In an alleyway beside a bakery of the small town called Elipson, was a 5''6' girl that was sitting against the stone base of the bakery. She was quite thin, most likely malnourished, had waist length silver hair that was colored brown by dirt and mud and glazed-over purple eyes that held a barest hint of fierceness.

This was the time of week where the baker, who should have been a butcher by the looks of him, throws out his stale bread. Unfortunately for the girl her time waiting for food was interrupted by a very familiar voice, figure, and footsteps. "Guys I told you the little Freak would be here," The man at the entrance to the alleyway called out.

The man was 6’’ 2’ and had a hint of muscles. His brown hair was cut short and his brown eyes held some unnatural focus to them. He was the fifth son of the noble that owned this town. Most commoners would think he would be held up in a mansion he called home, far away from this offshoot town his father owned. but being the fifth son had a lot of downsides.

If war were to break out he would be the first one to go used like cannon fodder only to gain a tiny bit of reputation for his father and if not war then once his brother takes their fathers seat he would probably be thrown out on the streets as a peasant for being “Worthless” to the family.

The only way he could leave such a fate was to prove himself better than the rest of his brothers. Currently he is trying adventuring to prove himself in strength and popularity and if he fails to take his father's seat he can always make a living though he would rather have the seat.

He was originally in this town to cull the local goblin population but soon after the job was done he found an object he could take his frustration out on. The girl that not even the local orphanage would accept.

While the official reason was not enough room, almost everyone knew that to be untrue. The real reason was her eye-catching hair. Being eye-catching is one of the things an orphanage doesn’t need.

Eye-catching is how orphanages lose kids to kidnappers and as much as no one would like to admit even in a small and tight-knit community kidnapping is still a problem because everyone needs money.

As for why she hasn’t been kidnapped . . . well she is quite bloodthirsty. She will and can take a punch, kick, or a knife to the gut but if anyone tries to move her she won’t hesitate to rip out their throat then cover herself in their blood and sit atop the corpse waiting for all the blood to leak out just to stare at it for an hour and if anyone tries to move her again the cycle repeats itself.

It is quite the sight to see though it hasn’t happened in a couple years. Her biggest count for a day was twenty but it only got that high because no one knew any better afterwards it never left the single digits.

There was and is quite the gossip about her because of that incident. Most of it was what she was because most malnourished 10 year olds don’t have the strength or stamina to kill 20 people and keep going or take 15 knives to the gut and be fine the next day or tear out people's throats with their bare hands.

Most think vampire because of her abnormal fascination with blood. Other shapeshifter becau- With a thud the leather boot collides with the chest of the girl. The cracking of bones echo throughout the alleyway and with another thud the girl falls to her side with the stone wall still against her.

“Haha I usually only get yo to fall over on the second kick am I getting stronger or . . . are . . . you . . . getting . . . WEAKER.” Every space between words were accented with a kick that were slowly moving up in force.

With a cough the blood that was filling her lungs began to exit them and at the sight of blood a smile began to grace her lips and of course said smile increased the rage of the noble which in turned up the force of his kick which in turn caused more blood to leave her body which created a endless cycle of bloodshed till finally one of his ‘friends’ stopped him.

His friend grabbed his shoulder and leaned in a whispered,” Man stop kicking her if you keep going you might kill her can you imagine what that would do to you reputation Imagine the town crier saying’ High tier adventurer killed weak malnourished 15 year old in a fit of anger’ you be kicked out of your house before you could say father I can explain and be kicked out of the Guild.”

Mid-kick the noble stopped and looked down at the girl that was currently laying in a pool of her own blood. Her chest had long since caved in, Her lungs had been crushed for awhile, and her spine has shifted to one side for a little bit.

A myriad of emotions reached the noble face of anger, rage, curiosity before finally setting into fear. He quickly checked his pockets for the master made health potion his father gave him when he told father he was going to be an adventurer.

Quickly he found it and clumsily he popped the stopper before pouring the blood colored liquid on the girl’s body. Swiftly her spine returned to its resting space, her lung began to regrow, and her chest went back into place.

