The girl didn't understand.

What was happening?

She had boarded a ship.

She had seen the waves from the perch of her father's shoulders.

She had eaten desserts from the fork in her mother's hand.

She had heard laughter every night.

She had seen hooded performers every day.

She had woken to the shouting.

There were thuds outside their room.

Her mother caressed her hair as she carried her into the bright lights.

She saw red splashes along the walls.

She saw red staining the floors.

She saw people sleeping in piles.

Why had no one woken them?

She saw the performers in the foyer, still loud though the sun had set.

Everyone was sitting before them. Were they performing again?

But why was no one cheering?

Her family sat with the others. The performers were still shouting.

More bangs. Some screams. A few gasps.

More people streamed in from different doors. Scared grown ups. Trembling boys and girls. Smaller children, like herself, carried on hips.

All sat on the ground.

For a moment, there was silence.

One hooded figure began to sing. The others joined him. She'd heard this song before. What was it called again, an...an "anthem"?

Then came the loudest bang of all.

The world rolled over.

And everything went black.

She woke up.

She was on a beach.

Her body was numb.

Her face was wet. She touched her brow.

It hurt! It was sticky!

She looked at her hand.

The same red those grown ups were sleeping in. But why?

She looked around.

So many people lying face up, face down, on their sides, in more piles. So much red soaking the sand.

She turned her gaze higher.

Oh?

Those people weren't lying down. They were running!

A man in a checkered shirt limped towards the woods.

A man in a torn cloak limped after him, holding something long and black.

A bang. A puff of smoke. A splat of red.

The first man fell forward.

The girl looked the other way.

A woman dragged another by the leg back to the beach, even though the second clung to the sand before her. The first collapsed as soon as the sun hit her.

Two more bangs. A bird took flight from a treetop.

From beneath it stumbled two men, one in brown cloth and one without. One dropped another black thing, a smaller one this time.

They fell, one on top of the other.

A pat on her back.

The girl whipped around, her golden hair slapping her forehead and making her hiss.

"Shh! Shh! It's me!"

Her father.

He was covered in red. Parts of his face were redder than others. His left arm looked wrong.

"Pa..." she choked "...ba?"

"Shh. Relax." He reached for her face, but stopped at the colour of his palm. "It's okay."

She looked behind him. There was someone lying there.

It was a woman.

She was lying on her back.

She couldn't see her face; it was bent too far the other way. She's never seen anyone turn their head like that.

Her dress...if only it wasn't stained everything else, she might know why it looked familiar.

The woman's hand was so close to the girl's head, as though reaching out to her. She stretched an aching arm to meet it -

"Don't. Don't." Her father grabbed her wrist and looked around. "We need to go."

Go? Go where? "Ma..." she swallowed.

"Mummy's in the forest," her father was still whispering. Why? Why was he so close to the ground? Why was he looking around so much? "Can you move?"

She tried to raise her head. "Aah!" It fell back with a thud.

"Shh!" But why did she have to be quiet? "I'll carry you. I know it hurts, but please be as quiet as you can until I say so, alright?"

She nodded. He slid his arms beneath her shoulders and kept turning his head left and right, left and right.

Without warning, he ran.

They left the beach.

They left the sun; all they saw now were glimpses through the tall trees.

Her body hurt. Every movement, every time her father jumped over a rock or fallen branch, hurt.

But she stayed quiet. Her father hadn't said she could shout yet.

Her father slowed. He stumbled to a halt.

He looked around. Breathed a sigh of relief.

Bang.

He spun around, throwing the girl away. She crumpled into a pile of leaves and bit her lip. Something warm gushed out but all that mattered was her father staggering backwards.

A stranger limped out from even deeper into the forest, holding a black thing. The long kind. He raised it to his eye and slid his finger into a small hole beneath the part that stuck out.

All was silent as he took a deep breath.

Click.

More silence.

"Ha!" The stranger ran a hand over his belt and laughed again. "Ha!" He threw the thing aside and drew something from behind him.

She knew what this was; her mother used it all the time back home.

It was a knife.

But why did this one make her father look so...was he scared?

The stranger took three short steps forward. Her father glanced at her.

But he didn't need to. She'd promised to stay quiet after all.

Now both men were staggering towards each other. The stranger's grin grew wider with every step.

