It wasn’t our fault we were different. Kidnapped and having attempted brainwashing forced on us wasn’t going to make us look more favorably on our captors. Why had they done this? 

   Because we were different. 

   Why did it matter that we were different? Why couldn’t they have just left us alone? We wouldn’t have hurt anyone if we’d been left to ourselves! But now, they had gone to far. 

   I pulled my sister close. Nothing would ever make me give her up too. I’d had enough taken from me. My parents. My home. Sometimes I believed my sanity. And certainly my esteem of life. It had been replaced with disgust at some of the scumbags that lived on this dying planet. 

   But nothing — nothing! — would ever make me give her up too. 

   Footsteps came towards our door to take my sister away. She clung to me tighter, and I drew her closer. I stuck my other hand into my pocket, and pulled out my only possession left which I had managed to smuggle in.

   My pistol. It had one bullet left. 

   The keys from our captor’s hands jangled as he put one into the door. I heard the lock click, and I stretched out my hand with the pistol in it towards the door. I would do this. I would do it for my sister.

   I would do it because we were different.