Darkness embraced her.

Beyond one’s world, one’s space and universe you will find this. Outside. Void but full. Cold and warm. Silent yet full of noise. It takes time for your senses to accept it and retreat in awe.

And so awestruck she waited, full of patience. They both did.

They waited the soon there will be the light…

It ended surprisingly smoothly. Like phew and she is already here. Savory scent made her stomach ache as her eyes were adapting to the dim light. Blink, blink. Kyra looked around and frowned. Medieval Asian-like style. That was her summarizing of the terrace furniture. Then she looked at the bulged eyes of the people around her.

“Hi?”

She smiled and waved her hand. No, no apparent reaction. Middle-aged man and woman, surely married couple plus their teenage son. One-pieced blue robes-like dress instead of proper clothes and neatly groomed black hair for everybody. Narrow eyes. Very Asian-like.

The woman finally opened her mouth and squealed, pointing her trembling finger at Kyra. Fortunately, her gibberish had no resemblance with Chinese, or Korean or Japanese. It was full off ear-tearing sounds though.

“What, first time you see an infant?” She was really small, less than five feet. Ten to twelve years by the look, probably. “There is your son here, lady. Or is it senior?”

“I think it is senior,” intervened Moyra inside her head.

Well, would you not scream if a stark-naked child appeared from a thin air before your family right in the middle of the dinner? And yelp is counted too.

Under the cover of a woman’s hysteria, which heavily distracted male attention, Kyra made quick check on herself. Very smooth white skin tone. Two hands, five fingers each. Two legs, five fingers each. Barely if not at all bulged chest and yes! no weird attachments on the lower part! That was massive relief!

Meanwhile, father of the family decided to act. With a face full of menace and drool on his chin he bravely cried something out and came on her.

“Hey! Careful! Isn’t it a knife? Knife! Damn troglodyte!”

“Troglodyte…?”

Ignoring Moyra’s whispering, Kyra dodged incoming attack with a hurried jump backwards.

“Ouch!”

Her spine met the wall which was just a second ago ten feet behind her in a very painful way and the wood panel screeched with resentment. Kyra made a face, but in a moment smiled victoriously and measured stupefied man with an arrogant gaze.

“This is what means to have top specs! Bring it on turtle!”

That is too childish, she frowned at a sudden thought but immediately her eyes lit up as she looked at the dinner table. Demonstrating her fast thinking and decisiveness, she charged straight to it and snatched two big meat buns from the plate right under the dumbfounded family noses!

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Thanks for the meal!”

And she jumped through the window, followed by angry shouts. The garden, leave it behind. The wall? Jump it too! Wind whistled to her and she screamed back to it.

“Three meters high! You saw it, Moyra? Three meters, just like this!”

Kyra was happy. She just disrupted somebody’s measured life, showed off her newborn suit, nearly got herself killed and boldly stole food from poor peasants, at least if her eyes didn’t fool her and this was indeed a rice field on the other side of the road.

“This is the best day of my life!”

She couldn’t help but laugh as her heart was breaking out of her chest and her blood sang to her ears. Cold evening tried to cool her down, but she ignored it. Pebbles was hurting her feet, but she ignored it too.

Kyra never felt herself so alive. Nor could she remember such a day.

“Ha-ah.”

With a long sigh she greedily bit into the warm bun in her right hand. It was incredibly meaty and spicy.

“You know I was granted with a knowledge of your past world? That includes your life. You not even once broke the law. No stealing, mad driving, nothing. Why…”

“I’m not some adrenalin addict, Moyra. So no ‘why’. Whatever problems you have, don’t create problems for your family. I could endure, so I did.”

“No, I thought you despise thieves.”

“Oh. No-no, I despise stealing food when you full and stealing money when you rich. Well, as long as you can run away…” Kyra listened to chorus of screams inside the village and hurriedly ate up her buns. “It seems we have some full-blown witch-hunt on my head.”

“They are screaming ‘red naked demon’, you know.” Moyra was always ready to help.

“Oh, you understand them? Good to know. And really, demon.” Kyra did not have too much time to spare before to make sure so with thanks to reminding she tilted her head to see few really bright fire-like strands.  

“Closest word to the meaning.”

“Fine-fine. Hey, I’m here!”

Kyra jumped in place. Just for fun, really, since the growing crowd had spotted her long time ago. There were some torches, too. The crowd growled and moved on her, the girl run of.

The cat and mouse play began.

At first it was easy to hunt Kyra in the evening. Build up a chain of angry villagers and go for a pitiful prey. Half an hour later however the last light of day extinguished while the girl successfully smeared her beautiful white skin in mud. Ten minutes later she simply disappeared.

Villagers had to argue a little and then they decided to look for the demon’s lair. The demon though had no such. Using her inhuman speed, Kyra circumvented the crowd and simply returned to their village.

“Isn’t this a burglary now?”

“Small details, small details. They don’t have locks either.” Answered Kyra while jumping over the wall.

“You are totally for a revenge here!”

“Their small epopee will not even stay in my memory. Have something more important to do. I can look calm on the surface, but by insides are bright red from embarrassment.” As she growled through clenched teeth Kyra delved into the closet but then stopped.

“Only adult clothes and not much to choose from. And this building is small, not like that one.”

Most probably the man whose family she accidentally traumatized was the head of this village or something, Kyra theorized. He organized this whole demon-hunt quite fast too. But his son was bigger than her so she decided against revisiting their manor for now.

In her next house Kyra spooked a kid with his mother and finally found some clothes. It was still the same mix between kimono and hanfu, grey robe with narrow sleeves. For her aching feet she found thatched sandals. Sandals! At least they had thick socks here.

With continuing of her village robbery Kyra acquired long cloak with a cape, rucksack and small stuff for it like a flint, few knifes and other useful little things. She also got her hands on some long-lasted food and money.

Local money was presented as small oval iron coins of different sizes with a holes in their centers. Exactly iron, not silver, gold nor some other nonsensical to use for actual money noble metal. There was a lot of symbols on these coins too. By the way, most of them came from the main manor of the village.

“Well, that would be it.” Kyra mumbled, satisfying her lingering hunger with a last meat bun from the village head's plate. Little torch fires in the distance already grew up big and close.

The girl jumped from the roof and disappeared into the night.