A young girl with long brown hair, around the age of eight, was joyfully trotting down the dirt street in her plain cotton kimono. She carried a bouquet of daisies in both hands and was struggling to contain all of the flowers. "Good morning, Sasaki-san!" she chirped to the brunette shop owner.
"Oh Maddie-chan, I thought I told you to call me Rika." She scolded teasingly.
"H-hai! Gomen, Rika-san," the child known as Maddie responded meekly. Remembering what she wanted to say, Maddie brightened up again. "Oh, Terada-sensei wanted me to find out how you were doing and to give you these flowers amom-anom-anon..."
"Anonymously?" Rika offered.
"Hai!"
The shop keeper chuckled a bit, but love glowed in her warm brown eyes. "Here, take an apple as payment." The little girl's own stormy grey orbs lit up and she happily started munching on the crisp fruit. Rika continued, "Please tell Terada-sensei that I love the flowers and I'm doing fine, but I wish that a handsome school teacher would vanquish my loneliness, okay?"
After repeating the message under her breath, Maddie grinned and promised, "Okay, I'll tell him tomorrow at school. Bye Rika-san!" and ran off toward home considerably faster without having to worry about crushing the bouquet.
Arriving at the small shack that she called home, Maddie burst through the door and called out, "I'm back!"
She was met with silence. "Okaa-san? Otou-san? Onii-chan?" Still, there was no response. Cautiously, Maddie peered into the living room.
No sound came out of the girl's mouth when she found her family sprawled across the bare floor with a pool of blood soaking into the wood and dying her mother's smooth slivery-black hair a deep crimson. Without fully comprehending what was going on, she approached the bodies while praying with all of her heart that it was just a prank, an incredibly cruel joke her brother had roped their parents into.
The eight-year-old's deep violet eyes widened in horror when her young eyes fell upon the corpses of her mother, father, and brother. Each body was split at the waist more cleanly than any normal sword could have accomplished. Collapsing to the ground, Maddie relieved herself of the bile in her throat.
"Kohaku..." Her brother's name escaped her lips, barely more than a whisper. "Mommy... Daddy... Kohaku, no! No, no, no, no, no," she repeated over and over, voice rising in intensity. "No! It's not true! None of this is real! It's a dream! I want to wake up! Someone, get me out of here! Help me! Please, this isn't real!" A shrill scream resounded through the air and blinding light enveloped the house. Then everything was black.

Whispers and murmurs entered a certain girl's ears as she faded into consciousness in an unfamiliar room. A groan escaped her mouth and the noise immediately stopped. A few people in all white clothes examined her curiously. She tried to sit up, but pain shot through her entire body and the people Maddie quickly identified as doctors urged her to lie back down.
"Wh... What happened?" The girl mumbled as more pain stabbed her head with that slight movement of her lips.
The doctors glanced at each other, then one nodded and explained in a gruff voice, "You were found last night after-"
He was interrupted by another doctor who prompted, "Do you remember what happened last night? Don't strain yourself if you don't, though. "
"I..." The pain was more bearable now, so she decided it was okay to speak. "My... Okaa-san... Where's-" she shot up again, trying to ignore the fire running through her nerves. Once again, she was made to lie down on the stiff hospital bed.
Maddie gave up on trying to get out of bed, instead demanding, "Where's my family? Why aren't they here yet? I had the most horrible dream that I came home and they were all dead and I really need to see them now. Please," she added quietly.
The doctors shot each other nervous glances and then the one with the gruff voice cautiously said, "Well, you were found after some of the villagers reported seeing a strange light coming from your house. It was investigated and you were discovered without any clothing," Maddie glanced down self-consciously, realizing that she wasn't dressed in her own clothes. She was reassured, "...and when you were brought here, a nurse dressed you. But when you were first found, you were curled up next to your parents and brother, who were all deceased at that point in time."
Her fears confirmed, Maddie didn't bother listening to the rest of the explanation, instead choosing to block out all of her thoughts except for Why me?

