Many years ago, long before the great ruins of our village were made, a large group of men and women came from across the sea to our land. They built little settlements here and there and began planting crops. Their land thrived almost immediately. They all were happy and prosperous. The people set up their own government and money system. This land was nearly utopia. The people had nothing to fear. There were no invaders, yet; there were no wars, yet; there was no famine, yet; there was no tyranny, yet. After nearly two hundred years of living in peace, the nations across the seas wanted their wealth. This country they envied had beautiful landscape and crops to make any nation thrive. Their trade was profitable; their income was larger than their costs year after year. The cities were large and the towers high. The other nations took advantage of their sense of security.

Without warning the nation was attacked and ran-sacked. The land was left with nothing. The people were massacred and their leaders executed. The people fled with nowhere to go. The nation was brought down in one swift blow. The cities were brought down to the ground leaving nothing but waste and ash. The lands that once boasted in rivers and crops were burned into nothingness. Every creature was killed; those who survived starved. The other nations, after their fit of jealousy was over, stood back to examine their work. The economic giant was brought down never to rise again. The peaceful country was left on the brink of death.

And yet…

No one was happy.

Even after all the death and destruction the nations across the seas brought in hopes of making themselves important again, no one was happy. The countries across the seas gained nothing from the destruction of this unnamed country. But they also lost a great deal of income from it.

The cost of this war, if you could call it a war, was great upon the leading countries from across the seas. Making weapons and paying soldiers put many of the smaller countries into great debt. As the rulers across the seas tried to heal their financial wound and regain what dignity they had left, the little country on the other side of the sea tried to heal its wounds of war.

No one was happy.

The country was nothing but a wasteland.

The people were sad.

The people were dead or dying.

The people were starving.

But…

These people who survived the war, or rather the attack, pushed on.

They were going to survive.

They had to survive.

What other choice did they have?

They did not want to die.

"And how would the history books be read in those lands across the seas when they see how far we've come from those days? They will read, 'And even though they never stood a chance against the destruction, they not only survived, they thrived."

Little Mira shifted her position slightly as I finished my story. It was her nap time and she asked me to tell her the story of the wasteland. I couldn't help but oblige. She was my niece; after all, no aunt can refuse her niece a request.

Her mother, and my sister in law, Kaho came in to check on us just as I was struggling to stand up. She laughed as I awkwardly stumbled over some of the other sleeping children in the room.

"You put all of them to sleep," she giggled.

"Yes, well history class puts me to sleep too sometimes," I whispered as she shut the door behind me.

"Oh but you do such a good job with the kids when telling them about their past," she said as she walked down the dark hallway with me at her side.

Kaho was the village teacher; I was her apprentice of sorts. She married my brother when he graduated from her class about six years ago. Their little girl is about five years old now. I love the name they chose for her as well, Mira. It means future. Which is what we strive for every day here in our village.

Fifty years after the attack on our country and our people are still surviving. But up until only eight years ago the entire country was about to die out completely.

I was only twelve at the time. And my brother was eighteen going on nineteen. I was never exactly the best lady in the village. My mother and father were the leaders. I guess they still are, actually. My days were all pretty simple, start out the day with breakfast with my family, lessons on leading the country with my mother, lessons with Miss Kaho. Then after that I had the rest of the day to spend however I want. I usually spent it with my best friend and cousin Tomoyo. She and I were not exactly ladies. We would run around the village killing the monsters and getting into trouble.

It was during one of those little adventures where I met her.

Though the word "met" usually means two people being introduced to one another in a public or private setting for the first time; the word that best describes that moment is the word "found." I found her that day. I was running around the ruins of the city, something my parents said they rather have me NOT do, and my brother was also set on having me stay in the village. But Tomoyo and I decided that a little exploring would be more fun. I was on top of the large conference center of the city. Not a single building was left the way it once was. And this building was no different. We were always told that the structures were unstable, and being on top of them was very dangerous. They could fall on us at any time. But I was not one to let a little warning get in the way of our rendition of Romeo and Juliet. I was Juliet and I was to stand on the balcony and await the coming of Romeo, in the form of Tomoyo. But just as Tomoyo was saying how marvelous it would be to be the glove on my hand I felt the ground below me begin to give.

