Prologue, thirty years later.

  The time was before sunrise. As the girl woke up, sweat was dripping on her forehead. The girl blinked a few times to adjust her eyes to the darkness in the room. The air was humid and smelled like rotten food. The shrilling sound she was used to hearing every night wasn’t the reason she woke up, but a dream, a good one. The girl winced, aghast at the cruelty the dream had brought her. She much more preferred nightmares. You cannot always be jovial, but you can be miserable. Grief, sorrow, pain. Those are real, those are the things she dreamt about and never awoke, for she cannot tell the difference between a bad dream and life itself.

  The thought made her shiver, the coldness in the room reminded her of the boys’ eyes. She always met up with the boy with eyes like ice cubes. He never seemed to care about her dirty skin.

  He never asked for her name, she never asked for his. They both agreed that names are something no one can take from you. In this filthy, hideous world, a name is your possession. They agreed to use nicknames, Red Bird for the girl. She thought it was because of her untamed auburn hair. He said it was because a red bird symbolizes happiness. He had read in a book that if you see one, the ones you lost will live forever if you keep their memory alive. She said if she were to die, she wouldn’t want people thinking of her. He remained silent.

  He was the Wraith. Pale as a ghost, weak and short. He informed her that he faints a lot. The girl proudly returned that she has never fainted, he replied that he was jealous. The girl said she would like to die. The boy remained silent once more. She loved that about him, that and his eyes.

  She only enjoyed his company. Red Bird felt safe, yet what she didn’t want to admit was that it wasn’t safety she felt. It was greed, a wish that the Wraith were to be with her forever. She could never admit it, she couldn't let those thoughts possess her. Deep down she knew they already did, deep down she knew what her true nature was. She was a monster.

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  This time, unlike usual, the girl rose. She was eight. She left the chamber stretching her arms to touch the surroundings as if she hadn’t been there before, as if any minute, the ground could swallow her whole.

  The corridor had no windows, it was pitch black. She found herself wondering if that's how death looks. She so eagerly wanted to see it for herself. She tucked the thoughts away, somewhere in the depths of her mind. It felt like forever has ended when she finally reached her parents' dormitory, where the noise had gotten louder. The wooden door had a hole right in the middle, she glanced through the space given. Her father was on top of her mother, tearing her apart like some animal, she had bruises all over her body and she was crying and begging him to stop. He hit her right in the face as if she were a mere dog that disobeyed its master and she spat out a tooth. Her mouth was full of red, the liquor dripping from her lips as if it were raindrops trickling on a window.

  Her eyes met the girls’. She opened her mouth to speak, revealing two single teeth, the rest gone. The father punched her again and she fell asleep, the drops slowly painting the bedsheet crimson.

  The girl turned around and closed her eyes, trying to recall any memories that didn’t make her eyes pour. There was one time when she was five.

  Her mom had taken her to the Valley to pray. The sun rose in warm colours, but she felt the iciness in them. The boy's eyes were everywhere now. Cold, cold, cold. She opened her eyes, but they were still there, hanging like paintings on the walls. She despised him for making her feel such things. She stood there until the beating stopped and when it did, her father simply laid next to her mother as if nothing ever happened.

  During the following ten years she would come to learn that there is no use in trying to stop him. When the girl was eleven, she tried to alert the Crimson Base. The base was meant to give succour and strength to those who were in need of it. Her mother stopped her with shaky bloody hands.

  ?My sweet, sweet girl.” She murmured. Her eye black, the one remaining tooth she had, dangling in her mouth. Despite her tortured face, she was beautiful, smooth skin and hair dawn coloured.

  “Do not do that again, ever, or else your father will come for you too.” The girl believed her then as she did for the remaining of her life in their home.

  Her mother dropped dead from an uncured illness ten years later and the father forged the mothers’ cause of death, hanging her in the basement. He had stopped beating her for a few months prior so that her appearance wouldn’t question the Crimson Base.

  Those had been the most peaceful months Red Bird has ever lived. Her father proceeded to call the base, crying, just as the mother did as she begged him to stop. He threatened the now grown girl she would end up the same if she opened her small, useless mouth, so she didn’t. Poor man, it must have been very hard for him to lose his wife they said.

  She left without taking anything, for she no longer had anything apart from him.

  She was eighteen.