They were close enough to touch now. The man lashed out with the knife. Her father stepped back but just too late.

He screamed and a tiny spray of red flew from a new hole in his shirt. He landed on a bent knee, but pushed off and punched the other man's belly.

But her father had told her never to hurt anyone!

The stranger laughed and slashed down. Her father avoided this one and rammed his head into the other's chin.

Both men staggered, then flew at each other.

A punch.

A kick.

A dodge.

A stab.

The fallen leaves turned dark as they stumbled. It reminded her of the day her parents tried to dance after drinking their grown-up water.

She kept watching as the stranger lashed out one final time, cutting a line right through her father's stomach. He yelled as the largest spray of red yet poured out of him.

He fell on his back. The stranger laughed once more before he collapsed onto his knees, knife falling to the dirt beside him.

She couldn't take it anymore. She ran out of the shadows and skidded to her knees by her father's side, seeing the stranger's eyes widen in shock from the corner of her own.

Her father's eyes rolled over to meet hers.

"Wh-why are y-you...here?"

"Pa..." she swallowed. How did he expect her to answer that?

"So you were hiding her?"

The stranger's voice was the deepest she'd ever heard. Her father didn't answer the question. Instead:

"Why?" he could only look at the treetops, but he was angrier than she'd ever heard him. "Why did you do it? Don't you have children too?"

The stranger coughed. "Two."

"How many of ours have you..." her father's eyes flashed toward hers for an instant, "killed?"

"As many as I have to until mine - " another cough " - have what yours do."

What does that mean? She wanted to ask.

"Ridiculous," a loud splutter. "Ridiculous! And now you'll die too."

"But not until I've killed everyone from that ship," now it was the stranger's turn to look at her. "Starting with your little girl, of course." He tried to stand, but the arm he used for support gave in and he fell on his front with a grunt. He laughed into the earth.

"You..." her father rolled his eyes over to hers again, "have to...run. Hide. Please. Please...live."

"Pa...pa?"

"Ha!" he gave her that familiar smile, though this time the white was all red. "Now you get my name right?"

But you said it was okay that I couldn't talk yet! She wanted to scream.

But all she could do was nod.

"I'm...proud." He clenched his fist, then raised his open palm up. Slowly.

It trembled all the way.

"Give me your hand."

She did.

"Good...we're both so... so proud of you..." he coughed. "Remember. All you have to do is hide. Someone will pick you up before you know it." he smiled, lips smeared in that terrible colour. "Do you understand? You just have to wait...for all the bad people...to leave."

She nodded.

"Good..." he let go, though his hand stayed up. "I'm not worried..." his eyes flickered but stayed open. "You're...so smart. Better than either of us were...at your age..." he took a deep breath. "You'll be fine..." he grunted and moved his hand to her cheek. "We love you."

She nodded again.

He smiled. "Now go. You'll be alone," a deep breath, then "but you'll be fine. Alright?"

She tensed. Alone? But her father had more to say.

"Don't be scared. Just imagine you're in one of our stories. Alright?" He smiled, but his hand dropped like a rock. "We're sorry...we can't go with you..."

"Pa...pa..?" her eyes were growing blurry.

"Please...don't cry. That's not...what I want to see right now." he groaned and clenched his teeth and his fist. She screamed.

"Shh!" He looked at her again. "Just smile for me." He gasped. "It'll make all my pain go away. Just smile...please?"

Her eyes darted from his face to the puddle growing around his waist and back again.

"Please?"

She looked him right in the eye.

And smiled.

"That's...my girl..."

He smiled back.

His eyes flickered.

They closed.

She didn't know how long she sat there, on her knees.

However long it was, her father hadn't moved an inch.

All you have to do is hide.

That was the last thing he had ever asked her to do.

You'll be alone, but you'll be fine.

She should get going.

But.

We're sorry...we can't go with you...

But.

Please?

But.

That's...my girl...

How could she?

A rasping laugh.

She jumped.

Her head whipped around to the strange man who groaned and pushed himself onto his knees.

"You...you're still here, kid?"

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

"You heard what I said, right?" he smiled. "I'm going to kill you."

She looked at him.

"So why are you still here?"

She looked around him.

He groaned again and tried to stand, but his legs shook too much. He sighed and laughed again. "You know, kids do this sometimes." He trailed a sluggish hand around the dirt beside him.

