I don’t have a mother; I came from a cold metal box. I remember when it opened and I crawled out. Everything burned me, nothing made sense—I knew nothing so I curled up and waited. I waited a very long time in that silent place, so long that I fell asleep and woke up six times, but I never moved. It hurt too much to move, and besides I had no reason to move.

I slept a seventh time, and then I woke to voices. I didn’t understand them when it all happened, but now in my memory I hear them and I know what they said.

“A girl, sir, looks about nine or ten years old.” This was the man who knelt by me.

“In the vault? How’d she get in there?” The other voice sounded small and mechanic—it came out of a little black thing on the man’s collar.

“I think…she’s always been in here.” He touched me and I cried, because his hand was so hot it burned me.

“Don’t be daft, Jett,” said the other voice. “That’s an airtight sealed vault.”

Jett took off his jacket and lifted me up. I just cried cold tears that froze on my cheeks, while he put the jacket around me. It hurt so much but I was helpless.

“The Sacred Box of Cryonic Chamber is open, sir.” He picked me up and stared for a bit at the box I crawled out of; I kept crying cold tears that froze on my cheeks. “Sir, the girl is unclothed and her skin feels like ice. I think she came out of the box.”

“Impossible! The box has been sealed for a thousand years. Nobody has ever been able to open it.”

“You’d better come have a look at it for yourself, sir.”

A lot more happened that I don’t remember so well, but in the end, they figured out the truth about me and the box. In the end, I warmed up and things didn’t burn me anymore, and my tears didn’t freeze. In the end, Jett took care of me and I learned to walk, to speak, and all the other things that normal people do.

My name is Larken, and I’m not normal. I’m the girl who came out of a cold metal box that fell from the sky a thousand years ago.