"My mama became a catfish when I was two, on the day I stopped talking." Neglected since birth by her mother, Irina Myshko hasn't spoken a word for most of her short Soviet life. Outcast as a mute idiot and abused by her mother's boyfriends, she escapes into an alternate reality where true natures show and people are revealed as the beasts they are. Pregnant, homeless, and penniless, Irina has to make a choice - learn to live in this splintered world or descend into madness.

Sometimes all you really need is a place to call home. * * * NOTE AS OF 04/2026: This is the old version of the story from 2012. It is currently being reprised, which you can also find under my profile here in wattpad as "5:48 [reprised]"

"Anna dislikes being stuck three-quarters of the way down a chimney. She really does. Not to mention, she's still going round North America, and there's, like, three continents still to get through in about as many hours."