I let out a shriek as I suddenly saw darkness come up and swallow me whole.

Mother always said kids bounce.

And bounce, I did.

I bounced off the beams of the building and tumbled off one floor after another. I bounced off this pile of rubble in hopes of solidly landing on that pile only to bounce off it again. No it wasn't spring-filled, I just was falling so quickly I seemed to slide off of it. Finally the falling stopped. The darkness around me was overwhelming. I could barely hear Tomoyo's frantic screams from above my head. I must have fallen four or five floors down. Tomoyo and I were already fairly high up on the building, about two stories above the "ground" of ash and rubble. I could hear her scream my name, was that my name I heard?

"Sakura-chan! Sakura-chan are you okay?! Answer me Sakura-chan!"

Is that my name? I must have hit my head pretty hard on my way down here.

The light above my head was dark. But the room was oddly lit. I looked around for a moment, trying to get a grasp of the situation. The room was destroyed, the walls were torn down and there were only a few beams that held up the roof above my head. I dared not go further inside. But as I walked in I could see the light was coming from further in the wreckage. I saw where the walls used to be of a large room. It must have been the auditorium of the center. There was a large scoreboard on the ground and the lines from the court were still visible. I have never played an official game of basketball, but my brother and his friends let me play with them on the old streets were they found a goal. They made a second one on the other side of the open space. An old man told us about how he and his friends used to play in the large conference center where I now stood. It was a surreal moment. But there was still the mystery of the light beyond the scoreboard. I walked further into the rubble. The bleachers were in a mangled mess over by the wall, the center of the building came straight down into the court. But the light was not over there, it was back over by a wall that had not fallen. It was hidden behind a large object that looked like a stand with a seat in it. The old man described how one person would sit on a large crow's nest and give the "play-by-play" to the fans.

And that was when I found her. She was the light I saw. She stood, motionless, like a statue. Her eyes were closed. Her skin seemed to be solid and paled. She was almost like a statue. The only thing that made me sure she was not a statue was her hair. It was soft to the touch and very long, nearly touching the ground. I reached out my hand to touch her when I heard voices. It was more of one single voice calling to me.

At first I thought it was Tomoyo, trying to get me to respond, but I realized that I was alone and out of earshot of anyone. I focused more on the person in front of me. I listened to the voice.

"Come on," a little voice said, "just one night here with me. It will be fun, Syaoran!"

I froze and listened more to the voice, another voice rang out in the silence, "But Princess, I do not belong in the palace, and father would—"

"Your father would understand! You've been gone for weeks, I've missed you Syaoran!"

There was a still silence for a moment in the darkness, "Alright, Princess, for you."

"Yay! I get to spend the night with Syaoran!"

"As long," the voice interrupted almost hesitantly, "as you stay at my home."

There was another silence, "I would like that very much."

The next thing I knew I had my hand on the person, my fingers twitched at the base of her neck. The room was dark again. I fell to my knees and screamed as I held my hands to my head. I got dizzy as I fell to the ground.

I woke up with a start in my bed. Apparently I had passed out after touching the girl. I was down there for three hours as the men from my village tried to find me. They had gone around to the main doors of the building, which had remained above ground. They had found the doors to the gym and when they opened them they found me and the girl. They brought both of us back to the village. My mother, the village seer, told the men to place the girl in a room separate from the rest of the people. Since they found me next to the girl passed out, they feared she was cursed.

At that time the only people who know of the girl are the men who rescued me, my father and brother, and my mother. My mother wanted to examine the girl further. I never told anyone about the voices. I never thought it was that important.

As time went on I learned more about leading the people, I also got stronger. And I also became a seer like my mother. My father went on leading the people. And my mother continued to try to figure out who and what the girl was. What no one knew was that I went to go see her as well. Late at night I would have a dream, it was always the same dream, in the dream two children would be playing in the sand. That was a sight I was used to. The two would be playing and talking to one another. They grow up sitting next to each other. And just as they are about to stand up from the sand, the girl falls and the boy catches her. Two figures, both of which have different clothes from the other two, appear next to the boy and they all disappear into nothingness. The last thing I see is the girl's tear fall from her face when she disappears. Then I open my eyes and see my hand at the base of the mysterious girl's neck, just over the heart.