The orphanage was not an overly cheerful place for a child to be sent to. The only adults who showed up either worked there or couldn't have children of their own, so they were forced to choose one of the world's unwanted to pass their legacy on to. Maddie was one of those children, the freshest kid and currently the most interesting. While the other rugged children prodded her for stories, she would attempt to scare them off with icy glares and stony silence to no avail. Even the littlest one just under one year of age seemed to be intrigued by her and would often crawl over and snuggle up next to her, to which Maddie would sit silently but not attempt to move away.
Even though she refused to talk, Maddie slowly grew to appreciate the place. It was a side of the world the girl had never seen, one full of grime and too-little food, but everyone had a bond stronger than that of a normal family. Despite her anti-social nature, she had been accepted into that connection without hesitation from anyone.
As she had done every night since arriving at her new home, Maddie rose from her section of sleeping space when everyone else was unconscious. Not only did it delay the nightmares from invading her rest, but the comforting darkness of the night was the only time she could be alone with her thoughts, her only company being Mother Nature and the night sky. That particular night, Maddie observed, the moon was completely concealed by the clouds.
"This is a bad omen..." She murmured to nobody in particular, violet eyes shining with wisdom far beyond her eight years.
Upon closer inspection, the girl spotted a single speck of light visible through the haze that smothered the sky. As tiny as the star was, it burned ever so brightly in contrast to the suffocating blackness as if to say, "I will not be snuffed out." For an unknown reason, this seemed to provide hope to the young brunette.
Filled with new determination, Maddie crept through the darkness over to the pantry and, instead of attempting to open the locked door and expose its pitifully empty contents, slid her fingers over the left side until she felt a notch in the rough wood. Gingerly pressing her pointer to it, a tiny click cut through the silence, suddenly the loudest sound in the world. When nobody stirred, she tugged on the miniature handle that had popped out.
A drawer sleekly and noiselessly slid out from the pale wood. After checking to make sure nobody was coming, the young girl extracted the contents of the drawer: a plain dagger, not bejeweled or engraved with fancy patterns but still sharp enough to do damage to an attacker. Maddie had discovered the weapon the previous week when the head caretaker Ami believed all of the children were asleep and sneaked it out of its drawer to sharpen it outside. Maddie, alerted by the click that sounded, went to investigate and discovered the secret stored in the side of the pantry.
The girl's braid, which protected her long hair from tangles and knots, was quickly undone and the tawny tresses fell against her back, reaching just below her shoulder blades. Gathering it all in her left hand and picking up the dagger in her right, she brought the blade upon her hair in one swift slice. The girl's chocolate locks now fell just below her ears and curled slightly from being confined by the braid for so long. Tossing the bundle of hair no longer attached to her head into the breeze outside, a small smiled graced the girl's lips as she relished the wind that caressed her bare neck.
"A new beginning," she sighed, then silently restored the dagger to its hiding spot and returned to her resting area on the ground, slipping into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.

Hello! This is my first story on here (other than that one I deleted before changing my pen name... that was really bad) so it's nice to meet you all! Um, call me Kiri-chan I guess, that's one of my nicknames.

I hope you like the story... Sorry it's not NorwayxReader, I started writing this after a dream I had for my friend Maddie's birthday and I don't want to change everything in there. I'm not a huge fan of writing Reader fics because I like to be descriptive of the characters I'm writing about and feel awkward saying "[eye color] met deep blue as the [gender] brushed [gender] [hair length] [hair color] from [gender] eyes" or something like that. Terribly sorry for the lame title, it was the only thing I could come up with.

ANYWHO I have the next chapter written, and if I can get just TWO, that's right, TWO watchers for this story I'll upload it. If you see something that could be improved about this story please comment your critique! I don't mind if you say you don't like it, but please give a reason why and don't flame me or be super rude about it. So um, yeah. Is it okay that I have it rated T even though the description of the dead family is kind of gruesome?

So if you read this, thank you so much! If you didn't, that's okay I guess.

So, um, bye!

~Kiri-chan