"Won't you stay with me, my darling, when my walls start burning down?"
Separated from her mother and siblings at a young age, Pinger was raised in an obscure laboratory. Pinger was used as a lab rat to test variants of the drug known as ecstasy. Pinger remembers the scent of milk, and the scent of home. She remembers the feel of violence and the touch of pain. She remembers when the humans took her away. She remembers family, and then she remembers nothing.
"Fire in my brain, and I'm burning up. Oh my, oh my."
For a while, Pinger lived in a cloud. The first few times the humans poked her with the Silver Stick, it burned. It burned so bad, and Pinger remembers that agony. But then they came with the new Silver Stick, and they poked her, and Pinger prepared to scream, but suddenly she was free. She was floating, and suddenly she knew what it was like to fly. Reality slipped away, and Pinger stopped fighting. The stars danced in front of her, and Pinger did a waltz, and nothing quite mattered anymore.
"Every word I say is kindling, but the smoke clears when you're 'round..."
One day Pinger woke up, and her cage door was open, and she wasn't floating anymore. Her head was full of colors, and her eyes saw only ghosts, and, laughing, Pinger stumbled into the world.