Painful screams and sounds of battle echo down the hallway. The orderly rhythmic clinking of metal boots has long subsided and only sounds of chaos reverberate throughout the mansion. The house rumbles and the earth shakes due to heavy explosions. Parts of the ceiling are frozen, while other parts are completely destroyed. In some places, stalagmites of molten stone seem to defy gravity and grow right out of the solid floor of the mansion.

And two floors beneath the centre of utter destruction crawls a bleeding girl, who misses both her hands and feet, slowly down the hallway. Every time the earth rumbles more parts of the ceiling comes crashing down upon the small slip of a girl.

She slowly crawls in between the stalagmites of molten rock and ignores the small pain of her limbs getting punctured by glass shards and stone splinters, which cover every centimetre of the ravaged floor. Sometimes parts of the hallway are split open, creating deep dark holes with no ending in sight.

The girl keeps ignoring the pain and steadily crawls along the hallway, getting closer to her goal, a stairway which is illuminated by rays of bright light. No Guardians are anywhere in sight and the sound of dying people are also slowly getting less and less.

With sheer determination the girl ignores the darkness pulling on her eyelids, begging her to close her eyes and to let go of every concern plaguing her mind. She knows that she can’t keep going forever with this huge amount of blood lost in her chamber, not to mention the amount she is still losing every second.

She also knows that she has to be long gone the moment a winner emerges from the mad fight above. No matter who wins, the winner will keep on using her for his own benefits with no regards to her will or safety.

Pulling herself up the stairs, into the light of day, a destroyed courtyard in front of a half destroyed and half flying building enters her sight. It takes a moment for the girl to process the thought of parts of the building seemingly flying in mid-air, frozen in time. Ignoring the sheer wonder flooding her mind, she gathers all her remaining strength and keeps on crawling out of the sight of the building.

Pausing the slow crawl, the girl curiously looks at her surroundings. Besides the occasional scream of dying men behind her, no other people seem to be anywhere close to the mansion, creating an illusion of a peaceful and quite town. Shaking her head and gathering her thoughts, she chides herself for getting distracted at such a crucial moment and pulls herself with her last remaining strength into a dark side-alley, which is still relatively close to the mansion.

Upon reaching the seemingly save haven the girl drops down unconscious, into a pool of her blood, behind mounds of dirt mixed together with human waste.

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The next day she awoke on a small pile of glass shards with the occasional stone splinter, which got pressed out of her now healed body wounds. The first thing she notices though is the missing pain, accompanied by seeing her completely healed hands and feet attached, back to where they belong.

After overcoming the reflex to vomit and retch due to the extreme smell of human waste in the alley, the girl confirms her surroundings. Besides the occasional small traces of her blood splatters, no fresh human traces can be found in the alley. The majority of her blood seemed to be washed away by a small rain shower, but by now most everything seems to be dried up again.

Laying her eyes on a dirty discarded small black dress on her way out of the alley, she decides to grab it and see if it will fit. She needs to change her muddy, bloody, dirty and thin brown cloth in order to blend into the population, based on what she has seen on her way to the mansion through the bars of her wagon.

Leaving the alley with a light happy spring to her steps, the girl sneaks through the shadows to find some source of water to clean herself. She spots occasionally some people sneaking down the streets at the edge of her eyes, but they are already gone before she can turn her head to get a closer look.

The further she leaves the mansion behind the more people start appearing on the streets. Trying to clean and change first, before being discovered by anyone, the girl decides to leave the streets behind and sneaks through small dark alleys in hope to remain unnoticed.

After several blocks and the occasional sleeping drunkard, she enters a small green area, completely surrounded by middle class buildings. And right in the middle of it is a beautiful clear pond basking in the shadow of some kind of small green palm tree, creating the most beautiful and serene scenery the small girl has seen so far.

After catching her breath she slowly advances to the pond with her eyes wide open, trying to catch every small moment of the tree slowly swinging in the soft wind blowing down the alley. She heard about fishes living in water and curiously gazes into the pond, trying to confirm her teachings, but what she finds is not what she sought after.