She shot forward, grabbed the knife from under his palm and rolled into another heap, panting. She knelt again, pointing the knife at him from too far away to do any harm. He cackled.

"That's a first!" He looked so much younger when he was smiling, "Now what, are you going to kill me first?"

She said nothing.

"If you are, you should hurry. There were still two or three of my people alive when I came in here, how long do you think it'll be 'til they find us?"

She kept the tip aimed at him, though her hands shook - just a bit.

"What's wrong? Don't know how to use it?" he laughed and, with a grunt, raised a hand to his shoulder. "Just stick the pointy bit in here," he tapped the base of his neck. "That's the easiest way to do it. I should know; it's how I started!" he guffawed, then coughed.

She looked at the metal blade of her knife, then the soft pink of his neck.

"Don't worry! It's only the first kill that bothers you...or do you wanna wait 'til I get my strength back? You should know what'll happen when I do."

The first...kill?

She hadn't heard that word until today.

She thought back.

The red walls.

The red floors.

The red sand.

The red clothes.

The red hands.

The red faces.

The red belly.

And now he wanted her to use the knife on him.

That's how you..kill?

She looked at his beaming face.

And it hit her.

This man killed my Papa.

His "people" killed my Mama.

She stood up.

She dragged her aching body forward one step.

And another.

And another.

The man's face flashed between shock and amusement.

She switched the knife around in her hand so that it aimed downward.

She was right behind him now.

He turned his head and smiled.

"You really are smart. I thought your dad was just being a dad."

She placed the tip of the blade at his neck.

Wait.

The man had pushed the knife forward whenever he'd tried to use the tip.

So she'd have to do the same.

She raised the knife up in a straight line.

Now that she thought about it, it was just like using a hammer, wasn't it?

You raise the knife above the skin just as she'd seen her mother raise a hammer over one of those nails.

And what you do next is simple too. It's just a single, fast movement.

You push down.

The Gardarik Empire has long envied Leidenschaftlich's natural resources and access to the sea, with their own economy suffering from the price of importing coal and goods from foreign countries. While it would officially declare war after forming an alliance with the Salbert Holy State, the Empire's intelligence and black ops networks spent many years trying to destabilise their hated rivals through many tactics. Though some, such as undercutting trade deals, were legal or exploited legal loopholes, others were anything but.

Several years before the war officially began, all newspapers in Leidenschaftlich reported on the same incident: that of a harbourmaster accepting bribes from an extremist faction from the Empire. Although the master was punished, the whistleblower had exposed him too late to stop the faction boarding a ship leaving the country for the summer.

Of particular note, said the papers, was that this particular group were the very definition of the word "extreme," known for their brutality toward hostages and strict ransoms. According to the harbourmaster, the terrorists (though some Gardarik-sympathisers called them freedom fighters) planned to hijack the ship mid-voyage and bring it to the outskirts of Leiden, from where they would make their demands.

However, the ship never appeared.

There were a few theories. The harbourmaster confirmed that the faction had firearms, but could they also have smuggled bombs aboard without him realising? And if so, was it possible that one of them had gotten overzealous, perhaps from someone calling their bluff? Or was someone from Leidenschaftlich to blame - perhaps the captain had intentionally wrecked the ship to keep it out of enemy hands? Maybe the Mother Goddess was the cause; had she perhaps struck the ship down to punish the wicked and deliver swift mercy to the innocent? Or, came a simpler theory, was the ship merely in the wrong place at the wrong time, and sunken by a storm?

In time, as with all things, the incident faded into a distant memory.

It was only after the war began that the father's promise came true.

A naval captain was tasked with protecting one of Leidenschaftlich's trading ports. It was a long and arduous battle with heavy casualties on both sides, yet the conflict came to an end not because either party won, but because a freak storm caught both navies unaware. Both sides were almost wiped out and the captain, along with his surviving underlings, were stranded at sea.

But only for a while.

In time they came upon an island that showed no signs of civilisation. Just as they cursed their luck, one of the sailors spotted a human figure in that wild place.

That of a little girl.

After seeing what she was capable of, the sole survivor of the encounter took the girl home and as his new tool. He used it well.

But he never got over the fear he felt the day they met.

So, after getting as much out of it as he could stomach, he gave it to his little brother to reward his promotion to major.

The Major, in turn, gave the tool a name:

Violet.