The Story Behind Her Story
Rating: T
Summary: Meet Kaaza—a girl whose destiny is forever intertwined with the survivors of Umbrella's viruses and the resulting horrific incidents. This is the story before Raccoon, when she was just a young girl…
AUTHORESS'S NOTE: This has been written down—physically—for more than a year now. However, it is still not finished. I write this story at SCHOOL. Yes. I know. It's the middle of summer and I'm finally getting around to typing it, so I hope you enjoy this.
Chapter One: Birkin's Care
"Mister Birkin?" the nine-year old yawned.
"Yes, Miss Kaaza?" He asked gently, laying his magazine down on the counter, jokingly using the 'Miss'. A smile spread onto his face after one touched her lips.
"Could you help me with the stove? I want to eat before I go to bed, and I don't want to bother the staff…"
He gave a smile and a nod. "What are you planning on making?"
"Fettuccini Alfredo." She responded, making him blink. He took the package—they were kept around for researchers who either ate around the clock or preferred to cook their own meals—and read the instructions on the back in slight disinterest.
'Kaaza certainly isn't the little girl she should be.' He thought wryly as he worked the too-tall stove for her. As far as he knew, she should be like his daughter, Sherry. 'But then again,' he smiled to himself, 'She is one of a kind.'
He watched her go over to the small table that was in the kitchen as he put the noodles and flavor powder into the saucepan with some water, milk, and butter. She then opened a textbook and continued to work on her self-assigned schoolwork. She taught herself for the most part, save guidance and materials given to her by her mentor, James Marcus. She had an insatiable drive to learn—one which many people would love to have, William admitted internally, as he stirred the half-cooked noodles in the dark nonstick saucepan. All of a sudden a noise startled him—He glanced back, and smiled softly.
The little girl had begun to tap her pencil on her textbook as she read. He then promptly shook the idea of her as a little girl from his head. She was far too mature to be labeled with something reserved for doll-toting pink-wearers. He turned from the stove, getting his face away from the heat for, hopefully, a few minutes.
She gave another yawn, and he chuckled. "Tired?"
She gave a soft giggle and pushed her hand through her thick black hair, trying in vain to get it out of her face."Yes. I think I worked too hard at training today." She sighed, and then quickly wrote down her signature and the date on the top of the sheet of notebook paper, finishing her work. She put it into a folder that held her work for that day, and then shut the folder, breathing a sigh of relief. "Could you tell Doctor Marcus that I'll want to take another test tomorrow, please?"
He glanced at her unsurely. "But…you took a test just today, Kaaza." William spoke slowly.
"I know." She replied softly, certainty in her voice. "I'm finished learning the material for the next test, though." She smiled at him, and he returned it slowly then turned back towards the stove.
"By the way," He started idly, getting out a bowl, "When will your nanny be back?" He then tipped the saucepan over the bowl, slowly and carefully filling it with the still-simmering noodles.
"She'll be back tomorrow, Mister Birkin." She replied in a pleasant but hallow tone, as always. She always had a partially detached sound, as if she didn't quite know how to say things. She never quite knew how to connect to people, and so said things carefully. "She's just visiting her family in Raccoon."
"Oh." He hummed slightly, and then set the bowl in front of her. Her emerald-green eyes instantly lit up.
"Thank you, Mister Birkin!" She singsonged slightly, before digging in with the fork that William had placed in the bowl. She didn't mind that it was a tad hot.
He watched her eat, and as she was finishing up, he couldn't hold in the question that had been nagging him for the past few days. "Do you…Do you miss your parents, Kaaza?"
She froze for a second, but a smile touched her lips soon after and she loosened up. It worried him slightly, but as he looked, it seemed more like a thoughtful and reassuring smile than a disarming one. "I suppose not. They have work, after all, and I'm glad to have this much time to study." He could see a tinge of loneliness and sadness in her eyes, but they didn't look pained, because those emotions were softened by understanding.
He ruffled her hair and then she gathered up her books, him helping her get her mathematics volume and her history textbook onto the impressive stack held in her arms; most of the books were late-middle school difficulty, which was impressive for a nine-year old. However, he could tell she thought it was far too easy. She had learned to read at age three, though.
She shifted the heavy stack of books in her arms, and he picked up her two binders and her three folders, protests about her carrying the books dying prematurely in his throat. She was strong and smart for her age, with more common sense than many adults his age had. She could reason and could choose if the books were too heavy for her young figure.
