Prologue-

 

Her lungs burning, the girl, only looking to be age twelve, crawled across the forest floor, the leaves rustling beneath her body, stopping only when she came to the cliff. It was clear that she had been running, given that she had scrapes, most likely received from rough rocks and bramble bushes, all over the bottom of her feet.

Ripping back the sleeve of her shirt, she frowned at the black code that was tattooed there. How she despised that code; despised what they had done to her. She brought up her hand to claw at the code on her shoulder, but it was useless; her fingernails were much too short to break through the skin due to her constantly chewing them.

"ILZ67984, huh?" She said, laughing though it was obvious she didn't think what she had said was funny at all. She cringed at even saying the numbers, almost as if it pained her to do so.

"Nobody will ever call me that again. Ever." She pushed herself onto her feet, wincing as she did so. Blood seeped out from under her cracked, scraped feet onto the leaves beneath them, staining them crimson. Her deep blue eyes stared straight ahead, fearless. She knew what to do.

Using what little bit of strength she had left, the girl threw herself over the side of the cliff, not making a single sound. As she fell, tears came off of her cheeks, blowing above her. She spiraled downward until her vision went blurry, and faded to black as she slowly blinked her eyes closed.

Only, that was over three years ago.

Interesting. Was the girl a slave? I know sometimes especially evil people just name their slaves numbers or codes.