She slunk through the darkness, waiting as her victim left the safety of their four wheeled vehicle to shine a light into the trees. She swung her knife, slicing his throat with the same move they’d forced her to practice a thousand times.
Her prey never made a sound.
She let his body fall, darting to the four-wheeler and climbing aboard. It took a second of study to figure out how it worked.
The vehicle roared to life, and she pointed it in the direction of the boy’s hiding place.
“What was that about her courage?” someone taunted.
The scene shifted.
The area under the log was empty. There was a growing desperation as she searched.
Where was he?
Noise from the copse of trees to her left had her freezing. A pained scream disturbed the night.
The girl dashed to her chariot, kicking it awake and aiming it toward that sound.
She shot forward, the edges of the world collapsing in on themselves as darkness claimed her.
“What happened? Why aren’t we seeing her memories anymore?” someone demanded.
“There’s damage,” another person said, sounding surprised. “Let me—ah, there it is.”
The perspective changed as they slid deeper into her mind, down a thread that wasn’t entirely her own.
The little boy looked up at a monster. He should have died. That would have been better than being caught. Despair choked him as his captor raised his arm.
The girl exploded out of the darkness on a mechanical steed that breathed smoke and fire.
She leapt off her ride, allowing it to crash into one of the monsters as she landed on the back of another. Her arm flashed as she plunged her makeshift blade into the monster’s back over and over.
“Damn, she’s a vicious little thing,” someone said in an admiring voice.
The boy didn’t move as those holding him down let go, rushing for the girl.
She pushed off her victim, flipping in midair. She landed, her blade flashing again as she cut through the larger foes. A beautiful goddess of vengeance.
For the first time in his short life, the boy knew hope. She was his light in the darkness. The only person who’d come for him—not once but twice.
A watcher drone swung out of the shadows. A flash came, hitting the girl in the chest.
She collapsed with a shocked expression, taking all that beautiful light with her.
The boy screamed, an agonized sound ripped from the most primal part of him as the world turned gold.
When he could see again, everyone else was on the ground—including the girl. The drone that had extinguished her light next to her.
The memory jumped again. The moon and stars visible through the tree branches as a boy with gold eyes appeared above her.
His mouth moved as he reached for the drone that killed her and set it on her chest.
The girl could have told him it was useless, but she was too tired and the moon too fascinating to bother.
It was a shame she wouldn’t see what lay beyond the forest. She’d always wondered what was out there. Now she’d never know.
Her thoughts were already fading as a golden light tried to swallow her. Only it failed as the violet lightning housed in her center rose to absorb it instead.