She nudged the door to her room open, after they had gone through the many hallways and up the stairs in the mansion. As William looked around her couldn't quite believe that this was her room. It was comfortably sized, with a small bathroom and a closet, but it was impeccably clean. The wooden floor matched the hallways outside, and the walls were painted a light, calming blue.
She had a humongous queen-sized bed, and very sparse furniture decorating the place. The bed had a plain wooden headboard and a metal frame, the bed-linens a pale laundered white, the bedspread a slightly darker shade of blue than the walls.
Her closet was closed, and she somehow managed to lift the books onto her desk, accidentally slamming her fingers underneath the stack, sandwiching them painfully. Yet, to his slight amazement she just muttered an "Ouch." And then went over to her closet and opened it up. He sat down the binders and folders down next to the stack of books noiselessly, watching her open up a drawer on a small chest of drawers that was in her closet, pawing through her nightclothes, picking out a cotton shift.
"Kaaza," He called after her, after she'd shut the closet doors. She often changed in her closet. She had a chest of drawers, the hanging clothes, and a hamper in there, so it was quite easy to do so. The doors of the closet were lightly stained, decorated with close slats.
"Yes?" Her muffled voice came.
"I'm going to tell you a story before bed, alright?" His eyes twinkled with mirth. Every night for a week, he'd told her a story before bed, determined she get to take a part in such behavior while she still could. She hadn't had a traditional childhood, by any means. At first she'd protested, claiming since it wasn't a part of her normal routine that it was unnecessary, but he'd persisted and she didn't mind it any longer.
Her sigh was heard, even through the closet door. "Fine." She emerged a minute later, the dirty clothing having disappeared into the hamper. She padded over to her bed, then pulled herself up and settled beneath the covers. Clasping her hands on her lap as she waited for William to remember the story he was thinking of telling.
"Ah, I remember it!" He smiled, and then prepared himself to tell the story as she combed her hair with her fingers. "This is the story of the Girl and the Red Shoes. I'm going to try to remember it as much as I can."
"Okay." She nodded, and he began.
"Once upon a time—a very long time ago—there lived a little girl. Her mother was sickly, and she loved her daughter dearly. Since her mother was bedridden with her illness, her Grandmother took care of her. One morning the mother presented the little girl with a pair of beautiful red shoes."
Kaaza's eyebrow rose a tad, wondering where this story was going.
"The girl was so delighted that her mother told her that she would go to a party that night with her grandmother. The girl was so happy that she agreed. She dressed in her finest dress, combed her long hair and braided it, and donned the shoes before getting in the coach with her Grandmother. At the party she spent the entire night dancing in her new red shoes. People commented on her dancing and the shoes, which made her dance even more. As she danced, a coach pulled up, and she stopped dancing. Her mother had died while she was at the dance."
His face crumpled in concentration, trying to remember the next bit. 'Ah, yes!' " After her mother's funeral, she thought only of the shoes in order to ignore her pain. She danced for a brief time, but then found she couldn't stop. She danced and danced for days, her feet moving as if possessed. She danced through towns and through fields, through woods. She danced through a particular wood, and she came upon a woodcutter. Upon her pleas for help and her request, he cut off her feet—and the shoes with them. The red shoes, and her dismembered feet, danced off into the forest. Nobody ever saw them again. He, feeling pity for the girl, fashioned some crude wooden feet for her, and brought her to a town where she was accepted into a Minister's household."
'Whoever came up with this story had quite an imagination.' The nine-year-old thought dully.
"She prayed for her grandmother day and night, and nothing else. One night she fell asleep in the middle of a prayer. When she awoke, she had real feet again, and she was able to once again return to her former town and found her grandmother…She lived her life happily. The end." He spoke with finality, and she blinked.
"And the moral of the story was…?" She droned in a dry, sarcastic tone.
"There wasn't one." William chuckled. "I just thought you'd like to her an old fairytale I used to hear all the time when I was a kid."
She smiled. "Of course, there are probably differed versions…I never read them, though…Too busy with studying."
He gave a nod, and got up from sitting on the nine-year-olds humongous bed, and picked up his briefcase then started to leave.
"Goodnight, Mister Birkin." Her voice reached his ears softly, and she settled on her sidle, clutching something under her pillow as her face relaxed and her breathing evened out.
He closed the door quietly and left to go to the dining hall to possibly grab a bite to eat before he started home. He stepped inside the dining room, and then froze slightly as he was met with the visage of Kaaza's parents laughing and smiling.
William slowly exited the room, softly murmuring a bitter thought in his mind; 'They're never like that around Kaaza…'
With that he left, thinking about how unfair it was to that incredibly strong, spirited girl.