Four reviews for this story, that’s pretty good for me. Also, it means four more people who might have an understanding. This chapter is an answer to reviews. Xandra the Blue and Hna and Be Summer Rain I’m glad you understand. It’s the rest of the world I’m worried about. This is mainly an answer to aspenjerome. It’s not really a personal; it’s just an answer to the questions you raise. You actually sound a bit angry yourself. Here’s how the character would answer you:

So you think that people are that bad? That the anger is vague? Maybe you’re right, but I would like to clarify my fic a bit more. Let’s first go with ‘people aren’t that bad’ I agree with that on a certain level. People are great by themselves, they have nothing to prove and as I said, understand right and wrong. It’s just when they get together. Everyone gets teased or pushed around, this is true as well, and you’ve probably experienced it once or twice.

I would like to remind you however that for some it’s not just that one time or even so nice as once a week. Also, you seem to assume that this is just a ‘phase’ people hit in high school, sorry but wrong again there. You’ve been teased a few times right? Well imagine that feeling magnified one hundred times over and then being subjected to it five days out of the week for eight years. That’s right, eight years. Being alone that long is like starving to death with no hope of rescue while you can see people who have it all, laughing at you just out of reach.

This is the reason this fic was written, people don’t understand that it’s wrong to do that. Individuals are fine, but when they get together and are ‘just being kids’ they are completely different. It’s a power game, and like any other in order for there to be ‘haves’ there must be ‘have nots.’ Amazing that the same kids who will do anything not to be one of the ones on the bottom are the ones who abuse those kids. They fear becoming one of the lepers more than anything else, yet they are incapable of understanding that they are the reason that being in that position is horrible enough to generate such fear.

Next bit, the ‘vague anger.’ I don’t really understand what you mean by vague, but I’ll try to explain it as best I can. You see, it’s hard to explain that sort of pain to someone who has never felt it. I’ve heard the maxim “I don’t need to be hit to know it hurts,” but I disagree entirely. You cannot understand just what that sort of thing does unless you have felt it. The anger is in fact directed at, well, the system. It refuses to acknowledge that there is in fact a problem. Hence the reason for this monologue. Things need to change. Violence doesn’t work, obvious reasons, nor does trying to reason with individuals since individuals are not the problem. Instead it is necessary to spread an understanding so people can learn how to change.

Did you know guidance offices in school teach what they call a ‘coping strategy’ to the kids who are hurting? Almost sick isn’t it when we teach people how to bear the pain rather than fixing its cause? It would be like telling a man with a broken leg that he should just ignore the pain and walk around as if everything were normal, except what these kids, these children go through everyday is far worse than a broken leg.

Now for the last bit, “but if the narrator is so smart, she'd know.” You’re right, the narrator does understand, not many people can see behind the mechanics of society to the gears that make it move, and those gears are not pretty. That’s the price of intelligence. Whoever said ‘ignorance is bliss’ didn’t know how right they were.

So there it is folks, the continuation, my attempt at showing you what you haven’t seen aspenjerome. If you need proof, look at Xandra the Blue’s review, she understands.