After the process finished the noble looked in horror as her chest had not moved since her body was healed which only means one thing: she was dead. Without saying a word the noble ran leaving his friends behind and a second later his friends ran too.

In three hours the body was found, In four the guards decided there was no need for investigation, in five her body was thrown in the woods, and in two days something began happening to her body and soul.

In a clearing surrounded with massive trees was where her cold lifeless body lay. Her body had been quite literarity thrown in the clearing. Some of her bones were broken, some of her skin was raw but curiously enough her face was fine.

Her purple eyes were wide open staring at the sky, no guard has the time to close the eyes of the lost, Her smile was still plastered on her face showing the world her pearly and sharp teeth.

It was raining tonight but it was not like a storm or the calm before catastrophe, no it was a small flurry it was droplets of mist it was pinches of diamonds raining down. From starlight the diamonds glittered like more stars turning the calm clearing into a field of wonderful stars but of course all things come to an end.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Just how stars eventually disappear so did the glowing glass. When the rain touched the ground it vanished like it was never there and when it touched the girl it just washed away the dirt before vanishing too.

Years of living in gutters and alleyways filth washed off in waves till the field went black with muck till her skin began gleaming in moonlight till her silver hair began reflecting the light of the sky.

Only when the last of the grime left her body did something finally happened. Just like back in that alleyway her body began to heal. The broken bones were repaired, the raw skin was no more, and the blue bruises, where the guards gripped her body a little too tight, were gone.

Of course her body was not the only thing healed. Far and deep within her body was a shattered soul held together by the threads of reality. This was not a new development, she was born with a shattered soul and it only got worse as time went on.

Early on it was just cracks but later on the deepened till cracks went straight through and now it is a mess. Hair thin pieces were spread around and pieces the size of small stones have begun to drift towards the edge of their space.

Only one piece the size of her head was still in the center and it was the thing holding the rest of her soul together till now.

Like a fire all the pieces began to glow and then they started to drift and swirl. Faster and faster they went till the pieces that looked like they were drifting in the wind became pieces that needed to weather a storm and soon they failed.

The pieces began to fray and turned into string then continued to go the way of the storm before drawing closer to the only stone that survived, the one holding all together and when a string touched the stone it would worm its way inside.

Just like that the strings dwindled down till there was none left and just like that her soul was healed but even though it was healed the process was not over.

The strings of reality have stopped holding down her soul, stopped keeping her soul in her body and with her body dead her soul began to leave it. There was nothing holding it down, there was no reason for soul till there was.

The second before her soul was out of her body it jump started and consciousness spurred to life for a single second and in that second a choice was made.

Her soul and mind broke the normal disconnect between them for that single second and screamed a word. They screamed till their non-existent throat was sore, they screamed till her mind began to bleed, they screamed until reality listened and by their own power her soul was bound to her body by a single word. Blood

With a click here soul settled into place and with that she awoke with a start. She gasped for air only to choke on her own hair before sitting up to properly breathe and as soon as her lungs were filled she noticed something.

Her heart wasn’t beating but yet her blood was flowing. Before fastershe could even think of a reason why the scent of liquid life filled her nose and with it her mind went into overdrive.

She shot up like a rocket getting to her feet before a second passed. Then she got on four and began to run to the smell of iron like a beast.

Her uncut nails were like claws digging into the uneven terrain like butter giving her the traction to go faster. Her leg muscles pushed hard enough to make clouds of dust behind her, increasing her speed even more. Those factors made her fast enough to clear a 40 foot clearing in almost a second.

As soon as she left the clearing she jumped close to the nearest tree sideways. When her unkempt nails passed the trunk she put her feet on it for less than a millisecond and in that time she tensed her legs and pushed off with more power then she could use on the ground.

A fist sized chunk of wood launched from the tree while the girl shot off the trunk like a missile easily clearing her previous speed.She continued to use this mode of movement easily twisting out of the way of any trees ahead of her.

