Wasn’t going to wait for something like a future to sprout in front of her door. Nothing would ever grow here, it was a desert left behind by the elderly, along with these so-called living—living?—conditions. And yes, for fuck’s sake, Don was passive-aggressive, she was female, she couldn’t do any better. Was she supposed to take testosterone injections just to get more enraged, was she supposed to shoot herself up with hormones to try to convince herself she was smarter than she was, and that she ruled the world?

People like her had been put on display in zoos in the old days. The thought occurred to her randomly.

When people have the opportunity to torture others, they take it. When they have the chance to take something away from others, they do it, this mechanism, or call it: this instinct. That they let guide them, without thinking, that they give free rein to eradicate anything and everything that stands in their way—

Don hated the stupidity, the brutality, the deviousness and deceitfulness, the stench, the hairless, sweating bodies and the slimy fingers that tested everything for commercial potential.

“You want war, you got war.”

Said Don. To herself.

This is the story of

HANNAH

ETHNICITY: Asian?

SEXUALITY: heterosexual

INTERESTS: self-absorbed

INTELLIGENCE: proven

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS: none

FAMILIAL CONNECTIONS: only child, loving parents

Before she met Karen, Don, and Peter.

When she didn’t yet know what Rochdale meant, or tragedy.

To backtrack just a little:

Hannah lived in Liverpool, with two genial parents who were typical of the fading middle class. They’d rented a house with a shabby back garden, owned two bicycles, and were able to pay their electricity bills. Hannah considered love from her parents the normal state of things—that they would throw her in the air and caress her. That they’d hold her hand and be proud of her, that they’d sit with her at bedtime and come to her room to check on her when she was asleep, all this she took for granted. Through the constant affection of her parents Hannah had developed an outsized ego as a child. Hannah didn’t doubt herself. She was tall and thin and never looked like a cute little kid. More like a miniature version of an interesting adult. Hannah never wanted long hair or dresses or pink stuff; instead she studied old photos of Katharine Hepburn online. That’s how she wanted to look one day. Aloof and instilling a bit of fear. Hannah’s home was located in a problematic part of a city that consisted mostly of problematic parts. But her problematic part of town was unequivocally the most problematic. You often heard shootings outside, you rarely heard sirens, the police had long since given up on the area. But Hannah didn’t care. Nothing outside could affect her when she was in bed listening to her parents quietly talk to each other.