[ WP ] You are a `` normal '' person trying to fit in in a world where everyone is a psychopath .

He always made an elaborate show of wiping the blood off his hands before he touched The Book. Just the hands, though, since he rarely washed more than a few times a month. Blood flecks still dotted his hideous, protruberant lips. Sarah hated to watch them moving. 
 
 `` Ah yes,'' Sub-alt-overlord Bruyant intoned drily, as he flipped open the heavy tome to the bookmarked page. `` Section 2876, subsection 89.5, chapter 9, stanza 3-*aleph*-8, verse gimel, note a1b845ef. Tickets on horse-drawn carriages from Paris to Lyon are reserved for the priest and warrior classes. All others caught obtaining a ticket under false pretenses, without special dispensation of their bonded overlord, are to be put to death immediately.'' 
 
 Sarah squirmed in her seat and smoothed her dress nervously. She tried to meet his gaze. 
 
 `` I just did n't see his letters of passage that clearly --'' she ventured. 
 
 `` Scribbles on a piece of *birch bark, *'' Bruyant said sharply. `` Look, Sarah, is this not an Advantageous situation for you? Were you in league with him somehow? Is that why I had to use the knife? *Again*?'' 
 
 `` No! Of course not --'' she protested. She could n't tell the truth; that she could n't bear the thought of killing. In fact, she could hardly endure the sight of others doing the killing, as she would feel almost as if she was dying herself. 
 
 Bruyant closed the Book and wiped his bloody brow. `` I do n't know, I thought by putting your hand to the griddle last time, you would have seen your Advantages. A fifteen year old should know better. As it stands I'll have to sell you, or -- or -- return you to the reformatory school.'' he finished, shaking his head. 
 
 Sarah knew what he had wanted to say. *Sell you or kill you*. Her noble birth protected her again. 
 
 The memories of the reformatory school came back involuntarily. For three years she had been forced to wear signs that said *feeble-minded* and *caste identification disorder*. She had been drilled until all she needed was to see a corner of a garment to identify a person's exact rank in society. 
 
 One was free to kill, maim, enslave, or rape anyone of a lesser rank almost without restriction. For equals, there were elaborate rules of reciprocity. 
 
 As everyone knew, the only reason that there was not wholesale slaughter in the cobblestoned streets was because of the Book, which foretold of the horrible punishments after death that awaited anyone who did not follow the rules. 20,000 years of civilization and progress had followed. 
 
 But her classmates could barely follow that story. They had to be taught with songs for children half their age. They mostly spent the entire day hitting each other. 
 
 Sarah managed to dodge the worst of the beatings. To keep herself from going mad, sometimes she indulged in a fantasy that she had had since she was a child. That if she could see someone's face, she had these flashes of sympathetic emotion. As if her mind and theirs were one. 
 
 Once, a teacher asked why she was daydreaming, and she truthfully said she was wondering what was bothering the teacher today. Severe beatings followed. A doctor thought it would be to his Advantage to find a cure for this sickness ( he settled on a tincture of thistles ), and she had let him believe it had worked. 
 
 Bruyant finally stirred. `` It's back to the reformatory for you,'' he said. `` There's no place in town I could sell you. And you would n't even make a good whore.'' He rang the bell for the guards. 
 
 `` As if you would know anything about women,'' she said between clenched teeth. `` At least you'll have Geoffrey all alone now.'' The old man had been making eyes at her coworker all season. She stared at the ground and awaited the brutal manhandling of the guards. 
 
 She heard the guards approach, but then, for a full minute, nothing happened. He said something to them quietly, and then she heard their footsteps walking away. And then the sound of the door being closed quietly. He knelt beside her and looked up at her. 
 
 `` How did you know that?'' he asked. 
 
 She could see the fear in his eyes.