Gazing back at her, reflected on the still surface of the pond is a beautiful girl, completely covered in mud and dirt, with soot-stained blonde hair and old deep blue eyes, mimicking her every move. She has a cute small nose and rosy red lips accompanied by a curious gaze of very old eyes, staring right into her soul.

For hours happy laughter echoes through the courtyard and a small girl plays near a pond right in the middle of a buzzling town. She pulls faces and tries out various poses while curiously staring at her reflection. Sometimes a splashing noise, followed by cute laughter, resounds in the area because the girl fell right into the water while playing around.

Discovering the beauty of her Caucasian skin after various accidental dives, she decides to thoroughly wash her body to fully enjoy her newly discovered beauty. After washing up and cleaning her newly acquired long sleeved black dress, the most beautiful girl stares back at her through the reflecting water. Her bright scars are near invisible, at first glance, on her Caucasian skin and her black body markings are covered by her new dress.

Out of nowhere a word echoes down the alley, reverberating deep within the body and soul, a word long forgotten, followed by three kids entering the courtyard.

“Come on, pass me the ball Tristan. It’s my turn. Help me out Joe! Please!”

“Come get it, if you can!” Tristan laughs right back at the girl.

As Joe, Tristan and a girl step out of the alley, they discover a small beautiful girl around their age standing next to their favourite pond in town.

“Hey! That’s our pond! Get away from there!” Tristan shouts at the strange girl.

“Come on Tris. Why are you always such a jerk? You don’t even know her. What do you think, Anri?” As Joe turns around to face the only girl of their group, the time seems to stop for the girl by the pond. There it was again, the word which reverberated deep within her soul.

“I think he’s a jerk ‘cuz he didn’t see his ol’ dad for weeks. Anyway, what do you think is her name?” As she whispers the last sentence into Joe’s ear she shyly hides behind his body.

“Hey, what’s your name?” Joe asks the girl as their group gets closer.

For the girl, time slowly starts up again as she is approached by the group of kids, freeing her trapped mind of the reverberating word.

“A…” The kids couldn’t understand her, due to her soft whispering.

“Sorry, I didn’t hear you. Speak up! We don’t bite. Right, Joe?” Tristan tries to encourage the strange girl. “Look, these two are Anri and Joe. And this beauty right here is me, Tristan.”

After a moment the girl starts to fidget around with her hands and slowly spoke up.

“I think … I think …. I am Anri?” The girl answers uncertainly.

Suddenly the head of the shy Anri pops out of behind Joes shoulder with sparkling eyes. “Woah, I’m also Anri! This is great! Nice to meet you! Are your parents also into ancient mythology? Why is your hair so beautiful? Were you playing on your own? Do you want to play with us? I need some help against Tristan and nothing can stop two Anris once we get started!”

As the strange girl near the pond didn’t answer any of her questions, Anri keeps on talking.

“Anyway, my mom always said that I’m named after Anri because she was brave, beautiful and never gave up, no matter her circumstances. So, if you don’t wanna help me I’m gonna beat Tristan on my own!” She proudly declares while sticking out her chest.

“Umm, I don’t really know how to play your game and I don’t want to play anymore anyway.”

“Come on, it’s not that hard. For starters we just grab the ball and never give it back to Tristan and Joe, because they are stupid boys! And Tristan is a jerk!”

“Umm, no thank you!” As Anri declines the offer, she starts running back through the alley, leaving the pond with a startled trio behind.

“Hey! Where are you going? I already told you that we don’t bite!” Tristan shouts after her.

“Come on guys. Let’s see what she is up to.” The three kids start to trail after the strange beautiful girl who vanished down the alley, without noticing the bloody garments lying underneath the tree near the pond.

I proudly present: Anri, the main character. (After just 9 chapters)

I wanted to ask you guys, what do you think about my grammar? English is not my native language and tbh I am mostly too lazy to proofread my chapters. I just skim them real quick in general. Is it ok? Do I need to check it more throughly? Do you llike cookies?