Ellis is passed from stranger hands to stranger hands, poked and prodded, smelled and weighed and manipulated. Every time he opens his mouth to shriek they pop something into it, a nipple, a bottle, a toy, a thumb. He loathes their rough skin, their faces sprouting hair, the orange smear of wax deep in their ears, the long hairs curling from their noses. They jiggle him on their knees and if he had the power to strike them dead, they would die. He laughs, helpless, betrayed by his body, giggles and chortles and wiggles mechanically, and his face turns red and then purple with fury and they sweep him up into the air, as if vertigo and the illusion of flight should still his fury. Their voices are loud and mumbling, a senseless jangle of consonants grinding together like rockfall, pushed past yellowed, misaligned teeth and pale gums. He beats at them with his fists, reaches for their faces to gouge out their eyes, bites down with all his force on their hair. He hungers, and they feed him, but he hungers still, falls asleep uncovered and dreams of burning skies, seas of plague, choking fumes, trenches hipdeep with blood.