Blue Strip

"They call me Blue, (not really), cute, right? Like a crayon, or a mood ring permanently stuck on 'bad day.' I used to run with the circus-literally. Turns out when you can see the dead and hear them whisper their ugly secrets, people think it's entertainment.

Jokes on them, dead people follow me like unpaid bills, whispering things I shouldn't know about what's been done and who did it. Handy trick at parties...less handy when the people doing the whispering are missing half their faces. Basically, I got the short straw. I don't throw fire or bend steel. I talk to the dead. Or maybe they talk to me. Hard to say who's in charge.

So where do you put someone like me? Same place they stick all the others with 'difficult' gifts. A prison dressed up as a hospital, where every smile hides a collar and every guard smells like bleach and regret or violence. They think the walls keep us safe. From the outside world, sure. From each other? Not a chance."