(Piece of Harper's backstory.)
The Sunday after the accident the Atlas family still attends church. They meet with the elders of the community and the priest before mass. The priest says a benediction over the broken child and pulls her parents aside to offer pity and charity. The elders take the chance to swarm the small child, left without a second glance by her parents.
“She was already such a quiet child,” one muses, patting her consolingly on the head.
“Still it's a pity,” They all agree, “What a poor child. What she must be going through. How lost she must be,” They say. Then they meet her eyes as she finally deigns to look at them. There is no sadness or fear or much of anything to find in their depths. Slowly the elders recoil, and no one is sure who whispers it, but the rest agree, “Dead eyes. Demon eyes.” They remember seeing those eyes in the veterans.
The oldest among them crouches and meets the little girl’s eyes with empty eyes of her own. She answers the others without breaking their staredown.
“Survivor’s eyes,” she says. The child favors her with a smile, hard and small and fierce. None dare argue with the oldest of them, but none are willing to agree either. They back away from the child, unnerved, and reconvene safely with the priest and the parents.
The old lady offers the child a hand. The child takes it.