"The outside world is dangerous." Chiz learned this when she was very young, back when food at home wouldn't just appear on the table. Sometimes, her older siblings would go out and never come back. And then Chiz reached the same age. It was her turn to go outside. The number of wounds on her body grew faster than her height. The first wound was on her left arm, left by a branch that caught at her while she tried to flee an Anomaly. The second was on her right foot; she stepped in a trap while bumbling down the wrong path through the woods. The third was on her left thigh, where an Apocha bit her before becoming their family's dinner... Some wounds healed and disappeared. Others became scars. The last wound her homeland gave her was on her neck: a scar that remained deep even after healing. In the end, just like her siblings, Chiz went out and never came back. Chiz boarded a ship headed who knows where; their routes were never fixed, after all. Chiz was unlucky: She became an Esper. But she was lucky enough to find a ship leaving the very next day. All of her mother's love became a thin stack of money pressed into the kind captain's hands. Leave, leave. Staying here will only bring more pain. Chiz began living on the ship with others from her homeland. Some were Espers like her. Others were ordinary people who could no longer bear the strain of staying. But they never really connected, even in such close proximity. One day, two days, three days... One month, two months... Then she lost count. People got on. People got off. The kind captain brought her to a clean, safe city. Chiz was almost landsick. Chiz arrived at her new home. Here, there were lovely clothes, a warm bed. Delicious food appeared, almost magically, on the table. She sat quietly in a corner, eavesdropping, and learned this was the Dvořák family's orphanage. Chiz loved Dvořák. She loved the orphanage. She made new friends here, and every day they wore the same clothes and ate the same food. "Why don't you wash your hands?" a friend asked Chiz one evening after dinner. "You should stay clean. You'll trouble the caretakers." Chiz hid her sauce-stained hands behind her back in alarm. She finally realized that even wearing the same clothes and eating the same food, they were still different. She was a little mouse that had drifted for so long before being being washed ashore here. "Mice are the dirtiest of all!" said the picture books. Of course, her friend was kind. She led Chiz to the bathroom and helped wash the sauce off her hands. Chiz was very grateful. "You have to wash your hands. If you don't, people won't like you." Chiz was smart. She remembered this. From then on, she washed her hands spotlessly clean every day. Three rounds of soap. No slacking. Clean between the fingers and under the nails. Wash before bed, wash after waking up, wash before meals, wash after meals, wash before playing with toys, wash after playing with toys... As time went on, just like those old wounds, Chiz's hands became wrapped in bandages. The caretakers cautioned her that she couldn't wash her hands so often. Her friends were worried too, gently blowing on her hands and asking if it hurt. Chiz smiled at all of them. "It doesn't hurt," she promised, saying she'll remember. Much more time passed. Even after all the wounds on her hands had healed, Chiz still kept the habit of wearing bandages.