Chapter 18
Thus Allah made them taste humiliation
In the life of the world,
And verily the doom of the Hereafter
Will be greater if they did but know.
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Quran 39:26
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Earth - AD June, 1996
Chicago, Illinois
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Thirteen year old Elisabeth Kaiser's latest foster mother called up the stairs.
"You’re going to make us late!"
"Like anybody cares—" Elisabeth muttered at her reflection. She traced the hideous white scar which ran from her right-hand temple, down her cheek, to the corner of her mouth like a jagged, crescent moon.
"Nobody loves a freak!" said the girl in the mirror.
"I'm not a freak," she argued with her own worst critic. "I'm the smartest kid at Northwest Middle School."
"That's because you don't have any friends, so all you do is study."
She reached for the two cru
