Author's Note: Bonjour, les amis! This is Red-chan! No, this won't be in French, that's just my new greeting and such! I hope you all will humor me and take a look at my new story, and perhaps, if you haven't, stop by the others and give me your opinions. I look forward to working on this, as I enjoy this character and idea very much. I am still working on my other stories, just not as diligently as some things have come up and well . . . you could say I'm having a little block, so I'm stepping away from them and working here, and, eventually, I'll make my way back to them.

Until then, enjoy this prologue to the new story Behind The Gates.

Disclaimer: I do not own HxH. I do not own any of the characters in any way, shape, or form. I do -however- own Loretta and her family, and the plot elements (to an extent) of this story.

Happy reading! ~Red-chan

Behind The Gates

Prologue

The Perfect Life Isn't Always Perfect Behind the Eyes of the Perfected

In retrospect, she knew that all of this could have been avoided if she had made that one choice differently. If she had repressed her desperation for just a moment longer, just long enough for the giant estate to go out of view, she would probably be home, snuggled under her heavy winter blanket, sitting in front of the fireplace next to her older brother, listening to the stories of her family. If only she had put up with her clawing desire to be out of her family's suffocating grasp for another moment, perhaps she wouldn't be in the state she was in.

But she was, and she hadn't had the control to be patient another second. And she had paid the price.

Pure, white snow covered the ground a good three or four inches, it's surface soft yet it stung her body upon contact. Red lashes and marks decorated her skin, just barely outnumbering the bluish, purple bruises that had formed in various places along her arms and legs. Her normally peach colored skin was a ghostly pale, a light pinkish color tinting her cheeks. The almost maroon-like brown of her hair was barely visible under the layer of white that caused it to stick to her neck, and her blue goggles were cracked, hanging loosely around her neck on a string that was bound to break any second.

She no longer had the green, silky, soft jacket that she loved to zip up and cover her nose with during the cold; that had been stripped from her long ago. Her blue pants, which were cut off at the knees, were of no use to her for warmth, especially since they had been torn to shreds and barely covered her enough as is. Even worse off was her torso, covered by only a light, blue tank top that was made for much warmer weather.

Her skin was a mix of white and red, almost like a murder atop a snowy hill, an occurrence that happened around a year ago, ironically enough.

Maybe this was how it happened. Maybe this was how they tortured people. Or perhaps it was only one of many ways.

She hoped she didn't live long enough to experience the others.

She could only think of her family at a time like this.

Her mother: a warm smile gracing the pink of her lips, the golden brown hair scrunched up as she held her children by the fire, her brown eyes shining as she spoke of the people she'd met at the hospital that day.

Her father: leaning back in his recliner a few feet away from the kids, laughing as the youngest paraded around after the family dog (a stray he had brought home from his clinic), red hair and blue eyes illuminated by the fire.

Her brother: sitting comfortably in his mother's lap, his dark red hair falling into his golden eyes as he listened to their parents tales, fascinated and dreaming of what would await him when he were older.

And then there would have been her: a small girl with sandy-brown eyes and maroon colored hair that only cared about having fun, playing with the puppy and chatting with the kids at the hospital, having no real interest in what her parents did.

Most would say that she had the perfect life, a well drawn map of her future made in gold, guaranteed. Almost anyone would kill for the security her life would hold, never having to wonder or worry about anything; everything was planned out. But she didn't see it that way; she saw it as a trap, a cage that she was confined to, held back by the fear of breaking her parent's hearts.

But she had to go and destroy it all. Breaking her brother, her parents, and ultimately herself.

Right about now the life her parents had planned for her sounded a lot better than the future she was heading towards. She would rather be taking care of sick, elderly people, or giving weak animals medication to get better, or even putting them to sleep if it were necessary.

That's what she wanted at this point: to be put to sleep; taken out of her misery.

She wanted to die already, regretting her choices.

If only she hadn't run out of her brother's grasp that day. If only she hadn't shouted and stomped on his foot. If only she hadn't told him that if he'd followed her she would hate him forever.

Perhaps if she had shown the anguish in her eyes, the pain of being held up to a role she knew she would never fulfill, he would have followed her. Perhaps he would have seen past her anger, an anger which faded the instant she faced down the large, dark haired hound that would have ripped her to shreds had it not been distracted by two old men attempting to barge into the estate.

She had gotten lucky, or so she had thought. To her it seemed as if she would have been luckier to have been eaten by the giant dog; then she wouldn't be suffering as she was now.

She was in so much pain that she couldn't even rub her fingers against her arms to generate heat, the burning sensation from the contact freezing her in place. She wasn't even sure if all of her fingers were still intact.

Somehow she found it funny, wondering if anyone thought a little, nine-year-old girl could be thinking of these types of things. After all she'd been exposed to in the past months, she didn't feel like a little girl anymore. She didn't feel like anyone in general anymore, not even herself. She felt like dead weight to the world, a piece of garbage waiting to be absorbed into the Earth.

Her eyes suddenly picked up color amongst the white, a light lavender that she could barely see, her eyes shaking in and out of focus. In an attempt to steady them, she cast them up quickly, spotting first a speck of silver hair, belonging to such a short statured person that it could only be the one who had saved her before.

Her feelings of gratitude were quickly burnt to ashes by what lie just below that silver hair: painstakingly blue eyes coated in her worst nightmare, and suddenly her entire body was numb.

The only thing that scared her anymore, after all that she had endured at this estate, was what she saw in his eyes:

Blood-lust.

Author's Note: Thank you so much for taking the time to read this prologue! The idea for this was inspired by the song "The War is Over" by Kelly Clarkson, and a vibrating Gorilla at Chuck-E-Cheese. I haven't stopped working on Red or HoF, both are still being worked on, I'm just entertaining an idea that wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it. And I hope it'll go well, and I hope you'll like it!

Comments? Did you like it? Why or why not? Questions? Anything you want to say (that isn't just being outright mean) is welcome. I always love hearing from people, whether it be praise, criticism, or something in between. Feedback is welcome!

Merci, les amis! ~Red-chan