As time flowed on, the land became more and more rich. The crops we were fighting to grow seemed to grow naturally. Suddenly, the families in our little village had such a plethora that we began to throw out the extra food. The extra food was able to be used as fertilizer. The people had crops growing naturally in what little ground they had. Soon, the people were able to go out for long periods of time with food to sustain them. They returned with good news of the shores. The people were beginning to dig canals to the village and we were able to get fresh water from above the ground.

And this all happened after the girl was brought back.

The people were alive, they were thriving.

We were all so happy.

And yet, I never knew.

I never knew.

She was becoming more and more ill, but she never showed it.

It was like a dream, those weeks.

It started when mother collapsed in the chamber with that girl. Then she became so weak she could not get out of bed. It was as if that girl was poisoning her. I knew in my heart that I hated that girl for what she was doing to my mother, yet I was so attracted to her that I could not help but go to see her and stare at her. Then I would go to my mother and watch as she slowly died in front of us.

We were so happy. But it seems the land has this idea that once the people here are happy, it is time to send calamity. Being a near-primal village with little medicine for even the simplest of sicknesses, there was little help to be given to my mother.

It was like I was standing on the conference center again. On top of the world, only to be engulfed by darkness and thrown down below the earth itself and hit every freaking ledge on the way down.

But, who was I to tell the world to let up on me?

I was not the only one suffering from the pain of my mother's death. The entire village wept at her funeral. They asked what happened to her, why did she become ill so suddenly. Somehow, word of that girl spread to the villagers. My father knew next to nothing about her, he only had my mother's notes on what she could figure out. The people wanted to know if she was a threat or not.

I, being the only other seer in the village, apart from Toya's childhood friend, Yukito, was chosen to take up her research. And that is exactly what I did. I studied her notes for days as I tried to make sense of what I knew and never told my family, and what she wrote down.

Day 67,

I have come to the realization that this being is indeed alive. Her hair has grown from its original length from 67 days ago and is now 1/20th of an inch longer. Her body has slowed its growing state indefinitely. Judging from the size of her clothing and her actual body size, her growth rate has not stopped altogether. She looks as if she could be in her mid-20 but her clothes have been made for a young girl in her younger teen years. But these clothes are immovable. She must be in some sort of coma-like state. There is a chance that she is a young girl from the time of the attack all those years ago. If that is the case, she has a slowed growth rate of 1\4 as that of a normal human. And yet, there is no heartbeat to be found.

The day came where I had my own notebook and I was ready to enter the chamber and begin taking notes myself. I hesitated for the sake of my father and brother. They feared I would end up like my mother. But I had been visiting her almost as often as my mother and showed no signs of becoming ill. I wore the same ceremonial clothes as my mother on that day. As I entered the chamber I was almost immediately drawn to her. The voices echoed in the room as I walked up to her. And then I saw the sunset from my little window in my room.

That is how it always was. I would walk in, hear the same voices, and then realize I was in my room watching the sunset. Apparently I would spend hours in the room, walk out and tell the first person I saw that I found nothing, and then I would wander to my room and stare out the window in silence. Nothing more.

Years passed. My brother got married and had a daughter. He named her Mira, future. I went into the chamber less and less until it was nearly deserted completely. I ever only found out one thing for sure, she was the reason the land was so plentiful. It all started because she was brought there.

But she was also the reason the world was so dark. Don't worry, I am not sad anymore. Accepting my mother's death took a long time, but I was able to do it, with everyone's help, of course.

Tomoyo and I still went out and got into trouble. I became strong, both as a seer and as a warrior. But one thing always constant for my people here:

We were in a wasteland.

We were hidden from the world.

We were safe.

That is, until the people from the West became curious.

And that, my friends, is where the story really begins.