In three minutes she made it to the source of her favorite scent. Behind a tree she just passed was a heavily wounded bear. It had cuts all over its body, all of them forming a river of red that went down its body and a particularly nasty cut was on one of its forepaws. Nasty enough for the bear not wanting to put weight on it

With so much blood visible the girl had to slap herself to stop her from becoming more feral. Then she noticed the strings that were connected to her head. She tried to wave them away only to realize they weren’t real. She could feel them and see them but not in her eyes but in her mind. Her eyes told her they weren’t there but her mind was adamant on their existences.

Then she felt more strings but these were in her head and felt vastly different then the one on the outside. She could feel things when she thought about a single one. Before she got to explore the feeling the bear roared and as much as it was a roar that ended in a cough it was still a roar.

She lept, off the tree that she was using her nails to cling to, towards the bear only for it to move out the way. As she was about to land nails first into the spot that once held the bear she thought about the outside strings.

She thought about how they made her feel Happy. She thought about the texture they gave her mental fingertips Soft. She thought about how much give they had None. She thought about it one more time before she gripped the string between her mental thumb and forefinger.

A question rang out in her head in her own voice Thread? She accepted. The 15 other strings attached to her head began to move towards the one between her fingers and in the distance she saw where the other side of the strings were, the bear.

The strings detached from the bear and began to float in the air headlessly of the small breeze that rocked through the forest. Then her head strings were about to touch and her mental fingers let go.

She turned her focus to the bear ignoring what the strings were doing for the moment.

It had finally turned around to face her, its injured leg making it a difficult task. It roared once more then charged toward the girl. The girl, still on all fours, rushed to meet the bear head on. When the bear was within a feet from her it reached out with its uninjured paw to slash at her.

The girl dropped lower, missing the slash then kept going soon getting underneath the bear. Her hands and then feet left the ground and she twisted to face the underside of the bear. She thrusted her hands to the underbelly of the bear, her almost claws easily piercing its soft hide.

She wanted to push further into the beast, to widden the holes she made, to really get in there, to clutch on its inside and drag them out, to let out the gallons of blood the bear still held, to let a red ocean crash down upon her, to drown in liquid life, but she didn’t. She let her momentum pull her.

Her claws still in the bear was dragged with her lengthening the cuts. The bear dropped trying to use its weight to crush her but she was moving to fast and the bear hit nothing but dirt.

Unfortunately her momentum still carried her after she clear the bear and before she could twist again to use her hands to stop she crashed into a tree. Luckily while trying to twist she leaned forward so instead of her head hiting the tree it was the space between her shoulders.

The girl tried to get up and recover but the bear was faster. Before she could bend her knees to get up the bear was two feet from her face. She went to move her arms to the bears face to punchure its eyes but her eyes were being pulled to the strings.

When she looked at them the 15 others were gone while the one she had gripped was noticably thicker. It looked more like a thread then a string just like her voice in her head asked her.

She gripped it with her mental fingertips once more but this time no question rang out so she pulled on it, HARD. For a second nothing happened expect a slight rumble in the bear stomach then the bears throat bulged and finally two gallons of blood jetted out of its throat straight for the girl.

Time seemed to slow when the girl saw the sanguine essence headed straight for her. Her eyes widened as blood moved closer. Her body got hotter as the blood in her veins moved faster as a drop touched her skin. A smile formed on her lips as the ocean she wanted came.

Then it disappeared. The ocean was gone and she didn’t even blink. It was like it was never there and the only clue to its existence was the drop on her hand. A tear ran down her face as the blood she worked so hard to get disappeared.

She brought up her hand to stare at the drop. She looked at it then smelled it and finally put it between her fingers.Yep it was blood.

She got up with tears still running down her face and began circle the dead bear. From intense bloodlost and the hole in it throat it died almost instanly. When she got to the underbelly of the bear she dig in to look for some blood to at least alleviate her sadness.

Her nails ripped through the hide, skin and muscle easily. Her hands gripped its stomach, and intestines and tore them out. She continued clawing out the bear's organs leaving behind bones and muscles and in 30 minutes she was left with a empty shell.

Somehow it kept its bear form but otherwise it was an empty husk and at the very bottom of the husk was at least three happy jumps worth of blood. Still that was not enough to cure her sadness so she crawled into the slit she made in the underbelly of the bear, curled up into a ball and went to sleep crying.