"Get back here, witch!"

The vociferous ensemble of riotous pursuers fills the back alley, kicking sand and dust into the air against the backdrop of an old desert town. The pursuers' shadows paint black silhouettes against the dusty cloud chasing a smaller shadow.

          *Huff* *Huff* *Huff*

A young girl flees from the mob of people after her; she runs as fast as she can, though the sand and dust force her breathing to progressively become more unsteady and heavy. Tears well up in the corners of her eyes as she silently questions herself about how she got to this point.

It wasn't her fault, but as confident as she was in believing that was the case, the young girl did not truly know what was happening to her. For the last couple of weeks, she would blackout at random occurrences, only to wake up somewhere else with blood on her hands. Sometimes, she'd wake up and find herself surrounded by dead bodies. Other times, the area surrounding her would be destroyed. It truly frightened her, but more evidently, it frightened the people of the city. The young girl, however, had the Mages' Academy to support her, their goal simply being to locate and destroy the source of the girl’s curse. At the very least, that’s what the sages believe, though even they have had trouble with the research. Their recent lack of funding certainly does not help.

The young girl rounds a corner and finds a small, wooden barrel. Opening it up, the smell of old wheat and wood wafts into the air, and the girl quickly peeks inside. A few bushels of wheat are at the bottom, and she decides to climb in. The barrel creaks loudly as she fumbles inside, and as she closes the barrel's lid above her, she silently prays to the heavens that the sound of the mob has drowned out the sound of the creaking wood. As the young girl tries her best to calm her breathing and hold in her quiet sobbing, she can hear the crowd outside darting about the area. She overhears a few of them outside the barrel, saying she was last seen in this alley. Someone brushes up against the barrel, and the girl firmly keeps her hands clamped over her mouth.

I wish Luci was here, the young girl thinks to herself. A wave of strong emotions hits her at once as if her life flashed before her. She runs her left hand against her right arm, or at least, what is substituting as her arm. The young girl doesn't remember how she lost it, but with the inventive minds of both the Dwarves and the Gnomes, she can use her artificial arm like a real one. The soft clicking of gears and the quiet hissing of steam is something that brings an odd comfort to her. 

The young girl finally works up the courage to open the lid of the barrel after a few minutes of silence. As the lid slides open, a hand reaches in and grabs the young girl's wrist. She is forcefully yanked out of the barrel, tipping it over while the wheat inside spills out onto the sand. The young girl yelps in pain as she collapses onto the floor, her clothes dirtied from the sand and dust. She looks up and sees a crowd of people staring at her with unadulterated hatred.

Why is this happening to me? The young girl can only quietly curse her helplessness as the crowd of people marches ever closer to her, their hoes, scythes, and pitchforks held in their hands like weapons. The girl quickly gets up on her feet, only to collapse back down with a sharp pain in her right ankle. Glancing at her leg, she could see that the barrel had caught onto the straps of her sandal, and she must have twisted her ankle as she fell. Drops of blood stain the sand and rocks below her foot, and she reflexively grasps her leg in pain. The sudden realization of the situation begins to sink in as the mob continues to move closer and closer. She closes her eyes, waiting for the final blow, but after a moment passes without anything happening to her, she meekly glances up at the crowd. They hold fearful expressions, standing frozen in their tracks, as if they were witnessing something terrible. A sudden sharp and constant pain hits her in her head, and she holds her head in her hands.

"Ahhh!" The young girl screams in agony, the pain worsening as her consciousness begins to slip. Her body is covered in an eerie black mist, and her eyes glow an ominous crimson. Then, silence.

The last thing the young girl sees is a black, humanoid figure of smoke and shadows as it begins its genocide.