their painted skies.

  But remember this:

  Their fear is not your shame.

  Your difference is not your defec

  t.

  Your existence does not require their permission.

  Hi, I’m Spectre.

  And I’m still here.