Karmen walked sullenly through the hallways at her school, waiting for the day’s inevitable hazing.

In the social hierarchy of middle school, no one was lower than Karmen. To be lower than Karmen, an unlucky soul would need to have less money than Karmen, or rattier, more ill-fitting clothes than Karmen. Such a child would need, Karmen presumed, to have negative numbers of friends rather than zero, or parents so malicious in their abuse that no child would ever survive to come to school. Although she had no official, double-blind data to support the conclusion, Karmen was fairly certain no worse off child existed in her district, leaving Karmen squarely at the bottom of the social totem pole.

Karmen did everything she could think of to rise above her meager station. She washed as regularly as she was able, sometimes stealing bags of hand soap from the student bathrooms. She learned to launder and patch her old clothes when the vice principal threatened to suspend her for "showing too much skin", a technical violation Karmen felt unjust when levied against the side effects of childhood poverty.

On weekends Karmen strove to avoid being home with the same seriousness and care with which other kids played sports or manicured their fingernails. Instead of going home Karmen would do extracurricular and volunteer activities, part of a ten-point plan to get a free ride to college. This included giving out, and collecting, meals at the local homeless shelter, a fact, thankfully, no one in school had yet discovered.

Perhaps most impressive, Karmen made a conscious decision to remain positive. She saw as her role models Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Christ himself. When someone threw the remainder of their lunch in her hair, Karmen turned the other cheek. When insults flew at her down the hall, Karmen did her best to ignore them. She would not allow herself to succumb to the efforts of her persecutors. But damned if it wasn’t a hard life.

Karmen went on like this through three grades, until graduation day and the promise of a new world in High School. Despite the efforts of every person in Karmen’s life, she had secured passage to a High School for the Exceptionally Gifted. She need only survive this last, terrible ceremony.

From on the stage, in the far corner, alone among the graduates, Karmen waited anxiously. The entire day had so far, terrifyingly, gone off without a hitch. Not an ill word was spoken nor a mean act carried out, and the longer her luck continued the more certain of calamity Karmen became.

Looking out into the large auditorium, Karmen did not even attempt to find her parents. The idea that they might come was improbable bordering on the absurd. It was unlikely they knew today was graduation.

The names got closer and closer to hers. Each student walking down to the front of the stage and accepting a rolled up "diploma", really a blank piece of paper. Karmen longed for that blank piece of paper more than all the gold in El Dorado. It was her ticket out of this hell.

"Maria Delgado." Alphabetically right before Karmen – Karmen Del Roso – Maria walked up haughtily to the front of the stage and accepted her piece of paper. Maria was particularly cruel, as far as cruelty goes. Her and her boyfriend Serge were personally responsible for the worst harassment Karmen suffered through.

When Maria got done taking her glamour shot, posing with the bogus diploma, she waved to the audience, as though she were a celebrity. Then she looked up, almost toward the ceiling, and gave one last wave, to God or something. When she turned around her eye caught Karmen’s and she winked.

The wink threw Karmen into a panic. She looked around the giant space for something, anything that might predict what was about to happen, but there were no obvious hints.

"Karmen Del Roso."

The vice principal waited with the small piece of paper outstretched and annoyedly urged her forward. Slowly, carefully, Karmen stepped down from the rafters, inching toward freedom, toward the ticket to a new life.

She reached the vice principal, who was frustrated at the slow pace. Forgoing the traditional handshake, he just spun Karmen around toward the camera for her photo.

Facing the entire district, Karmen saw in their collective gaze nothing but abject disregard. "Who was this girl?" They thought. "Get her off the stage already."

The anxiety in Karmen’s stomach finally began to lift. She’d made it. The ticket was in hand. Finally, she allowed herself a moment of relief. Forget all these people, forget this place. She would leave and never return.

In the corner of her eye, at the foot of the stage, she saw him. The malicious glint of his green eyes looked up at her expectantly. It took Karmen a second to recognize the face, and when she realized it was Serge Kravinksy, it was too late.

Like she was dreaming someone else’s life, she watched as Serge reached up over the lip of the stage, a Bic lighter held in his right hand, moving the small yellow flame forward until it just touched the edge of her flowing, municipally issued graduation gown.

The artificial material took that tiny flame and blossomed into an orchid of fire. The bloom of heat and light raced up Karmen’s shrouded body with the speed of a lightning bolt as if the gown were made of flash paper.

From within the fiery wreath, beneath crackling skin, Karmen watched the fiasco with a quiet disinterest. What, she wondered, is burning? She heard a high pitched animal crying out in pain and felt terribly for it, wherever it was.

As for Karmen, she had her ticket in hand. Just a quick nap before I go.

Karmen awoke on stage, surrounded by large, uniformed people. She felt no pain, no fear. Just a contentedness at her getting out of this garbage school, this whole garbage district. She tried to talk, to tell the EMTs not to worry, just to leave her be, show her to the nearest bus stop, but her voice didn’t seem to work.

Above the uniforms, another figure appeared. Not a figure so much as an entity. It had a shape, a loose dark form, but when it approached Karmen, it passed translucently straight through the first responders and came up close to her face. A tendril of darkness reached out for her and hovered right over Karmen’s chest.

Child. How you have suffered.

There was no voice, only the meaning of the words.

I can release you, strong will.

Karmen wanted to protest. No need for release, she wanted to say, pointing to the diploma, I’ve got my walking papers right here.

I can release you. Or, if you wish it, I can make you something more.

A sudden shot of clarity ripped through the fog of Karmen’s mind and for a moment she completely understood her options. Take her ticket, and leave this place, everything, behind. Or take the incorporeal hand and…change.

Reaching up, Karmen grabbed the dark figure’s extended hand. To her surprise, the amorphous darkness took on a firm physical mass, which she gripped tightly. Looking at her hand in his, Karmen saw that her skin was untarnished, vibrant, and alive.

On the I.S. 34 auditorium stage, Karmen’s body went limp, and the half-scorched remnants of her fake diploma rolled from her clenched, blistered fist.