Rain pounded down on the New Haven Mental Health Clinic. Flood warnings had been issued for most of Connecticut nearly six hours before. All the patients in NHMHC had gone to bed early. All but one. On the third floor of the institute, in room 84 D-Ward, a teenage girl sat on the floor by the grill-covered window, hugging her knees.
Her pale, lifeless brown eyes gazed thoughtlessly out the window. Either side of her face was hidden by a curtain of dark, stringy hair. There was nothing remotely beautiful about seventeen-year-old Dawnelle Brown. Nothing that the doctors, therapists, and nurses at NHMHC could see. A flash of lightening streaked through the sky, lighting up the room, and illuminating a series of scars up and down both of Dawnelle's arms. Quick as it came, the light passed, returning the room to its former state of darkness. A buzzer turned on in the room. A tired voice came over the buzzer.

"All right, Dawnelle. Get to bed."

Dawnelle gave the buzzer a contemptuous look. She shrugged and clambered to her feet. She stumbled over to the bed and sat down on the edge of her bed. Looking briefly at the camera in the corner of the room she lay down. Still glancing disdainfully at it, she raised her hand and flipped it off. Smiling grimly, she pulled her blankets over her head and rolled over.