Welcome to Gaia! ::

Kei walked alone, as always, to the next town. She has not traveled with another person ever. She has learned to like roaming from town to town. She only roams to stay away from them. They are always chasing her, hunting her, attacking her. They were the ones to make her like she is, they are the reason she roams, they are the ones who are after her now, and they are the ones who want to either recapture her or kill her. Kei personally prefers neither.

By now, Kei is used to being alone. She has only been roaming for six months, but she has been alone for half her life. Sure, she is only 14, but for seven long years she has been alone. In those seven years, she has aged mentally many more years than just seven. She always keeps to herself in every town she enters. She only stops to scavenge something to eat or maybe find a place to sleep. Most of the time, she sleeps outside unless she is lucky enough to come across an abandoned building. She usually never has money so most of the time she steals the food, of course that is unless she’s lucky and stumbles across some money. She doesn’t mind her life as it is right now. It’s better than the life she’s been living for six and a half years. Naturally, when she first started out alone she was scared, sad, and lonely, but she outgrew those feelings a long time ago.

She rarely talks to anyone anymore. When she does talk her eyes and voice give away no emotion. Before they took her she used to always be sweet and polite, bow she rarely is. She’s not necessarily rude, she’s just not polite.

Kei was pulled out of her thoughts as she reached the town entrance. She let an exuberated sigh as she continued forward. She looked around at the town she just entered. It looked nice and clean, well-built also. She scoured around to try and find something to eat. It has been two days since she last ate. By the looks of it, she guessed she was close to the middle of town. She saw a small cart selling fresh fruit by the side of the road.

“Perfect,” Kei thought, “ now to wait for the perfect time to strike.”

Kei saw her chance when an old gray haired lady walked up to the cart. As she was telling the owner of the cart what she wanted Kei walked by and quietly slipped a bright red apple into her hand. As she quickly sneaked away she silently smiled to herself.

“The owner will never even notice that an apple is gone.” She told herself. She continued walking through the town munching on her dinner. Even though the streets were crowded with people walking along in their happy, busy lives, nobody paid any attention to Kei. She blended in almost perfectly to the other people in her forest green short-sleeved shirt, black pants, and black elbow-length gloves. Her hair appeared to be light brown in the sun she was walking in. When her hair is washed and flat on her back it is actually a golden blonde color and goes halfway down her back. It’s only brown now because she hasn’t been able to take a bath or shower in over six months. In the place they took her, she received a shower once a week. Now though, she has to find things like rivers or streams to wash herself so she’s never truly clean, not that she minds. As she finished off her apple, her mind started thinking about when she was younger and she was still the happy, naïve, little child that loved to please her family.

“Kei, want to help me make dinner?” Kei’s mother asked her six-year-old self. “Yeah!” she yelled running over to her mom. “First we have to wash our hands.” Her mom said with a big smile on her face. Kei had a smile to match her mother’s as her mom picked her up.

As she finished washing her hands her dad came in and picked her up to give her a kiss on the cheek. “How’s my baby girl today?” he asked her. “Good.” She answered while giggling. “Hey Kei! Want to go play?” her ten-year-old brother asked as he walked in. Kei looked at her mom who nodding toward her. “Yes!” she yelled.

Kei gave a sad smile as she remembered her family before everything started happening. She’s changed a lot from the little girl she once was. She let out a small sigh as she reached the outer part of the town. She wished so much to return to the time when she was little.

She was knocked out her daydream when a person dressed in all black jumped in front of her. Immediately, she knew they had caught up with her. She got in the fighting stance her “other” had taught her to do. As the figure pointed a gun at her, she crouched quickly then lunged at the figure’s waist. The momentum of her lunge caused the figure to fall backwards onto the ground. While the body was dazed and on the ground, Kei jumped up and raced for the end of the town. With her blonde/brown hair flying behind her, she raced as quickly as possible. She knew if she stopped now they would find her and take her back to that… that… prison.

They always called it her home, but it never was. She always listened to the saying, “Home is where your heart is”, and her heart was far away from that place. Sometimes Kei wondered if she even had a heart anymore. They probably took it when they gave her her gifts. Though, she doesn’t think of them as gifts, she considers them more curses, but she never got any say with what they did to her.

Kei looked around and noticed she was out of the town and in middle of nowhere. She let a sad sigh and caught her breath before walking on. She wished they would just leave her alone. No matter where she goes they always follow her. They never leave her alone. She wishes she could find one town where they wouldn’t find her. Just one town where she’s away from all the fighting and attacking.

She wondered how her life would have been if she was able to stay with her family. What would it have been like if she had been able to live a normal life? She would probably never find out. Kei snapped out of her thoughts and looked ahead to see how far away the next town was. She judged it would take her about another hour. She looked into the sky to try and guess what time it was, but instead of seeing the sun, she saw dark, threatening storm clouds heading toward her. Since she didn’t really want to get rained on she picked up her pace a little bit.

Kei reached the edge of town as it started to sprinkle. “Great.” She muttered. She looked around for some place to hide from the torrential downpour. Her eyes landed on what looked like an abandoned building. She quietly jogged over to it and peered inside. She smiled as she noticed it was completely empty except for a few empty wood crates.

When she tried the doors she found them locked, but she just kicked them open. The warm, dry air welcomed her in from the cold, wet rain. “I can wait out the storm from inside here.” She said to no one. She let out a small yawn and decided she might as well sleep while the storm is raging. Closing the door, she walked to the wall farthest away and sat in the corner. She let her eyelids slowly close and fell into a light, dreamless slumber.